Re: Operation Politically Homeless
Seth David Schoen (schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU)
6 Dec 1997 22:39:24 GMT
George J. Lee writes:
>schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU (Seth David Schoen) writes:
>
>> George J. Lee writes:
>>
>> >I understand what you're saying, but I think it's a good approach. I
>> >don't think it's manipulative. The WSPQ helps us identify potential
>> >members quickly in a fun way. The idea is to get people's attention
>> >first. If they're interested in libertarianism, then we can get
>> >serious. For those who don't agree with us, at least they get a good
>> >impression of us.
>>
>> Here are two parodies of the WSPQ from links from Mike Huben's "Critiques
>> of Libertarianism" site.
>
><parodies snipped>
>
>> So, in any case, there are different ways of phrasing things, and the WSPQ,
>> in my opinion, does tend to try to draw people toward a libertarian view
>> on an issue.
>>
>> I want people to think about libertarianism rather than just laughing at it,
>> but I don't want to hide that life would probably be very different without
>> any government coercion. These parodies exaggerate things -- but so does
>> the WSPQ!
>As you know, they make many errors and false assumptions in those
>parodies. I could refute just about every single one of them, but the
>point is we are trying to sell liberty. To do so, we have to make
>people see its importance and necessity.
Well, why "necessity"? Populists are popular; market democracies/social
democracies/mixed economies are stable. (Though see David Friedman's
comments about medieval Iceland.)
>Though it was designed by libertarians,
I'm concerned about this, you see... why do libertarians use the WSPQ,
where others don't? Clearly Republicans and Democrats are popular enough
already not to need a quiz to attract support -- but why do we imagine
that only libertarians would feel enthusiastic about using the test to
find members?
Can you imagine the ISO giving the test to "make people think about
politics" and see if they might be socialists?
One criticism made is that the libertarian answers are all "yes" --
agreeing. This doesn't automatically make the test biased, but it shows
that criticisms of the WSPQ emphasizing benefits of libertarian positions
are plausible. And this may be something to be concerned about.
Sometimes people who have no particular political philosophy are susceptible
to a strong positive argument for many different things. I gave one girl
in my dorm an argument for a libertarian position on something, and she
said she agreed, and then I gave her an argument for the a socialist
position on the same issue, and she said she agreed with that too. Now,
she saw the problem of the contradiction, but ultimately she didn't feel
that she had any basis for judgment. Yes, strong centrists will probably
come out, well, in the center of the WSPQ, but the genuine Politically
Homeless seem likely to score libertarian on this test, and socialist on
a WSPQ parody test.
>I feel the WSPQ is fair enough. Glen Raphael wrote a
>defense of it in the "Liberator" and made several good points. First
>of all, one can't score at the very top without truly being a
>libertarian. It's also pretty accurate in separating the left from
>right. In addition, it doesn't force people to say yes or no to tough
>questions; they can pick "maybe/unsure".
Yes, that's true; those are all genuine advantages of the WSPQ.
>And besides, I thought the whole idea was to "draw people toward a
>libertarian view on an issue". The WSPQ definitely does make people
>"think about libertarianism", but I'm not sure what you mean by
>"hid[ing] that life would probably be very different". I don't see how
>it hides the truth. If anyone's hiding the truth, it's the people who
>wrote those parodies. We're not trying to persuade them to score in
>the libertarian quadrant anyway (at least not at first); we just want
>to get them thinking about these ideas. They can come to a decision
>for themselves and can find out more from us.
I suspect that ("principled, consistent") libertarianism is a lot more
unpopular than the WSPQ results indicate, so that the criticism can be
made that the WSPQ _is_ trying to get people to think of themselves as
libertarians by exaggerating any anti-government tendencies people may
have.
It's not as manipulative or deceptive as it might be, but I do think...
well, you can see below.
>Please clarify on what you mean by the WSPQ exaggerating things.
>Military service should be voluntary. (No draft)
That's pretty straightforward.
>Government should not control radio, TV, the press or the Internet.
People may not realize that this entails
(1) Abolition of the FCC (all functions)
(2) Overturn of FCC v. Pacifica (broadcast indecency)
(3) Overturn of Roth v. United States (legality of obscene materials)
The conventional view of control in these areas appears to be more
limited, thanks to the various Supreme Court decisions which have defined
certain types of censorship as not being censorship.
There is a mainstream view that many people have right now to the effect
that the government does not control the press or the Internet. (People
are aware that the FCC licenses radio and TV stations, of course.)
