The Future of LP Intellectuality

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/04/27/open-letter-from-angela-keaton-regarding-a-proposed-lnc-resolution/

 

Less, I seek out and try to answer the strongest arguments I can find against my positions, but sometimes my silence means neither agreement nor a judgment that an argument isn't worth answering, but rather just that as a full-time engineer and father of three young kids I have finite time. :-)  However, your arguments are indeed some of the best I've seen, and I'm going to enjoy debating with you.

 

For example, your answer to my Fairy Godfather argument is good enough to warrant a response.  :-)  To wit:

 

1) I'm very skeptical that Hamas is not state-like in having effective monopolies on the semi-formal use of retaliatory force in the relevant "market". What other defense agency can plausibly be said to be competing for its customers?  My impression is that Hamas is effectively a state, and that Hezbollah's Lebanon is a poster child for my arguments, not yours.

 

2) You'll have to give me evidence of systematic pro bono "services of godfathers to vulnerable people in need in their areas of influence".  I too have seen the Godfather trilogy, but I'm not going to take your word for it that the median gang in the history of organized crime has provided guarantees of rights enforcement that are in any way comparable to what we enjoy here in what is, despite all its flaws, the most wildly successful minarchist experiment in human history.  Your burden of proof is as a result incredibly high, and that's why I advise anarchists to make radical decentralism be their common strategic ground with us minarchists.  There is simply no way that you're ever going to convince this entire nation to push a big anarchism button in our nation's capital..  In Somalia or Lebanon maybe, but not here.

 

3) Charitable agencies don't count as defense agencies.  If you call a tail a leg, that doesn't mean you have a five-legged dog.  Anarcholibertarian theory needs to correctly predict that defense agencies will reliably act charitably, and it's pretty much hand-waving to say that all these charitable agencies are just itching to compete with the Gottis and Gambinos if only the State would let them.  These agencies are *already* just as free as the Gottis and Gambinos to ignore the State's monopoly on the semi-formal use of retaliatory force, and yet as far as I know none of them ever do.

 

Still, very good stuff -- a better argument than I was expecting.  It's rare that I encounter an argument whose rebuttal I can't just cut and paste from my oeuvre, but you made me write three brand-new paragraphs here.  That was fun!  :-)

 

I have vastly more respect for David Friedman than I do for Murray Rothbard -- not only for his worldview, but also for his intellectual honesty and his personal character and even for the quality of the people who agree with him.  Aside from young Mr. Peak, I've found that the average quality of debate offered by the LP's self-described Rothbardians to be conveniently poor -- especially compared to the quality of thinking by academic Rothbardians and Austrians outside the LP.

 

I'll go way out on an indefensible limb and predict right now that I think the future of intellectual libertarianism lies not with the dogmatic Austrians at the Mises Institute, or with the venerable Chicago School and their CosmoLibertarian nephews at Cato and Reason, but rather with the dynamic and open-minded EconLibertarians of the "Virginia School" at George Mason University.  Friedman is sort of a prototype of their style, but I'm thinking specifically of Bryan Caplan, Dan Klein, Alex Tabarrok, Robin Hanson, Arnold Kling, and -- my favorite of them all, but also by far the most deontological -- the geolibertarian Fred Foldvary.   Every LP intellectual should be reading the best GMU blogs (originally Marginal Revolution, now Overcoming Bias and EconLog), but it's apparent that few if any are.  The Virginia School has quite simply evolved and transcended beyond the deontologies of Rothbardianism and Austrian Economics, and the only real question (for one as optimistic as I about the long-term power of correct ideas) is how long it will take the LP to catch up.  I'm guessing two to three decades, as this is very nearly a Kuhnian paradigm shift that, alas, might have to wait until the Rockbardian generation is retired or dead.  I predict that the Rockbardian/Austrian influence on the LP will attenuate as drastically over the next quarter century as the Objectivist influence has done over the previous.  Any set of ideas that rigid and dogmatic either has to thoroughly conquer the relevant community during the first intellectual generation, or else it's never going to.

 

Two canaries in our mineshaft to watch are the newly-minted Rothbardian Alex Peak, and anarchist LP Vice Chair Chuck Moulton, who is beginning the PhD program at George Mason.  I hope that I'm not hereby causing an Uncertainty Principle effect, but I predict that within 5-10 years neither will be as radical as they are now -- or at least will be geoanarchists.

 

As for acknowledging strong arguments, I have no problem admitting that I've faced a lot of them from a few radicals like Tom Knapp and Starchild and Daniel Grow, and I'm happy to add you and Alex to that stable.  :-)   Give me Jon Roland and Bob Capozzi and we'll take on all five of you in the next PlatCom -- deal?  :-)   In general, you can assume that if somebody can engage in a reasonably detailed running debate with me without getting indignant or dismissive, that's a strong clue that I would credit them with having reasonably defensible arguments -- and the inverse inference can be taken to the bank. :-)

 

OK, cue a puerile innuendo from the troll gallery, which will at least reassure us we still have an audience...

