What sort of economic or political theory could justify the state (the apparatus of political and bureaucratic government) to forbid an adult to do something that can only harm himself (or hypothetically those who choose to associate with him)? A Wall Street Journal story alerts us to a current illustration (Jennifer Maloney, “New Zealand Bans Cigarette Sales for Everyone Born After 2008,” December 14, 2022):
The law passed Tuesday bans the sale of tobacco products in New Zealand to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, so those who are age 13 or younger today will never be able to legally purchase tobacco in their lifetimes.
It would have to be a theory claiming or assuming that:
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an adult (even in a country where he has the right to vote and is supposed to be capable of politically ruling others) is not capable of judging what has for himself more benefits than costs;
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and some individuals, whether majorities, minorities, philosopher-kings, or despots, are better capable of making this evaluation and decision for others, and in these others’ interests, and impose it on them by force, as well as on any other voluntary traders (such as smugglers) who interfere.
The objection that public health insurance and subsidy systems harm those who adopt less risky lifestyles because it forces them to pay taxes to support individuals who make risky choices is not valid. These sorts of compulsory systems have been sold to voters (assuming that this is indeed what voters, in some meaningful sense, voted for) under the official reason that this sharing of risk was a matter of “social solidarity” if not of compulsory love. At any rate, individuals who die younger cost less to the collective because the net drain on the public finances, through public pensions and probably health care too, increases with an individual’s age.
The “externality” of smoking is typically either manufactured by the state or reducible to what moral busybodies don’t like other people to do. They hate the very idea that some people do something they don’t approve of.
Moreover, the public discrimination against the smoking part of the citizenry (largely made of “deplorables”) will contribute to more polarization and eventually violence.
I don’t think we can, over the past four centuries, find any classical liberal theory of politics or economics that supports this sort of systemic infantilization of so-called “citizens.” Liberal theories don’t view individuals as either children of the state or coercive majorities.
READER COMMENTS
Dylan
Dec 17 2022 at 5:57pm
Two comments:
1) It seems strange to me that at the same time that the world is fast moving to a norm of marijuana legalization, that we are moving in the opposite direction for cigarettes. I’m not aware of any consistent argument that would allow for legalizing one while criminalizing the other.
2) The evolution of smoking bans in public places has made me more skeptical of private actors reaching an optimal state and somewhat more open to the idea that government can sometimes induce beneficial changes in social norms. The history, when government smoking bans in private establishments were first proposed, I was against them even though I was not a smoker. My friends that smoked were against the bans as well. But here’s the thing, after they went into effect, no one seemed to mind that much, and in fact, pretty soon even the smokers were happy with the change. Being able to go out for a beer after work and not have to wash everything you were wearing when you got home. And, we quickly realized that half of our feeling hung over the next day wasn’t due to drinking too much, but from spending hours sucking in smoke. We lived on the border of two areas that implemented bans at different times, and we quickly defaulted to going only to bars where smoking was not allowed.
I’m left in the awkward position of being against the ban on principle, while at the same time admitting that it is probably the government policy that has had one of the biggest positive improvements on my daily life over the last 20 years.
Pierre Lemieux
Dec 17 2022 at 10:07pm
Dylan: On your first point, I don’t think that there is a consistent argument. Otherwise, alcohol would be forbidden first (again), as apparently half the crimes “involve” alcohol. It must be a matter of mob pressure and biased political mechanisms. At least, this was clear in the case of anti-smokers against deplorable smokers.
Your second point is good too. But just think about the following. If non-smokers and anti-smokers had been willing to pay for non-smoking restaurants, these would have appeared (in much larger number) on the market. Just think how small sexual minorities and all kinds of eccentrics got their welcoming bars and clubs. Smokers were willing to pay, which is why the non-smokers and anti-smokers obtained that governments nationalize the air in restaurants.
MarkW
Dec 18 2022 at 6:30am
We lived on the border of two areas that implemented bans at different times, and we quickly defaulted to going only to bars where smoking was not allowed.
We live in a city that had a few no-smoking bars/restaurants years before there was a ban. These restaurants stayed open but were not overwhelmed with business, and there was no preference cascade leading to more and more bars and restaurants banning smoking. Why was that? First of all, the prevalence of smoking had been declining for decades. And I suspect that having separate smoking and non-smoking sections was enough to satisfy the non-smokers (and indeed we, who are non-smokers, did not exclusively patronize the no-smoking places and also did not come home smelling of smoke after having had dinner or drinks in a place with a smoking and non-smoking sections). By the time our state government got around to ‘solving’ the problem with their heavy-handed ban, there really wasn’t a problem left to solve.
Dylan
Dec 18 2022 at 9:47am
A couple thoughts on this. I know we had restaurants that didn’t allow smoking and restaurants with no smoking sections. I wasn’t aware of any bars that were non smoking or had smoking sections. There probably were some, but not the kind of bars I wanted to go to as someone in my early 20s. Here’s the other part though, until non smoking was legislated, I didn’t know that it mattered all that much. My smoking friends were certainly surprised to find out that it was their preference to go to non-smoking places too.
