Ten reasons why the Left should like the ASI, 4: Personal liberties
As part of our continuing series, Madsen Pirie discusses some common ground between libertarians and the left.
4. The ASI backs the cause of personal liberties. The Left should welcome the fact that the ASI is firmly libertarian in its outlook, taking the side of those who express a right of dissent, or who choose to follow alternative or minority lifestyles.
The ASI takes a libertarian approach, believing that people are the best judge of what suits their lives. They know more about themselves and their circumstances, and should make the decisions about how they prefer to live. We think people should be entitled to live their own lives, rather than being forced to conform to someone else's idea of how they should live. Provided they do not harm others or seek arbitrary restraints on their liberties, people should live as they choose.
The ASI does not support imposed conformity. It recognizes that people differ in their views of what constitutes a family, or marriage, and supports their right to live by different values. It opposes using state power and state finance to back only certain types of relationship, believing that such choices should be outwith its jurisdiction.
The ASI backs free speech, including the expression of ideas that some might find offensive and insulting. We might prefer to see people exercise courtesy and restraint, but these are not things that the law should impose. A free press will at times overstep the boundaries of taste and decorum, but only a free press uncontrolled by politicians can expose their machinations and follies and therefore restrain their excesses.
Curbs on migration are curbs on our freedom
Recently, Kier Martland produced an article in The Libertarian attacking Sam Bowman's take on immigration, suggesting an alternative libertarian view on the issue – using Hoppe to back up the position. I think this view is entirely mistaken. Indeed, Anthony Gregory and Walter Block take apart Hoppe's position here and Block again here.
The position taken by Hoppe is that nobody should be able to make a claim on the state without 100% consent from those paying for it, including for goods such as roads. The issue is that the state does exist, so long as there is government we should seek to ensure a policy of least damage done. By having high costs or even bans to hire migrants, the state would be taking away people's right to freely associate and make contracts. Further, by increasing the cost of labour, and doing other such damage to the economy as described in Bowman's article, restrictions on immigration do damage to the taxpayer. Hoppe's “second best” position simply doesn't hold true.
If one group in society objects to immigration, that does not mean migration is wrong because they pay a small percentage of the cost (even though, again, immigrants are a net positive for the tax collector). Indeed, the same argument would hold true for economic nationalists or greens who wished for only local goods to be sold in the economy. By importing foreign products, one would be initiating trespass on the roads by transporting goods unwanted by third parties. The same could be said of any good transported that an individual disapproved of, whether alcohol, meat products or any other “vice”. Similarly, Christian Scientists or others who disapprove of modern medicine might insist that taxpayer roads not be used for transporting any related materials. The position is ridiculous, you cannot support absolute rights to reject immigration whilst not supporting the same absolute right to reject other goods and services people might disapprove of.
By suggesting an increase in government control of migration, both Martland and Hoppe are going the wrong way on this issue – it is not about defending the taxpayer. Increasing the scope of the state, and the cost to taxation in policing it, as the Hoppeans propose, is damaging. What about those who pay taxes that DO want immigrants to use government services such as roads? Are their rights lesser than those who are for government restriction? Even if the costs and size of government are larger to be more restrictive? Should they be forced to fund border forces in this way? The Hoppean position on immigration is illogical; you do not reduce the scope of the state by increasing it and the number of tasks it undertakes. We should be looking at ways to limit the damage and cost of government now, and not sit in ivory towers trying to fudge a philosophical position that takes away the right of free association.
Some Reason on gay marriage
There's a lot to like about the Reason Foundation's new report, "The Argument for Equal Marriage". Its basic argument is:
1. Marriage has changed enormously over time. 2. Same-sex marriage is just another change, and on the scale of possible changes that can be made to "marriage", it is far less significant than changes that have already been made to the status of women. 3. "Traditional" marriage as defined by the monotheistic traditions has treated both women and gay people badly, and it is therefore not wise to use it as a basis for law or public policy.
As the report says,
Marriage has been put through the laundromat of the Enlightenment, two waves of feminism, and the civil rights movement: what we have now would be unrecognizable to Bracton or Blackstone or Jesus, and this is a good thing. If one were to isolate the greatest change in the definition of marriage over time, it would come down to a choice between the enactment of unilateral divorce (with its attendant effect on murder, suicide, and domestic violence rates) and the ending of coverture, granting women property rights in marriage and separate legal personality. Compared to these definitional shifts, equal marriage is peanuts.
Read the whole report. Last month I wrote for The Guardian that marriage, gay or straight, should be taken out of the hands of the state.