Updated Odds on LP POTUS Race

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/04/30/phillies-on-debate-and-civility/

 

An excellent statement from Phillies.  If George continues to apply these guidelines to his own disagreements with people on LNC and in the national office, then there will be  no good reason why the delegates shouldn't turn to him in Denver as  a unity candidate.  George seems to be consistently gaining ground, while every other candidate is slipping backward or running in place.

 

When I predicted Ruwart's candidacy on March 16, I gave the odds as: Root 30% Ruwart 30% Kubby 20% Phillies 10% Smith 5% others 5%.   I would now rate them as: 

 

Root or Barr: 40%
Ruwart or Kubby: 30%
Phillies: 20%
Gravel: 5%
others: 5%

 

Between Root and Barr, I hesitate to underestimate the advantage Root has of already having taken his opponents' best shots for months.  If I had to bet my house on only one candidate, I'd predict that forthcoming attacks on Barr will give the nomination to Root.

 

Between Ruwart and Kubby, I don't see that Ruwart's unwillingness to clarify her positions on children's legal protections will put much of a dent in her appeal to Kubby's base.  I admire Kubby for coming to Ruwart's aid by trying to change the subject from Ruwart's enduring principles to Cory's hasty press release, as he surely knows that doing so solidifies her advantage over him in preference voting by their supporters.

The Stealth Anarchist

Any reformer spreading these despicable Ruwart smears is no "friend" of mine.  All they're accomplishing is giving Ruwart an excuse not to address the substance of the embarrassing principles involved here.  Kubby forwarded my 5 tough questions to Ruwart several hours before their show, but they conspicuously spent an hour on easy questions about anonymous smears and a poorly-thought-out press release.  Ruwart and Cowan even emphasized that it's been about ten years since she wrote the comments in question, but I thought the reason radicals liked Ruwart is that she's been consistently "plumbline" for over a quarter century.  I've now listened to several hours of Ruwart campaign appearances, and I don't think I've once heard her advocate or defend any of the radical principles that distinguish her from reformers/minarchists.  So far, she's saying many of the the vague and happy things that Rothbard viciously attacked Clark about in 1980.  Why nominate a zero-state abolitionist if she's not going to promote and defend that position?  If we want a middle-of-the-libertarian-road campaign, why not nominate a middle-of-the-libertarian-road candidate, like Phillies?  Radicals criticize reformers for allegedly advocating a stealth campaign strategy of disguising their libertarian principles, but Ruwart's anarchism is so stealth it's simply invisible -- at least to anybody who can't do a web search.

The Dead Hand Steering the LP

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/04/29/the-lp-loses-a-member/

 

No, Alex, Rothbard wasn't a founder of the LP, but in fact criticized the formation of the LP and endorsed Nixon over McGovern (and thus over the LP candidate) in 1972.   Later he hijacked the LP, radicalized it by rewriting its Platform with Bill Evers, hollowed it out by pushing away the Cato Institute people (shouting "Never Again!" about a 1980 Clark campaign that to me sounds more radical than Ruwart's "healing" rhetoric), and once he started to lose his control over it, discarded the broken LP and returned to the GOP to endorse Pat Buchanan.  Good job, Murray.

 

And Bill Evers?  He left the LP to become an advisor to George W. Bush, and worked in Iraq in the occupation government before taking his current position in -- wait for it -- the federal Department of Education. In fact, the entire leadership of the Rothbard-era Radical Caucus -- Rothbard, Evers, Garris, Raimondo, Costello, Hunter, Rockwell -- abandoned the LP for the GOP and its candidates.  And yet their dead hand still steers the ideology of the LP.  No wonder Lew Rockwell says there has been "a brain drain from the LP"; our ideology is controlled now mostly by spinal reflexes and nerve signals from phantom limbs.

5 Questions For Dr. Ruwart

Hi Steve, I'm going to try to resist calling in to your show today, as I'd like Dr. Ruwart to have the maximum time to give her short (or long) answers to as many questions as you can ask her. I suggest five questions below, and some bonus questions if by some miracle you two run out of things to talk about. :-) I'm also curious to hear your answers, but Dr. Ruwart seems to be in the hot seat this week.