I hadn’t even realized how strong this preference had become until I was in Berlin a few years back. Smoking is technically not allowed, but this is not enforced in the slightest, and you’ll find it difficult to find a bar without smoking. After a couple of uncomfortable nights out I went looking for non-smoking bars and only found 3 as I recall. I made it to one, and it was nice enough, although definitely not as cool as the neighborhood bars I’d been to on previous nights.
So, why is that? My hypothesis is that people don’t know they prefer non-smoking establishments until they are forced, but after that, even the majority of smokers will find that they like places where smoking is allowed outdoors better than smoking inside. That’s obviously only based on the limited sample of my friends that smoke and could be entirely wrong. And, even if I’m right, it has some disturbing implications. I’ll admit my bias is that people rarely know what it is they want, but government is even less likely to be able to pick for them.
MarkW
Dec 18 2022 at 12:31pm
I made it to one, and it was nice enough, although definitely not as cool as the neighborhood bars I’d been to on previous nights.
There’s this human tendency. I don’t know what to call it or even if it has a name. There’s some thing that a person wants to do. There’s nothing preventing them from choosing to do it right now — it’s not illegal or against any rules or anything. But IF they did it, it would mark them out as odd, and they really don’t want that. So they insist that society should and must change so that this thing they want to do will no longer be odd and they will be able to do it without anyone considering them a weirdo.
I think this is a side effect of the ‘agreeableness’ big 5 personality trait. Agreeable people really don’t like feeling out of step and so they feel a need to have a critical mass of other people approve a choice before they feel comfortable making it. This tendency seems to be stronger among women (who are generally higher in agreeableness).
I am starting to think that ‘agreeableness’ (at least in some forms) may deserve to be added to the ‘dark triad’ of personality traits. Certainly it has a dark side. One of the things I’ve been watching recently are man-in-the-street interviews of ordinary Russians on the 1420 Youtube channel. It’s really scary how many Russians are completely willing to go with the flow in accepting the regime’s rationale for the invasion of Ukraine. And no, it’s not fear of the security state that motivates them — those folks are obvious (they nervously refuse to be interviewed or to answer certain questions). But others are perfectly willing to express their support (and maybe ask why their young interviewer has not been mobilized).
So what does this have to with smoking bans? We anybody could always have avoided smoking establishments on their own. But they would have had to give up a certain amount of ‘coolness’ to do it (I’m reminded of this Onion classic). So if smoking is allowed, then I’ll have to choose between smoke-free environments and hanging with the cool kids. But if it’s banned, then the cool kids will have no choice but to go to non-smoking places and then we’ll be able to rub shoulders with them without getting our clothes smelly.
Dylan
Dec 19 2022 at 8:32am
I think this is a good point and I think there’s some validity to it, but I want to make a stronger claim. I’m saying that even the smokers are made better off by the smoking bans in bars. They don’t know this ahead of time, but after a few months the majority wouldn’t want to go back to smoking inside.
I’ve heard this from practically every smoker I know, which is a fair number of people, and sure this could just be selection bias or social desirability bias…but I think it is also curious that some of those same people also stopped smoking in their cars and houses after the smoking bans went into effect.
Pierre Lemieux
Dec 19 2022 at 11:04am
Dylan: Lots of people stopped fleeing to West Berlin when the local tyrant built the wall and started shooting at those who tried to jump it. Many of them probably justified their lack of courage by saying they were happy in East Berlin anyway. (“My clothes don’t smell decadent capitalism.”) If the cost of one alternative is coercively increased (finding a smoking restaurant or moving to West Berlin), revealed preferences appear to change; but it is the constraint that has been moved.
Matthias
Dec 18 2022 at 7:14am
About your first point: it would be pretty easy to have consistency:
Ban smoking of both tobacco and marijuana. But allow vaping, edibles, dermal patches, etc.
Most of the harm comes from inhaling smoke. Almost all of tue harm and inconvenience to third parties comes from smoke. Nicotine and THC themselves aren’t that dangerous.
Banning smoking but allowing other forms of consumption would still be paternalistic, but would at least be consistent with some kind of cost / benefit analysis.
(Of course, real world policy doesn’t even meet this lower bar. And economic theory would also suggest taxes to counteract any externalities, not outright bans.)
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Dec 18 2022 at 1:56pm
Consistency would be to ban both in venues in which it is not possible to establish consent of non-smokers. In effect give non-smokers a property right to their atmosphere. In practice this would prohibit most public use of marijuana at it’s smell is more pungent.