Regulating the press
Libertarian regulation theory shows us how state power, apparently used for benign purposes, ultimately results in the exploitation of consumers and the misallocation of resources. Of the two great threats to our economic progress and liberty - state spending and regulation - I would argue that it is regulation that is the greater threat.
State spending is often contested and its results are at least clear to see (although the fact that state spending in the UK is vast and growing should not be forgotten). Regulation, on the other hand, is a far more subtle threat and seems to gain approval across the political and public spectrum. The corporatist pseudo-markets created by regulation in banking, energy, rail and so on are decried as evidence of the failure of capitalism when they are anything but.
As we have a current example of new regulation, it is interesting to apply the theory and see what might be the result. Regulation* is often introduced when there is assumed to be a case of 'market failure'. Broadly, the impact of regulation is to create barriers to entry which protects existing market players and tends to promote consolidation within the industry. Small and more innovative firms, which would otherwise enter a market where large profits are to be made, are thus excluded. Existing players are thus able to dominate the market and drive up prices or prevent innovation. 'Government failure' is thus ignored but it is the consumer and the society at large which suffers.
In the case of Press regulation, many of these features may occur. We cannot call the print media a 'free market' but it is freer than, say, the broadcast media which is dominated by the BBC and bound by tight regulation on objectivity. An instance of perceived 'market failure' in the form of phone hacking was used to justify regulation, ignoring the fact that phone hacking was illegal under existing laws. We can already see how regulation might drive out small players who are currently undermining the profits and market share of the established Press.
The position of small internet bloggers and innovative media news outlets is jeopardised - will the Pin Factory blog be forced to sign up to the press regulator? What influence would we have there? What if the new regulator imposed punitive fines on us?
In many markets, it is the large occupants who welcome regulation and - in fact - connive at its introduction. While they have to sacrifice some control to regulators, they are guaranteed a protected market share and healthy profits whilst avoiding the trouble of innovating against and out-competing small rivals. Further, large firms often have a 'revolving door' to regulators and are able to undertake expensive lobbying to further protect their positions.
Some portions of the Press are opposed to the new regulation, a condition which probably stems from an ideological position unique to this industry. However, it is clear that, under the system of state regulation, it is the large, extant players who would dominate the regulator and be in a position to use this power against potential rivals. In many industries, the emergence of corporatism would be unfortunate. In the case of the Press it threatens to be fatal to liberty.
*We must take care to distinguish 'regulation' from 'law'. Regulation is intervention designed to control the size and shape of a market, prices and quality. Law is (or ought to be) solely concerned with property rights.
Doctors and celebrities: the enemies of liberty
If asked which groups posed the greatest threat to individual liberty in modern Britain, I would unhesitatingly cite two groups. These groups are, broadly, the medical profession and those who are generally called 'celebrities' - pop stars, film stars and so on. You may think that I am being somewhat tongue-in-cheek (and in some ways I am), yet there is a serious set of issues at stake here.
Firstly, the medical profession. Hardly a day goes by without some group of doctors or medical scientists calling for a ban on this or some sort of government intervention in that. The latest example seems to be the attempt to set a minimum price of alcohol sales, a terrible idea which, hopefully, has failed. Consumption of tobacco, salt, sugar, fat plus associated advertising are all deemed dangerous and suitable subjects for medics to attempt to ban or circumscribe via price increases . Medics also see fit to spend public money to instruct us how to live our lives and what choices we ought to make.
Some of the rationale for this comes from the doctor's protective monopoly, the NHS. As the health costs of unhealthy lifestyles are born by the state, it seems quite justified for doctors to call for bans and price hikes. Naturally, this simply demonstrates the lunatic incentive structure that state-provision of healthcare creates, especially free-at-the-point-of-delivery healthcare which externalises the costs of unhealthy behaviour. However, the chief threat from doctors lobbying stems from their apparently impartial and expert position as guardians of health and security. Unfortunately, most of their calls ignore the Public Choice and Knowledge Problem implications of the state interventions which result.
Celebrities have an even less programmatic threat to liberty, unsurprisingly for such a diverse group. They usually adopt a single-issue approach. For a long time we have had Bob Geldof and Bono calling for state spending on international aid. The greatest current threat stems from Hacked Off's campaign against a free press. Celebrities will often lead opposition to reductions in public spending or state activity such as Arts Funding. They have a powerful ability to rally strong public opinion for or against a cause, no matter how strong the case against - whilst Joanna Lumley's campaign to allow Gurkha's to settle in the UK hardly represents a major threat to liberty, although it has had some unintended consequences for Aldershot, it serves to demonstrate the power without responsibility that celebrities wield.