Also, I want to repeat what I've said elsewhere: that 1) it's scurrilous slander for anyone to suggest that Dr. Ruwart personally favors any child's choice -- or any adult's coercion of that choice -- to engage in child pornography or pedophilia, and 2) this teapot tempest by no means disqualifies Dr. Ruwart from the nomination or exposes the LP to unusual risk if she wins it. I only wish our other leading candidates had such an extensive and forthright record on the full range of libertarian issues as Dr. Ruwart has. Delegates should weigh any lack of such a record as heavily as they weigh the parts of Dr. Ruwart's record that they might disagree with.

I can't find an email address for Dr. Ruwart, so I would appreciate anybody forwarding this to her.

---

Dr. Ruwart has been deservedly praised by her supporters for her extensive, consistent, approachable yet "plumbline" explanations of libertarian theory, perhaps best exemplified in her famous "Short Answers to Tough Questions". If such a candidate who is lauded as a leading libertarian theorist wins the LP nomination at a convention in which the Platform is at its most fluid state since 1974, it will be taken as a profound signal about the ideological direction the Denver delegates want the party to go. Such a theorist arguably has a special obligation to clarify her views on libertarian ideology -- or, perhaps, to disavow that her nomination would have any special ideological implications beyond that of previous LP candidacies or the nomination of any of her leading opponents.

The questions below are respectfully submitted to clarify those views. For any that have been clearly answered already, pointers to the answers will of course suffice. Note that I am asking these questions only as a delegate and LP congressional candidate, and not in my capacity as Secretary of the Platform Committee or board member of the Reform Caucus.

1. How soon, in a specific number of days or decades, should the United States allow personal secession, whereby an individual can declare himself exempt from all the government's laws (while still being subject to private prosecution for violations of natural law)?
2. Should the criminally accused have the Sixth Amendment right to subpoena innocent witnesses, and if not, specifically how soon should that part of the Sixth Amendment be repealed?
3. In your ideal anarcholibertarian legal system, who would prosecute parents/guardians for aggression against their children?
4. Do you agree with Rothbard that it should not be a crime for parents to starve their children, or do you hold that the legal system should require a positive obligation of parents not to starve their children?
5. Should there be no binding laws/rules that consider age to be any kind of rebuttable factor in sexual consent, or are you only opposed to "bright-line" age discrimination that creates crimes because of rigid calendar calculations?

---

• If you advocate a positive legal obligation of parents not to starve their children, then
• Can you indicate what other positive obligations you think should be enforced in your ideal libertarian legal system?
• What principled distinction do you make between the positive legal obligations you do endorse, and the myriad positive legal obligations that we libertarians oppose?
• How, if at all, do you think that allowing personal secession is in principle any different from anarchism?
• You write that on abortion "libertarians are split into two camps, both believing that their view best expresses the non-aggression principle". Do you think the LP Platform should take the position of one camp over the other?
• A prominent supporter of yours says you are actually in a third camp on abortion, usually called "evictionist", which holds it should be a crime to allow a healthy viable fetus to die as a result of evicting it from the womb. Is that your position?
• If you think the Platform should side with neither the pro-choice nor pro-life camps, then do you think it should adopt an abortion position of 1) evictionism, 2) Ron-Paul-style de-federalization with no further opinion, 3) silence, or 4) some other option?
• Specifically how soon should America end all restrictions on the immigration of peaceful honest people?
• Should private ownership of WMD be a crime, and if not, should the Platform make this explicit by opposing (as the 2004 platform did) "all attempts to ban weapons or ammunition on the grounds that they are risky or unsafe"? Must the Platform explicitly call for the privatization of all streets and pipes, or would you accept the Platform not being explicit on this topic?
• Must the Platform explicitly say that only torts (and perhaps consumer activism) should be used to regulate pollution from dispersed sources (e.g. tailpipes, chimneys, runoff, CFCs in air conditioners), or would you accept the Platform leaving room for libertarians to advocate contestable default point-of-sale pollution fines by generically saying that "pollution is best regulated when market prices reflect the costs of pollution"?
• In your extensive research for your books, have you ever encountered an instance in the historical record in which pollution aggression from dispersed sources was corrected only by market forces, without any crucial contribution by legislation or technological innovation?

Why Ruwart Is In Trouble

Let's not pretend that the reason Ruwart's in trouble is for opposing bright lines in state legislation for protecting minors.  She's in trouble for opposing any state legislation that isn't completely age-blind -- i.e., that doesn't make the same default assumptions about 3-year-olds as it does about 30-year-olds.  She further said -- in the context of child pornography, child sex, and children's contractual rights, mind you -- that the readiness of children to enter contracts should be determined not by the judgment of their parents, but by the risk tolerance of the strangers seeking to contract with those children: "In practice, you would decide if a child is old enough to enter into a contract with you. Is the child willing and able to provide the contracted service to you?" The only role she mentioned for parents is that they can decline to drive the child to her chosen workplace.  In Mary's defense, she might not know that pedophiles sometimes have their own cars...