Pierre Lemieux
Dec 20 2022 at 12:53pm
Thomas: Please consider the illiberalism of your proposal. Should the state similarly ask for the atheists’ consent before allowing religious ceremonies? Or should it instead ask for the believers’ consent before allowing anti-religious speeches and the publication of anti-religious books? A function of private property is to resolve these conflicts. Believers organize their ceremonies on private properties that allow it. Atheists buy books from private publishers and private bookstores that allow their sales. An owner of private property, whether it be a living room or a restaurant or an airplane or whatever, should be free to decide whether his air will be breathed by smokers or non-smokers or both. There is no reason for the state to nationalize private air in favor of a group of individuals and thereby coercively discriminate against another group of individuals.
Jose Pablo
Dec 20 2022 at 3:11pm
That’s interesting. So, to solve the far bigger problem of CO2 emission we should use Pigouvian taxes. But to “solve” the (much more limited) problem of passive smoking we should use “bans”.
Can’t see the consistency here.
In any case the “property right to their atmosphere” part seems to call for inviting Coase to the discussion.
andy
Dec 22 2022 at 10:48am
“But here’s the thing, after they went into effect, no one seemed to mind that much, and in fact, pretty soon even the smokers were happy with the change”
Good reason to pull the ban, isn’t it? I think something else is going on: once the rule is being applied AND it is beneficial to you, you become happy with it. Even if it is deep unfair. Feels the same as slavery in 18th century to me…. You know, in principle slavery is wrong, but even the slaves are kind of happy here – compare it to the drugery of free people in Ireland…
Art K
Dec 17 2022 at 6:00pm
This premise infers the legalization of all drugs. A permanent ban on cigarettes doesn’t sit well with me due to small negative effects of non-addicted smoking. Each cigarette doesn’t do much harm, it is the cumulative effect. I forget the stat, but I remember it was something like, if you don’t start smoking by 21 (or 25?), it most likely that you will never become addicted to cigarettes. We do restrict voting, alcohol, gambling to certain ages. The question is, what is the most appropriate age to allow the purchase of cigarettes. I would be more inclined to think around the age of 25 is a more appropriate level set for buying cigarettes. I also wouldn’t ban the smoking of cigarettes, only the sale. No need for police to be checking the ID of a 20 year old that is smoking.
Pierre Lemieux
Dec 17 2022 at 10:25pm
Art: With due respect (and appreciation for your useful contribution to the conversation), it is the way of thinking you seem to suggest that has led the government of a supposedly liberal country to choose a minimum age of 120 to allow adults to smoke cigarettes in just a few decades from now. Instead of an age of 120 or 25 to purchase cigarettes, why not 60 or 15 or 42 (everybody has his own opinion), or no age at all so that adults may, like when I had young teenagers at home, send them to get some last-minute groceries at the convenience store “and add to this a carton of cigarettes, here’s $20”? And if only the sales of cigarettes (or alcohol) is forbidden, who do you think will sell them?
Mactoul
Dec 17 2022 at 11:55pm
The state is ideally oriented to long-term flourishing of the people, not to satisfying momentary preferences of individuals.
Mind-altering drugs are proscribed for good reasons. Their aim is to stultify the mind which is not alcohol’s aim. In other words, while alcohol can be abused as any other thing, some substances have no good uses.
john hare
Dec 18 2022 at 5:26am
There is no question that some things can be harmful. The question is “at what point can others be told what to do with the coercive powers of the state?” And how much harm does the restriction cause? And how many people decide to participate in illegal activity that otherwise wouldn’t?
One example I’ve heard at various time. No premarital sex. Care to try to enforce that one? Or, only for the purpose of procreation. How invasive do you care to be pushing your perception of morality on others?
My thought is legalize almost everything and use the resources previously spent on enforcement to help the ones that can be helped. Let the ones that can’t find their own way. And it would defund massive criminal organizations in the process.
Jim Glass
Dec 20 2022 at 12:32pm
One example I’ve heard at various time. No premarital sex. Care to try to enforce that one? Or, only for the purpose of procreation.
Check the international data for current and historical rates of birth outside of marriage. Those who study such things tell us this is a pretty good proxy for rates of premarital sex, for obvious reasons.
Japan has as fully a modern an economy as Sweden. Japan also has laws that pretty brutally punish single mothers. (Same with South Korea.) Also note the huge and fast increase in the rate from world-bottom to world-top levels in the Nordic countries.
The late, great Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan usedto say: ‘The great insight of the Right is that culture can stymie the intent of laws, while the great insight of the Left is that laws can change culture’. This thread documents this as to smoking. Other examples on all scales in all directions, with effects both good and bad, are too obvious to mention.
john hare
Dec 20 2022 at 6:03pm
Interesting read, thanks. I know people that would suggest that Japan doesn’t go far enough. And even there, it hasn’t prevented something that most people want, married or not. IMO, the effects of most bans are counterproductive in many ways.
I was thinking that would be an example of something impossible to enforce. Probably what I get for thinking when not used to it.
Mactoul
Dec 20 2022 at 8:40pm
Laws need not be explicitly written down and passed by a bicameral parliament.
Customs and mores of a people are laws of the people as well and have served to come down strictly on pre- and especially extra-marital relations.
