[573] in libertarians
fwd: Cato president's reply in _Washington Post_
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (hhuang@MIT.EDU)
Mon Jan 16 10:36:55 1995
From: hhuang@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 95 10:28:01 -0500
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 1995 16:51:48 -0500 (EST)
From: James Rowh <frowhj@iia.org>
Subject: Cato Pres. in Washington Post
To: Libernet <libernet@Dartmouth.EDU>
The article below appeared in the Post on 1/11. This is the third
article in about 6 weeks which addresses libertarian issues. I find this
particularly encouraging because the Post is not normally a good (or
willing) forum for third party issues.
Hopefully this is a sign of real tidal-change and not just a statistical
fluke.
>---------- Begin article ----------<
DIALOG(R)File 146:Washington Post Online
(c) 1995 Washington Post. All rts. reserv.
2230017
Give Me Liberty, Not Utopia.
The Washington Post, January 11, 1995, FINAL Edition
By: Edward H. Crane
Section: EDITORIAL, p. a17
Story Type: OP-ED
Line Count: 85 Word Count: 934
In his column on the libertarian undercurrents of the political change that
is sweeping the country (op-ed, Dec. 6), E. J. Dionne sets up a straw man
when he writes that "the libertarians have also replaced the Marxists as
the world's leading Utopia builders." In fact, libertarianism-or what might
better be called market liberalism or the Jeffersonian vision-is very much
grounded in reality.
Will a society in which government is limited to its appropriate role as
protector of life, liberty, and property be a perfect society? Given the
foibles and folly of humanity, that can hardly be the case. At the same
time, there is mounting empirical evidence to support the libertarians'
theoretical case that a minimal government will yield a better society than
alternative models, including the so-called mixed economy.
Indeed, the litany of liberal reductios that Dionne dusts off to justify
a massive state presence in society increasingly rings hollow. What, for
instance, is wrong with "the notion that all individuals are entirely
responsible for themselves"? Dionne answers that some individuals are
children and don't have the resources or ability to be responsible for
themselves. No, but an obvious corollary to the idea that adults are
responsible for themselves is that they are also responsible for their
children. When they are not, the Boys' Town model suggested by Newt
Gingrich (and so ridiculed by liberals) is clearly a preferable approach to
subsidizing the irresponsible adults. So is removing government restraints
on adoption, particularly transracial adoption.
Dionne writes of the "initial impulse behind the welfare state" arising
from a desire to help orphans. But what could be more utopian than to think
that the welfare state would be limited to just such activities, much less
do a good job caring for children?
Turning over our educational system to a near-government monopoly has
resulted in "universal education," as Dionne claims, only in the sense that
we're forcing children to spend time in buildings we call schools. And
"spending time" is an apt description, given the fact that many inner-city
schools are not much more than day-care prisons. All socioeconomic levels
of society were more literate prior to the lamentable process that led to a
dominance of government-run schools in America, which took control of our
children's education from them and their parents, turning it over to
bureaucrats.
Also, there's nothing inconsistent with a clean environment and
libertarian legal theory, properly construed. Indeed, it is the lack of
clearly defined private property rights with respect to air, water, and
public lands that leads to environmental degradation. The more economically
advanced a society, the cleaner the environment. And economic performance
is inversely related to the level of government involvement in the economy.
The free market, Dionne argues, cannot lead to "full employment." But it
can and it would absent counterproductive government intervention in the
form of unnecessary business regulations, a 15 percent tax on employment
(the payroll tax), the minimum wage, and destabilizing monetary and fiscal
policy.
Finally, the day of Social Security's being a trump card for advocates
of big government is over. While the "initial impulse," as Dionne might put
it, for Social Security was the idea of helping the indigent elderly, it is
today a full-fledged socialized retirement system for America. As a
pay-as-you-go system, it robs the economy of savings and is headed for
financial catastrophe when the baby boomers start getting close to
retirement. A system of private pensions is likely to have the occasional
failure-although private insurance can and would do much to mitigate that
risk-but our government controlled retirement system is on the path to
failing an entire generation. It's no wonder a recent Gallup Poll found
that 54 percent of Americans favor making Social Security voluntary.
There are, at bottom, essentially two ways to order societal affairs:
coercively through the mechanisms of the state-political society-or
voluntarily through the private interaction of individuals and
associations-civil society. The 20th century has been marked by a grand
experiment in the former approach, and it is a failed experiment.
It's worth noting, too, that it is the utopians of left and right, faced
with a justly skeptical public, who invariably reach for the levers of
government power to force their vision of perfection on society. When the
new House minority leader, Richard Gephardt, said on a recent Sunday
morning talk show, "We're sent here, Democrats and Republicans, to solve
problems for the American people," he was speaking from a paradigm whose
utter rejection he still does not comprehend. Americans are looking for
politicians to leave them alone, not to presume to be able to solve
problems for them. They are looking for a government, in the words of
Thomas Jefferson, "which shall restrain men from injuring one another,
which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of
industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the
bread it has earned."
There is reason to believe that the November elections were less a
rejection of the policies of Bill Clinton or even the Great Society than
they were a rejection of the New Deal. The resurgence in respect for the
Fifth and 10th Amendments is nothing if not a rebuke of New Deal
jurisprudence. November's results were the political manifestation of that
rebuke. Americans of all stripes are coming to the conclusion that the
voluntary approach is invariably the best way of dealing with the very
practical problems we confront in our day-to-day, non-utopian lives.
The writer is president of the Cato Institute.
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.6.2
mQBNAi8NfkcAAAECAMyE/twWtkt77PTL/LoxF+i0ZApchNkQYEiMuBE3l/7Pay56
vJTk9PQhh4pZbwh1+gY8ERrV0yhUmrp6urAPtMUABRO0FGppbSA8ZnJvd2hqQGlp
YS5vcmc+
=Q1rv
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
/// ///
( o o ) ( o o )
\-oOO--( )--OOo-** Illigitimati non carborundum **-oOO--( )--OOo-/
| |
| Jim Rowh <--------------> frowhj@iia.org |
| |
| Sic Semper Tyrannis |
| |
/------------** Don't let the bastards grind you down **-------------\
Gateway to freedom: http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu/liberty/libfaq.html
------------------------------