In distinction to the recent past, where ideological opponents of liberty tended to possess a coherent ideological programme of state intervention and control, these groups are far more pragmatic and opportunistic. Thus, in many ways, they are far more dangerous because they cannot be so easily shown to be a threat. It must be said that both groups 'mean well' - they cannot really be accused of a malign plot to oppress people. However, both represent a serious threat to liberty.
Regulations and public spending, once in place, are rarely repealed and tend to expand as they crowd out private responses. Innovation is prevented and alternative solutions are foregone. Bans and prohibitions create black markets and often serve to create other problems without solving the first (viz. recreational drugs). Whilst everyone has a right to free speech, those lobbying for state intervention need to be aware of the consequences and problems created by their support for the insidious expansion of the state into yet more aspects of our lives.
Don't repeal the Human Rights Act. Give it teeth
The government's push to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 is ill-advised, says the ASI's legal writer Preston Byrne, who argues that the civil liberties protections offered to the British people by the Human Rights Act 1998 must be buttressed, not erased. If there is a problem with the Human Rights Act, it's not that it goes too far – it's that it doesn't go nearly far enough.
The other day I stumbled upon Justified, a newish series about a thirtysomething, cowboy-hat-wearing, gun-toting U.S. Marshal named Raylan Givens. Raylan, the story goes, has been reassigned from sunny Florida to sleepy Kentucky – “punishment” for carrying out what amounts to a daylight assassination of a Miami mobster – following which he promptly misbehaves, sleeping with material witnesses, failing to recuse himself where conflicts of interest arise, and killing a number of human beings per episode. These are problems that the characters, treading the fourth wall, openly acknowledge but do little to fix.
It’s not The Wire. But then, it’s not 2002, and Raylan is a better fit for the conscience of today's United States. Pining for John Wayne, America reminsices as Raylan, self-loathing, naïve and eager to wield raw, unbridled power, apes him; we admire him for falling short. He is a John Wayne for the Drone Age, angry, uncertain, broke and extra-judicial.
It is impossible to suspend disbelief and enjoy the show. in real life, the only thing this cowboy could ride is a desk. Killing is an unfortunate and traumatic possibility in the life of an armed policeman. When it occurs, it is very contentious. Administrative concerns kick in, a lawsuit or public inquiry is often involved and it is often cause for mandatory suspension or early retirement, on account of which “it would be hard to ‘imagine a set of facts’ that would lead a cop to be involved in the deaths of six people,” especially in the first season alone.
Legalize pepper spray
Imagine a world where possession and use of fire extinguishers was banned. Let us suppose that a terrible tragedy — a child accidentally asphyxiated while playing with one — caused widespread media fuelled outrage. In a grand parliamentary review it was decided that there would be a blanket ban on all future possession of fire extinguishers except by trained health and safety professionals.
“But you need fire extinguishers to put out fires!” protested the few curmudgeons opposed to this new law. “Fire extinguishers are the first line of defense against fires. Without fire extinguishers there will be more house burnings.”
“So you support child asphyxiations then, do you?” chimed a newly popular strawman in response. “Besides, that's what firefighters are for.”
Within a year house burnings have more than doubled. Instead of questioning the law (now firmly embedded in general approval), a new lobby group is on the streets shouting that the recent outbreak of house burnings was caused by dilapidated fire stations and government austerity.
The moral of this story alludes to a very real problem. 80,000 women are raped every year in the UK. That's not even to mention the 400,000 who are sexually assaulted, every year, according to the government's Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls (2010-2011). And one of the most proven and minimally violent methods of deterring sexual crimes is completely banned in the UK.
Pepper spray, or oloresin capiscum, was prohibted under section 5 of the Firearms Act of 1965, which classifies pepper spray in league with automatic firearms and rocket launchers. Pepper spray is also banned under similar grounds across most European countries, except, typically, Switzerland where it is classified as a self defence device- not a weapon- and can be carried by all.
In Switzerland there are on average about 150 incidents of rape per year. Adjusted for population, Switzerland has proportionally 84 times fewer rape victims every year than the UK. This really is a staggering figure.
Oloresin capiscum is an inflammatory agent that causes temporary blindness. It can temporarily incapacitate an aggressor in a relatively safe and non-violent manner. The compound used in pepper spray is almost identical to tear gas, used by riot police to control mobs.
This raises interesting though rarely considered questions about the inequality of power between the state and its citizens. Why always must the state be the sole exception to its own laws?
But putting aside such abstract considerations, what if tomorrow parliament completely legalized this relatively tame form of self defence? What if every pocket and handbag in the nation was equipped with pepper spray? I believe the evidence indicates that cases of rape and violent crime would plummet considerably.