Jon Murphy
Dec 18 2022 at 7:44am
I can agree to the broad version of this statement, though it suggests to me more evidence that states shouldn’t be paternalistic and blanket outlaw many things just because they may be harmful in the short or long term. After all, it’s the dose that makes the poison.
MarkW
Dec 18 2022 at 9:16am
I can agree to the broad version of this statement
I do only if we recognize that long-term flourishing is best achieved by the state recognizing the inalienable right to individual pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You can’t say, “I believe in individuals’ rights to live their lives according to their values, preferences, goals, etc, but…” There should be no ‘but’ other than when it involves infringing the rights of others. The idea that the government should override citizens’ short term preferences in order to promote a statist vision of long-term flourishing is frankly chilling. It is Orwellian. It is how Xi and other authoritarians invariably justify the oppression of protest and dissent in order to assure ‘harmony and social cohesion’.
Jon Murphy
Dec 18 2022 at 10:06am
Agreed. That’s what I meant by “broad statement”: flourishing broadly defined. Perhaps the best version of this is by James M Buchanan: “Man wants liberty to become the man he wants to become.”
Jose Pablo
Dec 18 2022 at 2:58pm
“The state is ideally oriented to long-term flourishing of the people, not to satisfying momentary preferences of individuals.”
Like Putin’s State, Like Mao’s State, like Stalin’s State, like Peron’s State, like Chavez’s State, like Allende’s (or Pinochet’s) State, like Hirohito’s State, like the US democratic State was oriented to the long-term flourishing of the people living in Hiroshima, or to the Americans sent to Vietnam,
Taking into account the track record, why do you believe the state is better positioned to “promote the long-term flourishing of the people” that the individual itself?
Looking at the track record, my answer to the State offer of promoting my long-term flourishing can only be: “Thanks, but no thanks. I think I will choose my momentary preferences. Really appreciate your effort, but, if you want some advice: engage in activities you actually know how to perform”
Afterall it is clear by now that the most scaring sentence in the English language is: “I am from the government and I am here to promote your long term flourishing“
Jose Pablo
Dec 18 2022 at 3:14pm
“The state is ideally oriented to long-term flourishing of the people, not to satisfying momentary preferences of individuals.”
I would not agree with this sentence even if the government was well suited to perform this task or even “ideally” well suited to perform this task.
But since we are talking about real governments, there is no need to enter into that kind of discussion. If “reality” has any epistemic value (and I think it has) the above sentence is akin to say:
“Electric saws are ideally oriented to perform successful brain surgeries”
Jim Glass
Dec 20 2022 at 1:16pm
“The state is ideally oriented to long-term flourishing of the people, not to satisfying momentary preferences of individuals.”
Like Putin’s State, Like Mao’s State, like Stalin’s State, like Peron’s State, like Chavez’s State…
Ah, carefully chosen examples of ‘ideally organized’ states all!
Taking into account the track record, why do you believe the state is better positioned to “promote the long-term flourishing of the people” that the individual itself?
Considering the fundamental requirements of “long-term flourishing”, I’d say because: “this reason!“, and “this too!“.
It’s remarkable how so many libertarians, while enjoying utopian living standards and personal freedom by all measures of history, damn the state they live in that is the absolute requirement for making it so.
Even die-hard Marxists, who want to kill off the state as we know it, admit it provides huge benefits compared to the stateless anarchic ‘just individuals looking out for their own interests’, alternative.
Jon Murphy
Dec 21 2022 at 8:31am
Jim-
I do not see the relevance of war deaths. It doesn’t answer the question Jose proposed. Certainly, a more peaceful society will be more flourishing. Short of outright anarchists, I do not know many libertarians or classical liberals who would deny the state can achieve a more non-violent society (James M Buchanan, the American Founders, Adam Smith, David Hume, Frederic Bastiat, FA Hayek, LV Mises, etc., all make the similar point). In fact, I think you’ll find many liberterians and classical liberals argue that reducing violence is precisely the role of the state.
But this conversation is about individual flourishing. The state can (and should!) prevent violent deaths. But that doesn’t mean the state knows more about all ways to bring about human flourishing and what that means for each person (see my response to MarkW above).
Clasical liberalism is about exchange in society. It’s about how we all work together within our various societal networks (family, friends, neighborhoods, towns, nations, etc). We all have our many roles that we play in order to help each other thrive. A state government serves one such role (protection). But there are many other roles that the state does not know. Just like how a car mechanic serves the role of fixing my car, but doesn’t necessarily know best what will make me happy for breakfast.
Nicolas
Dec 21 2022 at 10:39am
Are you including suicides among violent deaths? More than half of gunshot deaths are suicides. But the main reason people use guns is because non-violent drugs are banned, particularly barbituates. Do you support the right to suicide?
Jon Murphy
Dec 21 2022 at 10:59am
“Violent deaths” in the context of this conversation is in reference to injustice (people harming one another). The suicide question is difficult because there are lots of subtlties and nuances to it and a full response will take up more space here in the comments than one should allow.