Under this view, libertarians presumably only want the status quo (of
"no control") with regard to the press and the Internet. But of course
this is not the case; libertarians are very critical of the existing
legal regime on the First Amendment.
>Repeal regulations on sex for consenting adults.
One WSPQ critic above pointed out that this includes prostitution, which
may not be acceptable to respondents, but they're unlikely to think of it
on first seeing the question.
And this also has connotations of overturning Roth v. U.S. again; after
all, pornography is plausibly one form of sexcrime.
A lot of liberals love the "consenting adults" idea, but never when it
involves money; they tend to think that money is never really part of
consent. They are therefore likely to complain when they see the
"consenting adults" idea applied to legalizing prostitution, indentured
servitude, and workplace safety/nondiscrimination regulations.
>Drug laws do more harm than good. Repeal them.
That's pretty straightforward, too.
>Let peaceful people cross borders freely.
Does this include allowing them to get jobs, or not? Does it include
paying them welfare?
>Businesses and farms should operate without govt. subsidies.
That seems pretty straightforward.
>People are better off with free trade than with tariffs.
Hmmm, tariffs aren't the only aspect of trade policies which prevent free
trade.
There are immigration and labor controls, which are huge.
There are embargoes against countries, like Cuba.
There are quotas and negotiated "policies" on production.
There are import and export controls like the ITAR.
There are bureaucratic reporting requirements -- import and export
documentation, reporting of currency movements, reporting of various
technology exports permitted under ITAR (to the Department of Commerce),
and so on. There are sometimes hidden taxes to discourage imports which
don't get tarred as "tariffs".
And there there are the various standards which are sometimes enforced as
a condition of trade benefits -- human rights, labor standards, and
environmental standards. (Oh, and usually drug policy enforcement, more
frequently than human rights -- those who suppress drugs can get trade
benefits more readily than those who suppress speech, but that's another
matter.)
I hate all this stuff (especially because I'm an internationalist as well
as a libertarian), but many people like it -- they think it protects jobs,
improves national security, strengthens foreign policy, provides revenue,
provides a venue for making moral statements and improving conditions
elsewhere... The impediments to free trade are more and far broader than
just tariffs.
>Minimum wage laws cause unemployment. Repeal them.
Minimum wage laws also cause redistribution. Many economic liberals want
redistribution and frequently even think of minimum wage laws as a relatively
unobtrusive way to obtain it.
The argument is usually that most labor markets are buyers' markets, and
profits from labor are typically large at market wages, so that a
redistribution can be included in the system which benefits workers
Additionally, if the demand for labor is relatively inelastic but the
labor market is relatively monopsonistic (as many left economists believe),
the amount of unemployment caused by these laws will be _very small_
compared to the redistribution benefits, which may even have a multiplier
effect. (Because of the redistribution, poor workers are able to buy more
goods and services ... a classic demand-side argument.) In this scenario,
the minimum wage law is seen partly as restoring a (competitive) market
equilibrium which is lost because of a lack of competition among employers.
Notice that this WSPQ item is trying to argue the end of minimum wage
from the claim that minimum wage _hurts workers_, so if you want to help
workers, you, too, will oppose the minimum wage. Whereas most people
usually think minimum wage laws _help_ workers.
I think minimum wage laws definitely do help workers in the short run.
In the long run, it's plausible that they hurt workers. But in any case,
they hurt employers all the time, and I think that's the genuinely
libertarian reason to oppose them -- after all, the employers are the ones
prevented from making the contracts they desire. The employees are never
(directly) prevented from making any contracts they would prefer to those
they actually make.
While we can argue that any government interference hurts workers by
slowing economic growth, I doubt this is the only major objection
libertarians typically have to minimum wages; they usually feel that market
controls are unpredictable in their impacts (and so may be counterproductive)
and that government has no authority to dictate these matters. It's strange
that the WSPQ item doesn't try to appeal to these issues, but tries to
appeal to a generic concern for workers' well-being.
>End taxes. Pay for services with user fees.
>All foreign aid should be privately funded.
These two seem pretty straightforward.
What I mean by "exaggerating" is that the WSPQ, in its real-world effect on
those taking it, exaggerates certain similarities between the world we now
live in and the world libertarians would like to see. Therefore, from a
non-libertarian point of view, it could be said to be exaggerating the
benefits of libertarianism.
Similarly, WSPQ parodies exaggerate the harms that would result from
libertarian policies.
--
Seth David Schoen L&S '01 (undeclared) / schoen@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Magna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo
custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque
infestam rei publicae pestem totiens iam effugimus. -- Cicero, in Catilinam I