Still, I'm confident this child pornography issue would no more affect a general-election Ruwart candidacy than the various smears on Root would affect his candidacy, or than Badnarik's driver's license affected his 2004 race.  The Ron Paul newsletter episode demonstrated that the MSM just isn't interested in knocking people off of pedestals that are only an inch high.  The scalp of a L/libertarian candidate just isn't a valuable addition to a mainstream journalist's resume.

The real concern here is that the potential attack on Ruwart is not about some aspect of her past from which she's moved on, but rather is about her current(*) position on a fundamental question of libertarian ideology -- the role of the state in protecting unemancipated children from adults such as their own guardians.  The anarchist Ruwart clearly believes there should be no such role whatsoever. Ruwart's supporters are holding up her anarchism as the gold standard of "pure"/"plumbline" ideology, but the LP has grown and evolved beyond such a pinched and narrow vision of libertarianism.  There was heated debate throughout the 1990s regarding the platform's Children's Rights plank, but as I document at http://libertarianmajority.net/childrens-rights-plank, the absolutist Ruwart-style position was eventually (and quite intentionally) taken out. There is a distinct danger that a Ruwart nomination would be used by anarchist revanchists to undo some of the progress made over the last 10-15 years in making the LP more ecumenical after the Rothbardian dark ages of the 1980s.

Consensual child pornography/prostitution is just the tip of the iceberg.  The Ruwarchist positions on personal secession and private WMD are even more extremist.  Indeed, personal secession *includes* the idea of pedophiles exempting themselves from state protections for minors, and condemns every 5-year-old to use only their wits to rally aid against any predatory whims of their guardians.  I'm not saying the LP should condemn as unlibertarian the Ruwarchists who believe such things, but I also don't think these should be the official positions of the LP.

(*) If Ruwart has changed her position since the book was published in 1999, then there goes her claim to decades-long ideological consistency.

Ruwart on Child Pornography

Mary Ruwart is quoted: "Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if it’s distasteful to us personally. Some children will make for choice is just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess; this is part of life. When we outlaw child pornography, if the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will."

Sigh.  Well, at least Ruwart has settled for us the question of how radicals interpret this sentence from the vaunted 2004 platform: "We call for the repeal of all laws that restrict anyone, including children, from engaging in voluntary exchanges of goods, services or information regarding human sexuality, reproduction, birth control or related medical or biological technologies."

To the credit of Ruwart (and of Phillies, who posted the entirety when he broke the story), she included a sentence not quoted in Gordon's blog entry above: "Children forced to participate in sexual acts have the same rights and recourse as a rape victim. We can and should prosecute their oppressors."  One wonders who the anarchist Ruwart would imagine pressing such prosecutions in cases where the parents were complicit in the forcing.  Does she address this question anywhere in her ouevre?

This revelation seriously undermines the claim of Ruwart fans that she's a gold-standard popularizer of "plumbline" radical libertarianism.  She apparently needs to learn about one standard principle of generic libertarianism, and one standard principle of anarcholibertarianism.

The first principle was expressed in the old platform thus: "Children always have the right to establish their maturity by assuming administration and protection of their own rights, ending dependency upon their parents or other guardians, and assuming all responsibilities of adulthood."   Chuck is right about bright lines, and I would phrase it this way: "Communities may choose the age, between 14 and 18 years, at which a person is no longer rebuttably presumed to be a child, and instead is rebuttably presumed to be an adult."

The second principle is the anarcholibertarian idea (defended by Walter Block) that if parents abrogate their right (not obligation -- quelle horreur!) to protect and nurture their children, then anyone else may "homestead" that right and file a lawsuit (in a private court) to assume guardianship rights over the children.  That theory may sound good in the Loyola University faculty lounge, but it's problematic on the LP presidential campaign trail -- to say nothing of the Real World where many children are being abused or even tortured while their parents look the other way. Or participate.

Dead Sea Scrolls: the 1972 LP Temporary Platform

Hooray for D. Frank Robinson, Chair of the original 1972 LP Constitution and Bylaws Committee, for today posting the original Temporary LP Platform:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LPplatform-discuss/files/LP%20temp%20Platform%201972/

 

It's very similar to the Platform adopted in 1972, except even more explicitly minarchist in a few key sentences.  There is one noteworthy difference that I want to immediately propose adopting in Denver.  The language in green below (i.e. everything after "and so") is all from the Temporary Platform, and the preceding red language is from the 2004 Platform.  (I'm on the fence about whether to keep the third sentence.)