I realize that is a non-answer. I fear any answer I do give will not be sufficiently qualified.
Jim Glass
Dec 21 2022 at 4:15pm
I do not see the relevance of war deaths.
What “war deaths”? Those charts detail violence deaths. Look again.
You’re revealing your biases here. How do you imagine non-state societies fight wars so much more deadly than those of the state societies of the 20th Century?
Certainly, a more peaceful society will be more flourishing.
Certainly! Which is why libertarians so hostile to “the state” should keep in mind…
I do not know many libertarians or classical liberals who would deny the state can achieve a more non-violent society (James M Buchanan, the American Founders, Adam Smith, David Hume…)
Not “can” but “inherently does” achieve a far less violent society than the non-state alternative. (Note the “on the average” I highlighted above.) Classical liberals have no problem with this. But libertarians …. eh…
So let’s not disingenuously conflate classical liberals with libertarians. We both know the Founders, Adam Smith, David Hume, were not state-deriding libertarians.
Yet I quoted Adam Smith recently on this site as to “the duty of the sovereign” to prevent crime and secure justice, and was chastised for my ignorant “glorification of the state.” Gee! I posted the Diamond link here a few years ago in reply to a post …
This is the popular libertarian take, and you well know it. That the state is a unique cause of violence, increasing it. After all, it’s got a monopoly!
But check that against the data above … the Bible instructing the chosen people to exterminate their enemies rather than leave any behind … Genghis Kahn and his stateless nomads setting out to kill 40 million people, 10% of the world population…
Classical liberals are fine with the books and papers that routinely describe the state as arising from pressures to reduce the costs of internal and external violence. (Violence and Social Orders, etc.)
But I have never in my life seen a libertarian start a discussion of “the state” by saying: “Of course states exist fundamentally to greatly reduce violence, compared to that in non-state societies, and increase the prosperity that results from a more peaceful society.”
When you teach, do you show the data above to your students and say, “However skeptical we are of what states do today, we must remember this is why states exists.”?
It doesn’t answer the question Jose proposed…
Next comment.
Jim Glass
Dec 21 2022 at 4:29pm
[Jon Murphy wrote:]
It doesn’t answer the question Jose proposed.
You mean…
I thought my answer was pretty clear, but will expand:
Jose, the “track record” of the state also includes giving you a life in Utopia by all historical standards — of which you seem singularly unappreciative.
While the track record of state-less individuals seeking to enhance their welfare on their own, which you seem to esteem, has produced on average more violence and early death over full lifetimes “than even in Poland during the Second World War or Cambodia under Pol Pot.” (Even your cherry-picked worst-case examples of Putin et. al. can’t match that.)
So the track records suggest that perhaps you should check your priors and adjust your biases.
Alas, there are no good cheap and easy ideological answers to complex issues, no matter how much we desire them. Not for socialists, populist statists or libertarians either.
We just have to work things out as best we can and learn incrementally as we go along. That’s how liberal democratic capitalism has given you the Utopian life (luxury-endowed, safe, long-lived), by all historical standards, that you’ve got, appreciate it or not.
Jose Pablo
Dec 21 2022 at 5:04pm
“track record” of the state also includes giving you a life in Utopia by all historical standards — of which you seem singularly unappreciative.
By the same token the French citizens at the end of the XVIII century were very unappreciative of the Utopia the lived in compared to the feudal societies (they cut the head of the head of the State … despite the fact that he was devoted to promote their long-term flourishing: “everything for the people …“.
By the same token, the Chinese citizens should be very appreciative of the Utopia they live in compare with the nightmare they lived in before the arrival of the Communist regime
By the same token, the Americans in 1775 should be very appreciative of the Utopia they lived in compared to how they lived back in Europe a few years before. Instead, they (fortunately) chose to start a revolution.
You seem to be singularly unappreciative of the Utopia you could live in if the State stops “helping” you to achieve your long term flourishing … just use your imagination and don’t be so afraid.
Jim Glass
Dec 22 2022 at 7:23pm
[Jose Pablo wrote:]
By the same token the French citizens at the end of the XVIII century … the Chinese … the Americans in 1775 should be very appreciative of the Utopia they lived in compared to …
Yes! And the wise among them were! Because gratitude makes you happier, healthier and more effective. Science itself says so!…
… and all that is very good whenever you are! Right? Of course, the wise of all ages knew this all the way back to ancient times. See below.
C’mon. Give it a try. You too — like Scrooge — might unexpectedly feel a shot of happiness. It’s the right season.
You seem to be singularly unappreciative of the Utopia you could live in if the State stops “helping” you to achieve your long term flourishing … just use your imagination and don’t be so afraid.
Aw, I realize the supposed “free man” feels only outrage upon winning the Powerball Lottery Jackpot, due to the income tax “the state” forces him to pay on it — as he, without fear, uses his imagination as to how much richer he’d be but for that tax.