As always, there are the unintended consequences of state prohibitions. The only self defence devices available on the market are mini alarms and so called “criminal identification spray” which brands the aggressor and makes them easily identifiable to the police (for what purpose seems to be unclear, given the truly shameful rates of rape convictions). But since these products don't actually deter the criminal or give any window of escape, using them would most likely only aggravate the situation even further.
There is no such thing as a miracle cure, but putting the power of self defence back into the hands of citizens is not only right in theory, it is highly effective in practise. Better to extinguish the fire at the source, then to wait half an hour for the state to deal with the smouldering rubble and ruined lives left behind.
It's time to end big government's grip on our prisons
Ben Gummer MP has an interesting article in the Daily Telegraph today calling for reform in the UK’s prison system. We have twice as many men and women incarcerated in England and Wales as there were in the mid-1990s. In short, our prisons aren’t working. Spending on prisons has continued to rise to close to £4bn, while reoffending rates have stayed the same. Ben Gummer argues that now is the time, during this period of austerity, to finally address the issue and bring real reform to the penal system.
In his article, Ben Gummer argues for:
‘…the need to re-connect victims and communities with sentencing, to make punishment more local and purposeful, and to remove as far as possible the impersonal and failing bureaucracy of the state. For many criminals, prison is just another welfare dependency, and we might challenge its over-use on those grounds alone.’
He also points out that prisons often fail to rehabilitate prisoners and treat the root causes of criminal behaviour. Bad prisons’ ‘failure to tackle mental health, profound psychological disorder, drug and alcohol addiction and moral vacuity, is in itself a crime on society’s part. We put people behind walls and then forget about them. That is wrong.’
Ben Gummer raises some important issues in his article. Unfortunately for far too long it has been implicitly accepted that sending people to prison is an effective way of tackling crime. A fascinating paper released by the Howard League for Penal Reform this week undermines this assumption, showing that prison’s effect in deterring people from committing crime can be overestimated, while reconviction statistics highlight the failure of the penal system to reintegrate convicts in society.
A one-size-fits-all approach to the penal system isn’t working. The state doesn't have the knowledge necessary to determine a single ideal imprisonment system, despite the highly centralized nature of our criminal justice system.
As the ASI's Sam Bowman argued in an event with the Howard League this week, we should learn from free markets. Central government cannot run prisons and criminal justice any better than it can run hospitals and schools. It is only through experimentation and a more localised approach to punishment that we can discover effective ways to solve our current prison problem.
Let them drink Coke
A campaign group – you know, one of those bodies that sounds official but isn't, and is stuffed full of folk on the public payroll – wants to put a 20p tax on bottles of fizzy drinks. It's to combat obesity, they say.
No, it's about micro-managing our lives, which 'experts' always believe we are unable to manage for ourselves.
The average person gets about 2% of their calories from fizzy drinks. Sure, some people drink a lot more. But will a 20p tax dissuade them? No, it is just a stealth tax at a time when we are over-taxed already. People have strong favourites in soft drinks, and studies show that the tax needs to be a lot higher to make people switch. Even then, they just switch to other sugary but untaxed drinks.
Proponents say the tax would raise £1bn that could be spent on diet education for children. I doubt if any of the money would actually get to that destination. Just think about it:
Presumably some soft drinks will be hit, some not (as there are low-calorie alternatives on the same shelves). The Department of Health will want to set up a quango to decide which should be taxed. Then shopkeepers, who are struggling enough at the moment, would have to separate taxed from untaxed drinks and account for the tax. Then send it to the Revenue, which has to account for it and then send it on to the Treasury, which has to earmark it and send it to the Health and Education departments. They will each need a bureaucracy to decide how to spend it, and another bureaucracy to run the programmes, and a third monitoring bureaucracy to make sure that the money is spent properly. All the tax will really buy is £1bn-worth of bureaucracy.
If we really want to help our children, a better way might be to get bureaucracy out of our hair and pay down the national debt, which saddles every newborn with a £17,600 bill.
Denmark introduced a 'fat tax' a year ago but it was so unpopular that they have now scrapped it. It was supposed to hit things like crisps and chips, but actually was applied to meat, yoghourt, even gourmet cheeses. North German supermarkets did a roaring trade as Danes shopped abroad to escape the tax. Specialist businesses selling meat or cheese were badly hit.
And as our report The Wages of Sin Taxes notes, a tax on soft drinks hits poor families the hardest. Groceries, food and drink, is a much larger part of their budget. But it would not make a scrap of difference to the middle-class campaigners who are advocating it.
It's soda today, what's it going to be tomorrow? Chocolate? Cake? Cheese? Bread? Milk? Spare us, please, to get on with our own lives.