2.2. Environment and Resources

 

Individuals have the right to homestead unowned resources.  Pollution of other people's property is a violation of individual rights, and so we support effective and judicious anti-pollution laws. Such laws must set forth objective standards for determining what are reasonable and unreasonable emissions.  In recognition that much of our pollution problem has arisen because air and water are treated as "free", we shall work for the establishment of pricing mechanisms based on property rights in the air and water -- thus providing economic sanctions against pollution.  We oppose all attempts to transform anti-pollution efforts into a general movement against technology, or the use of anti-pollution efforts to destroy personal freedom.

I also propose this short and sweet Energy plank, recycled from 1976 language:

2.3. Energy

 

We oppose all government control of energy pricing, allocation, and production.  We oppose liability limits for nuclear accidents, and favor privatization of the atomic energy industry. 

 

 

Opposition to the Platform Committee's draft?

(Rob Power is telling the Platform Committee that we underestimate how many Denver delegates will oppose our proposal, so I'm making my response in public to try to test his theory.)

 

To Rob Power:

 

In the absence of actual data, we may just have to agree to disagree which strategy has better chances for Platform repair -- timeless directional principles supported by majorities of this Committee and recent survey respondents, or a concatenation of litmus tests compiled by a few vocal minority factions.

 

I'd appreciate you sharing with this Committee what "caucuses are lining up against" our proposal.  Any such caucuses have been very shy about making suggestions to us.  The only ones I know of are 1) the Radical/Restore04 caucuses (setting aside the question of the degree to which they don't overlap) and 2) the Outright Libertarians -- assuming their leadership continues to call this Committee "crazy" instead of actually showing them the text of the gay rights plank you helped us write eight weeks ago.  (There is also the feisty Defense Caucus, but I don't foresee any outcome in Denver that can make them happy.)

 

I can count on one hand the number of LP members who I know have actually read our proposed 2008 Platform and yet still describe it in the disastrous terms that we all use for the 2006 Platform. I can actually count more radicals who have read it and say that our approach is not too bad:  http://libertarianmajority.net/pure-principles-praise .  I don't think I've heard any serious LP leader clearly predict that a Restore04-style platform is more likely to be adopted in Denver than the Committee's 27-plank proposal is.  You apparently would predict that, but I'm curious whether Nolan would.

 

I would love it if you actually showed our draft to all the delegates that you predict will oppose it.  I would be curious to see how many people all these caucuses can get to send email to PlatformFeedback@lp.org saying

"I will be a delegate in Denver, I have read all 2500 words of the 27-plank Platform Committee draft, and I nevertheless believe that the LP should instead restore most of the language that was in the 14,000-word 62-plank 2004 Platform."

I like the idea of a Resolution listing some of the things the LP would abolish or repeal.  A good start would be to add a long list of laws like DOMA and DODT to Wayne Root's recent list of agencies to abolish:

 

· Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
· African Development Foundation
· Agency for International Development
· American Battle Monuments Commission
· Amtrak
· Appalachian Regional Commission
· Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board
· Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms
· Bureau of Arms Control
· Bureau of Labor Statistics
· Bureau of Transportation Statistics
· Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
· Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigations Board
· Commission on Civil Rights
· Commodity Futures Trading Commission
· Consumer Product Safety Commission
· Corporation For National Service
· Drug Enforcement Administration
· Environmental Protection Agency
· Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
· Export-Import Bank of the U.S.
· Farm Credit Administration
· Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board
· Federal Aviation Administration
· Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
· Federal Election Commission (FEC)
· Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
· Federal Highway Administration
· Federal Housing Finance Board
· Federal Labor Relations Authority
· Federal Maritime Commission
· Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service
· Federal Mine Safety & Health Review Commission
· Federal Railroad Administration
· Federal Reserve System
· Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board
· Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
· Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
· Ginnie Mae
· Institute of Museum and Library Services
· Inter-American Development Bank
· Inter-American Foundation
· International Bank for Reconstruction & Development
· International Labor Organization
· International Monetary Fund
· International Trade Commission
· Legal Services Corporation
· Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
· National Aeronautics and Space Administration
· National Archives and Records Administration
· National Bioethics Advisory Commission
· National Capital Planning Commission
· National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
· National Council on Disability
· National Credit Union Administration
· National Endowment for the Arts
· National Endowment for the Humanities
· National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
· National Institute of Mental Health
· National Institutes of Health
· National Labor Relations Board
· National Mediation Board
· National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
· National Park Service
· National Science Foundation (NSF)
· National Skill Standards Board
· National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC)
· National Telecommunications Information Administration
· National Transportation Safety Board
· Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
· Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
· Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight
· Office of Thrift Supervision
· Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development
· Organization of American States
· Overseas Private Investment Corp.
· Pan American Health Organization
· Peace Corps
· Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)
· Railroad Retirement Board (RRB)
· Securities Investor Protection Corp.
· Selective Service System (SSS)
· Smithsonian Institution
· Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration
· Surface Transportation Board
· Tennessee Valley Authority
· Trade and Development Agency
· U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
· U.S. Forest Service
· U.S. Institute of Peace
· U.S. Marshals Service
· U.S. Office of Government Ethics
· United Nations Information Center
· Voice of America (VOA)
· White House Fellows
· White House Commission on Remembrance
· Women's History Commission

Forbid Candidates From Advocating A Consumption Tax?