So you too can’t appreciate winning the lottery that gives you humanity’s all-time best luxury, health and length of life — instead of being born a peasant, slave, serf, groundhog, vole — even though you didn’t even buy a ticket! As you too, bravely imagine how much better off you’d be if you were not so oppressed!
But do remember the modern science and ancient wisdom on happiness, health and effectiveness. Wisdom of the ages pre-dating Harvard’s…
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.” – Epicurus
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius
“It is better to light one small candle of gratitude than to curse the darkness.” — Confucius
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – -Cicero
“When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” – G.K. Chesterton
“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.” – William Blake
“Always look on the bright side of life“ — Monty Python.
Jose Pablo
Dec 21 2022 at 4:47pm
The statement “since the ideal state can achieve a far less violent society that the non-state alternative, the ideal state is oriented to the long term flourishing of the individual” does not make any logical sense: whether the premise (The ideal state can achieve a far less violent society that the non-state alternative) is true or not, simply, the conclusion does not follow from the premise.
Examples of sentences that do make logical sense:
The “ideal” state can, theoretically, achieve a far less violent society that the “actual” state alternative has historically done.
The “actual” state has failed dramatically in achieving the end of violence, people claimed the state will achieve (even nowadays homo hominy lupus est … despite 5,000 years of “state”)
Primitive societies are more violent that modern ones.
We have no clue if “modern anarchist” societies would be more or less violent than “modern well organized states” since “modern well organized” states do not allow “modern anarchist” societies to “flourish”
The government does a very poor job protecting me from violence (half of murders and 2/3 of rapes are never cleared in the US. Close to 70,000 individuals are killed every year under the state watch … that’s a poor job by any standard!)
The state does an even much worse job promoting my “long term flourishing” than protecting me from violence.
The state does a real great job (to Caesar what is Caesar’s) stealing more than 45% of my earnings every single year.
With the 45% of my earnings that the government steals from me every year, I will be able to do a far better job promoting my “long term flourishing”.
Jim Glass
Dec 22 2022 at 2:19pm
Jim,
… that doesn’t mean the state knows more about all ways to bring about human flourishing and what that means for each person
Well, as a Coase-loving minarchist, knock me down! 🙂
But there are many other roles that the state does not know…
Actually,” the state” doesn’t know a single dang thing. It is not sentient. And as you know, there is no “hive mind”, only individuals know things.
“The state” is a convenient legal fiction, much like the “corporation”. The words are just names for forms of social organization that have evolved spontaneously in fairly recent times …
As legal fictions, “state” and “corporation” serve a number of common valuable purposes, e.g., legal continuity. I’ll skip all that. The point is that as convenient fictions neither is a “real thing” of itself. Neither has any physical existence except maybe in a file cabinet. You can’t weigh either on a scale. They have no thoughts.
“The state” has no knowledge, no interests or self-interest, no desires (for power, control or anything else) no response to incentives — only individual people have these things.
This may seem a “Duh!” insight. Obviously, only the people who run states actually know things, yada yada. But you well know that those who talk “the state this”, “the state that” “the state other”, etc. – like libertarians – tend to come to think of “the state” as a real thing with its own personality, and very nasty interests. And this mistake can cause big problems with real-world policy. E.g.: say, “Ukraine”….
[] “Realist” geopolitics. John Mearsheimer & Co.: States have interests. State Powers that get too close to each other fight wars. See all history thru WWI & II. Small states located between Powers have no right to independence. Sucks to be them, but it’s reality. ‘Thucydides Trap’, Rising Powers that meet Established Powers fight wars, ever since Athens-Sparta it has always been so. Policy: The USA caused the Ukraine war by pushing too close to Russia. We should have let Russia take Ukraine, the Baltics, whatever, to have peace, and still should. We now face war with rising China, and should let it have what it wants as to Taiwan to avoid it. Peace in our time!
[] ‘More Real’ geopolitics. Stephen Kotkin & Co.: States have no interests, only regimes have interests. Thucydides Trap? Why no wars USA-Great Britian ~1920s, Japan-USA ~1980s? For that matter, why did 1,000 years of wars in Europe end after WWII? Because liberal-democratic capitalist regimes never fight each other but use positive-sum resolutions. There is no USA-Russia “state” conflict in Ukraine, Putin’s authoritarian regime is threatened by the spreading Western (S. Korea-to-Finland) liberal democratic regime entering Ukraine. Policy: Defend liberal democracy from Ukraine and Baltics to Taiwan. As there is no inherent “state” conflict with Russia and China, develop Western policies to deal with their human regimes as peacefully as possible.
See the big difference that results from considering “the state” to be an actual real thing, or not? For the next couple of generations world politics may be driven by the policy results of today’s debate over this.
It’s the same with domestic political economics. “The state” is very convenient shorthand for the great Gordian Knot of human relationships. I’m going to keep using it myself. But when considering a real problem it’s best to get one’s focus off the simple fiction of “the state” and onto the complex real human organizational relationships involved.
When tempted to say the likes of … “the state does not know” … remember there is no “hive mind” state, and ask what specific individuals do not know.
Jose Pablo
Dec 21 2022 at 3:43pm
Jim, after 5,000 years of tinkering with the “state” idea, less than 15% of the population of the world live in “liberal democracies” (which I imagine is what you refer to by “ideally (¿really?) organized states”)
So “the State”, as a reality, is way closer to my carefully curated list that to the “ideally organized states” you seem to promote as “ideal” guardians of my long-term flourishing (too many “Platon Cave” here to my taste).
And even for this, almost irrelevant, minority of well organized “States”, the ability to promote the “long term flourishing of the individuals” is better reflected in this couple of references (you can find it almost anywhere, but this is a good starting point):
https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/charles-murray/losing-ground/9780465065882/
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29269
Or in Coase view on the ability of the very scarce well-organized governments to promote “the flourishing”
https://reason.com/1997/01/01/looking-for-results/
An extract:
“When I was editor of The Journal of Law and Economics, we published a whole series of studies of regulation and its effects. Almost all the studies–perhaps all the studies–suggested that the results of regulation had been bad, that the prices were higher, that the product was worse adapted to the needs of consumers, than it otherwise would have been”
And this is for a “not at all representative” sample of the best organized “states”. For the average “state” (which is more relevant), the intention to promote the “flourishing” tend to end more like the “Zafra de los 10 millones” en Cuba or the “great leap forward” in China.
Your faith in the “State”, despite the facts, is the thriumph of hope over experience.
You seem to lack the imagination to think of a better alternative. I don’t.
Nicolas
Dec 21 2022 at 10:34am
Fully agree, but even most libertarians are fairly mute about drug prohibition. Thomas Szasz wrote two fantastic books about it, and another defending the right to suicide, but they are ignored. Many in the muddled liberty movement fall the the trap some anti-federalists anticipated, that there is no right to self-harm because it is not enumerated. Conservatives are miserable on this score, though they smugly promote cigars. Reason magazine increasingly pushes for more government coercion against the “mentally ill,” and has featured anti-libertarian psychiatrist Sally Satel in an interview and as author of her own article. (Satel once write an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal titled, “For Addicts, Force is the Best Medicine.”) On average, libertarians are no less obeisant to the Therapeutic State than the Left or Right are. Label behavior “mental illness” and libertarians quickly abandon principle. Precisely because of the widespread rejection of self as property, I have little hope for the future.
Jon Murphy
Dec 21 2022 at 10:59am
Oh? That’s news to me.
Jose Pablo
Dec 21 2022 at 5:46pm
Jim, try to follow me on this ladder of easy to falsify statements and let me know which one of them you disagree with:
a) Most states actually existing in the world do a poor job promoting the long term flourishing of its citizens. To the point that these citizens desperately try to leave the States, at a terrible personal cost.
b) The US does a much better job than most states on Earth promoting the long term flourishing of its citizens.
c) The reason behind this “better job” is that almost 250 years ago, a government was stablished here based on the principle that each individual has the right to pursue his/her own happiness.
d) The actual government of the US has evolved distancing itself from the “ideal” government imagined by the Founding Fathers. The “distance” is particularly clear in the huge amount of regulation enacted every single day and in the ever-growing role of the government in regulating even the smallest details of the individual’s day to day lives. A development much in line with what the “terrible states” so prevalent in the world, do.
[In “d”, I try to summarize Scalia’s view on this particular topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz_gd–UO0
e) A State closer than the actual US to the ideals of the FF would be even better at promoting the long-term flourishing of the individuals. Even the citizens of the actual US would be assaulting the borders or this “closer to the kind of government the FF envisioned” State.
f) A State even closer that the one the FF were able to imagine 250 years ago, to the idea of putting the individual at the center of our political organization, giving him the maximum power and the maximum dignity we can think off, can exist. This “even more individual empowering” state, would be better at promoting the long-term “flourishing” of the individuals.
g) Anarchism (or a liberal regime “a la Buchanan”) is the system that provides maximum power and maximum dignity to the individual.
h) So, anarchism (or Buchanan’s liberalism) is/are a better systems to promote the long term flourishing of the individual compared to any existing state on Earth. Even compared to the US State, and that for the very same reasons that the US state is better than most of the other States of the world at that.
Mactoul
Dec 21 2022 at 6:51pm
The long-term flourishing refers to the people as a whole, not to particular individuals.
By long-term I meant flourishing over generations. The first duty of a state is to preserve itself.
That is, to preserve the customs, thd mores, the ways of a people. Now individuals die and even a family though it persists over generations, is too small a unit to preserve its ways. The polity is able to preserve itself.
I don’t agree about stateless people, especially not about Ghengis khan. They certainly had their well-defined state fully equipped with laws, customs etc.
Political nature of man means it is impossible for a man to be entirely stateless. Man lives in a state of laws.