Stephen Dow wrote:

SD) Is there a specific proposal with any significant backing to insert something about a 'fair tax' into our platform? (SD

There is no such proposal at all, at any level of backing.  As with every major Platform issue -- abortion, pollution, education --, the question is not whether the Platform should endorse a specific proposal of moderate/minarchist libertarianism over a competing specific proposal of of radical/anarchist libertarianism.  Rather, the question is whether or not the Platform should forbid candidates from advocating any proposal that is not on the radical/anarchist roadmap for abolishing the state -- that "roadmap" being essentially a straight line between here and zero state.

In particular, the question is whether any tax reform that would untax savings/investment and reduce the large income tax to a smaller consumption tax would constitute a violation of the old Platform's language that we "oppose any increase in existing tax rates and the imposition of any new taxes".  Remember, the Bylaws require that our nominee conduct his campaign "in accordance with the Platform of the Party".  Some LP radicals want to restore the old language and interpret it as disallowing replacement of the income tax with a excise or sales tax, as has been advocated (respectively) by Ron Paul and  inclusivist/radical LP Vice Chair Chuck Moulton in his congressional campaign. (Chuck, please correct me if I'm remembering your campaign site incorrectly.)

Radicalism and Incrementalism

Howard Pearce wrote:

BH) Whatever happened to "Radical does not mean anti-incremental." (BH

HP) Whatever happened to "incremental does not mean anti-radical" ? (HP

The words I quoted to Susan are hers.  The words you quoted to me are not mine.  My position is that

• Ideological exclusivism is inconsistent with political incrementalism.
• Ideological ecumenicism is much more consistent with incrementalism than radicalism is.
• To advocate incrementalist radicalism is a bit like advocating that one get a little bit pregnant, or walk off the cliff instead of run.
• Radicals should instead favor big-tent ideological ecumenicism, and have a little confidence that when anarchists and minarchists associate in the LP on a level playing field, beliefs will spread in the appropriate direction -- and that the closer minarchists get to the anarchist cliff, the more inviting the leap will look.

LP Vice Chair Chuck Moulton is one anarchist with that confidence.  I'll be very curious to see how radical he remains as he works through the economics PhD program at George Mason.

Selling the Fair Tax to the LP

Re: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/SteveKubbyShow/2008/04/08/Steve-Kubby-Show-1 

 

Steve, thanks for being fair to Sen. Gravel -- and  for letting me dial in to the discussion.  I hope Sen. Gravel's silence at the end just meant that we lost his phone connection, and not that the Senator didn't like being graded on his libertarianism.  :-)   It's incredibly exciting that the increasing relevance and core principles of the LP are calling home such longtime advocates for peace and liberty as Mike Gravel.

 

I don't think it's impossible for Sen. Gravel and  Rep. Barr to sell a Fair Tax to the LP .  What's bad about the Fair Tax is

• the new prebate entitlement 
• the possibility of ending up with both a federal income tax and a federal sales tax
• the creation of a uniform nationwide federal sales tax infrastructure
• the uneliminated deadweight loss of taxing a good (consumption == unsaved production) rather than a bad (e.g.  pollution, congestion, extraction of resources from the commons, free-riding subsidies to land value through municipal services)

What's good about the Fair Tax is

• a switch from taxing income to taxing consumption is effectively the untaxing of savings and investment  -- something every libertarian should favor 
• it eliminates the IRS and 60,000 pages of requirements for reporting income
• it has a built-in ceiling on tax rates, since compared to income it's easier to take consumption underground or just postpone/move/cancel it.  (That its Laffer Curve thus peaks at a lower tax rate and lower level of revenue is a good thing, not a bad thing.)

One way to sell the Fair Tax to the LP might be

• link it -- weld it!  -- to repealing the 16th amendment
• link it to an interim/fallback tax-cutting plan, such as Kubby's annual increase in the personal deduction
• call it a Federated Fair Tax and say D.C. will bill the states by their population, tempting the 45 states with sales taxes to pay the bill by increasing their sales tax rate
• point out that it would take  many decades for state consumption taxes to become as loophole-ridden as the current 60,000-page federal income tax
• point out that it's much easier to move your consumption (or residence) to a low-tax state than to hide from a federal tax

Ideally, the five states without sales taxes would pay their bill using a Land Value Tax, and thus would begin the competition among the 50  "laboratories of democracy" .  As a good geolibertarian, David Nolan correctly tried to steer Gravel toward  property taxation.  The list of libertarian economists who call a Land Value Tax  the  "least bad tax"  starts with Milton Friedman and is longer than I have space to include here. 

 

Decentralize taxing authority, and cut taxes all the way down to the ground!

Only fashion/torts to police chemical assault?

I wouldn't rely on only fashion and torts to police chemical assault, any more than I would rely only on them to police spousal assault.  I don't think the LP has enough consensus to specify all the details of how the legal system should police chemical assault, but I will never agree with Platform language saying that torts and fashion are the only acceptable libertarian response to it.  Even a Rothschilds-control-the-Fed  government-planned-9/11 conspiracy enthusiast like Aaron Russo protested against having to run for President under the LP's torts-only environmental plank.

If the Platform should say that private lawsuits should be the only response to chemical assault, why shouldn't the Platform say that about all kinds of assault?  Why not hold high the Rothbardian banner of private defense agencies?   Why hide the lamp of liberty under a basket?

I just don't agree that the LP Platform should enforce the narrow dogma that there is no such thing as what economists call market failure.  That's technically a libertarian view, but the far more prevalent view among libertarian economists is that there are a small set of market failures that are worse than the corresponding possible government failure.   Specifically, those are the market failures related to 1) pollution of common goods, 2) network club goods (e.g. roads and pipes), and 3) protection of life and liberty.

These exceptions are why libertarian extremism is so easy to ridicule.  Ron Paul said in front of a cable TV audience of millions that "the market can deliver any service better than the government can", and even someone as clueless as Jon Stewart was able to force Paul to instantly backpedal: "Even defense, too?"  Paul: "No, we have defense, but this militarism isn't defense, this is opposite of defense."  Similarly, Sen. Mike Gravel instantly invoked streets last week when asked by Eric Sundwall about eliminating all government.  When Sundwall cited private turnpikes from the colonial era, Gravel pointed out that this is 2008.  Even self-described plumbline radical Steve Kubby says "some limited government is necessary" and doesn't begrudge the government sending you a water bill.

I'm tired of libertarians being dismissed as those who "lie awake at night worrying that somehow, somewhere, there are still a few miles of publicly owned sewer pipe".  The mainstream minarchist libertarian perspective is becoming almost the default view among policy analysts with formal training in economics.  If one wanted to conspire to undermine the effectiveness of libertarianism as a political agenda, it's hard to think of a more effective long-term strategy than to redefine libertarianism as  anarchism.  Sure, you might publish a few racist newsletters under the name of a leading libertarian politician, but that's only a short-term tactic, and few will buy the idea that libertarianism is inherently racist.

Omissions in the PlatCom Draft?

Sandy P. (bcc'd) wrote: "please support the Powers Restore '04 version of the LP Platform".

 

Sandy, thanks for your feedback.  I have a couple questions for you.

1. What in your opinion is the most important libertarian principle that a 2/3 majority of NatCon delegates would agree is missing from the Platform Committee's current draft?
2. What in your opinion are the most important specific policy questions that a 2/3 majority of NatCon delegates would agree do not have any answer in the Platform Committee's current draft but should?

Thanks,

Brian Holtz

LP Platform Committee Secretary

Split The LP?

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/04/01/gravel-and-root-get-scrappy-over-libertarianism/

 

Tom, it sounds like you think you just proved that the most effective way to work for less government is to work for no government.  If so, then stating your conclusion pretty much refutes your proof.

 

Regarding "bias" in Alicia's first survey, that urban legend is debunked at http://knowinghumans.net/2008/02/platform-survey-rebukes-silence-and.html.  Her second survey is nothing more than the text of the Platform Committee's report, so it would be odd to claim she tried to "bias" it.

 

I agree with you that shockingly few of our nomination-seekers exhibit much grasp of how they're perceived by the people who they're asking to nominate them.  Phillies and Kubby are the primary exceptions, and I expect Ruwart will prove to be such as well. Root at least shows signs of trying to acquire such a perception and then trying to respond appropriately. I worry that the fault isn't entirely with our candidates, and that maybe our party culture has failed to send the right signals.  It of course has not been the amputation of the Platform that has brought all these candidates out of the woodwork, but I'm surprised that platform revanchists have not yet desperately tried to connect these two widely-separated dots.