Jose Pablo
Dec 21 2022 at 7:16pm
I have never seen “people as a whole” around me. I deal with “particular individuals” every single day. So, the State is devoted to the flourishing of a “construction”that I can’t see (which could be the reason why I don’t follow your arguments) and does not pay any attention to the individuals that do exist. I definitely agree with this.
“The first duty of a state is to preserve itself.” I fully agree with that too. And to this end the State crushes any individual that try to “flourish” (yes, individuals do flourish too at an individual level) in the “wrong” way.
“the customs, thd mores, the ways of a people” ¿? different individuals have different customs and different ways. Which ones of these different customs the government try to preserve?: the customs and ways of the Appalachian coal minners or the customs and ways of the Wall Street executives? or, even worse, my customs or yours?
Mactoul
Dec 21 2022 at 8:08pm
“Drawing on the Greek tradition, Strauss treats societies as politico-cultural wholes, each with a particular overall character, its politeia, or, in his translation of the Greek term, its regime. As he put it in “What is Political Philosophy?” (1957): “Regime means that whole, which we today are in the habit of viewing primarily in a fragmentized form; regime means simultaneously the form of life of a society, its style of life, its moral taste, form of society, form of state, form of government, spirit of laws.”
Jose Pablo
Dec 22 2022 at 9:02am
Yes, I agree, people as you were using it is an ancient abstract theoretical construction. Anyway, I was not expecting to see “people” walking around me any time soon.
And now, I understand what you meant; that:
“the ideal government is well positioned to preserve the long-term flourishing of the form of life of a society, its style of life, its moral taste, form of society, form of state, form of government, spirit of laws”
and because of that it is ok if the state bans the selling of tobacco products.
To be honest I have no clue what you are talking about, but it “feels”, at best, pretty tautological and, at its worst, an excuse to coerce the individual (the ones I do see at the grocery store) in the name of an abstract theoretical construction like the “life of a society” (which is also very bad poetry by the way).
Jose Pablo
Dec 21 2022 at 7:28pm
On second thought, why should “customs and ways” be preserved?
If they are “in danger” it should be because a significant number of the individuals in that group, choose not to follow these customs and ways.
Why, in this case, should the “customs and ways” be imposed (that is what “preserve” means) upon this individuals by an agent (the state) acting on behalf of a construction (the “people”) that does not exist (does not have will, does not act upon their will, does not cry, does not kill, does not fight, does not pay taxes … only individuals do this kind of things).
It looks like status quo bias to me and like a clear desire that the government preserves YOUR customs and YOUR ways.
Mactoul
Dec 21 2022 at 8:10pm
a recent study, “On ʻNationology,ʼ” by Plamen Akaliyski and others, compares the explanatory power of national units in the World Values Survey to that of alternative grouping units such as religion and ethnicity. It turns out that “nations capture the bulk” of the explainable variation in an individual’s cultural values. “Contrary to many scholars’ intuitions, alternative social aggregates, such as ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups, as well as diverse socio-demographic categories, add negligible explained variance to that already captured by nations.” Thus
Jose Pablo
Dec 22 2022 at 9:18am
Yes, I agree, the ‘government” (“nations” is not anything) reflects the cultural values of a group of its individual citizens (normally the more vocals or the ones with bigger political cloud).
That’s the reason why an “ideal” government has not to “preserve” anything but just to make sure that it changes the “culture” to be “supportted”, when the values of its citizens change (otherwise the American government would still be protecting Jim Crow laws in the name of “culture long term preservations and flourishing”) and also to make sure that reflecting the cultural values of its more vocal (or politically powerful) individuals does not alienate other individuals that dare to have different cultural values and that have also every right to long-term flourishement as individuals.
Pierre Lemieux
Dec 22 2022 at 12:34pm
Jose: I think that what you say is close to Anthony de Jasay’s theory of democratic values: He writes (in The State, p. 9):
Mactoul
Dec 21 2022 at 8:35pm
These two replies to Pablo are excerpted from this month’s First Things article by Eric Hendriks-Kim– Why China loves Conservatives–about Chinese appreciation of conservative thinkers including Strauss.
Mactoul
Dec 21 2022 at 7:56pm
People from poor countries are flocking not only to US but to all nations willing to take them. They are flocking to Britain, to Sweden to Qatar — not a paragon of liberty.
Qatar probably has higher proportion of foreign-born residents than US.
The liberty of pursuit of happiness promised in US Constitution– is it same as the libertarian understanding of it?
In 1789 and for 150 years after, the unwritten Constitution of American people that is the customs and the mores of American people were very different from the libertarian understanding. For a non-libertarian take, Russell Kirk expounds in Roots of American order.
Procrustes
Dec 21 2022 at 9:41pm
The New Zealand government can get away with such illiberal policies as the country has few checks and balances in governance. In particular, there is no upper House of Parliament that could work to modify excessive regulation.
The current government is even bringing in some legislation that can only be changed by future parliaments if there is a 60% majority in support of such a change.
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