 

I also agree with you that there will be no mass quitting by reformers the platform revanchists "win" -- which would be quite a trick, since they're now on record as opposing about 50% of the 2004 Platform.  There's zero prospect of mass reformer quitting over any particular candidate being nominated.  LP Platform and POTUS politics are quite decoupled, thank gods.  More worrisome than a 1983-style exodus/purge is the continuation of the burnout cycle that both reformers and radicals seem to agree operates among LP activists.  I tell reformista quitters to their face that they're just as bad as any radical if they cannot suck it up and practice internal incrementalism in their efforts to get the LP to practice external incrementalism.  People on both sides need to let go of this idea that LP activism is primarily for indulging in more-libertarian-than-thou or more-realistic-than-thou moral exhibitionism.  Despite all the talk among Libertarians about America's slide toward "fascism", things must be pretty damn good in this country if all the armchair freedom-fighters on both sides feel they can afford the luxury of refusing to practice ideological and strategic ecumenism, respectively.

 

Michael, the problem isn't entirely the length of the old Platform.  The problem is the insistence by one kind of libertarian that the Platform be used to certify the moral superiority they claim to feel over the other major kinds of libertarian.  If there really aren't more than a business card's worth of libertarian principles that most kinds of libertarians can agree on, then our cause is already lost.  "Liberty now!" is as vacuous as the Reform Party's "reform now!"  It's only NOT vacuous to the extent that we can write down what we mean by "liberty".  That we can write 2500 words -- or even 18,000 words -- on that topic doesn't mean we're swearing to recite every one of them any time we pitch the idea of liberty to a prospect.  I agree that the highest priority for the Platform is to make it not be an obstacle to the Party's efforts to move public policy in a libertarian direction.  A vacuous business-card-sized Platform would be as much an obstacle as would a platform customized to any one faction's ideological wet dream (as our Rothbardian platform has been).  (My ideological wet dream is http://ecolibertarian.org/manifesto, but you don't see me trying to force it on the entire party.)

 

Sherlock, Communist success outside America isn't really relevant, except perhaps to those who would advise our radicals to set up shop in some nonarchist paradise like Somalia.  The Socialist platform that Milton Friedman famously said has been enacted was that of 1928. I suppose an LP reformer could argue that having a separate Communist party in America is what left the Socialist party free to adopt its relatively moderate 1928 platform and then outpoll the Communists 8:1 in 1932 to win 2.2% of the vote and pressure the incumbents to enact that platform. I don't know the history well enough to make that claim.  But I would only support splitting the LP if one faction had the intellectual integrity to call itself the Anarchist Party (or Nonarchist Party or Zero State Party or whatever).  That would technically satisfy my requirement that there not be multiple parties "inside" the libertarian Nolan quadrant, since the Nonarchist Party would be safely out of the way, occupying an infinitesimal point on the Nolan plane -- and busy defending itself from the voluntaryists criticizing it for not jumping off the edge with them.  But if there were multiple parties calling themselves "libertarian" and both trying to attract votes from non-nonarchist libertarians, that would be utterly self-defeating.

Fiscally Conservative, Socially Tolerant

It's a poorly-worded slogan, but it's our best slogan concept.  Much better wording is any of:

• Free Minds, Free Markets
• Civil Liberties, Economic Freedom
• Market Liberalism
• Get the Left out of your wallet and the Right out of your bedroom
• Individual Liberty, Personal Responsibility

Our best pitch remains that we are the only choice for anyone who has evolved beyond the obsolete Left-Right dichotomy.  Lots of other parties are for "peace" and for generic "freedom" -- there's even a party here in California called "Peace and Freedom"!

 

This is why I absolutely oppose any attempt -- however tongue-in-cheek or quixotic -- by Tom Knapp or Carl Milsted or anybody else to set up another party in our quadrant of Nolan space.  That creates the possibility of fragmenting a huge market segment -- 13% to 20% of Americans -- that in principle should be represented exclusively by the LP.  Alas, in practice, we've done far too much to keep them out, on the dubious theory that their ideas might infect us rather than the other way around.  Is libertarianism a candle, or a bonfire?

Root, Gravel, and Plumb Lines

Each of the http://libertarianmajority.net/major-schools-of-libertarianism has its own particular "plumb line" (of varying precision).  Root is arguably closer to the Reason/Cato plumb line than Gravel is to his nearest libertarian plumb line, which would be something like that of the geolibertarian Democratic Freedom Caucus.  If Gravel would just say that his education and healthcare safety net should only be provided at the local community level and only financed through community collection of ground rent, then it seems he'd be as good a geolibertarian as Root is a Reason/Cato cosmolibertarian.

 

David Nolan writes that Gravel has "been misled into believing that the so-called “reform” libertarians are the majority within the LP, and they are not."  If reformers/moderates aren't the majority within the LP, then why did the PlatCom draft's reform/moderate planks get 80% - 90% approval in the survey results that came out this week?