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Arnold Kling's Principles
I'll put them under the fold, with running commentary, my thoughts are in bold...
1. We weave a thread of self-reliance into a sturdy fabric of interdependence. By respecting the law, we reinforce impersonal justice. By competing intensely and fairly in an impersonal global market, we raise our standard of living through specialization and innovation. By upholding Constitutional principles for limited government, we sustain our individual freedom.
I am not sure I have grasped what it all means.
2. We are creative and pro-active in helping one another. We do not have the patience to wait for government, nor do we want to be lulled into passivity by the promise of government. Instead, to solve those problems that require collective action, we form voluntary associations, including civic groups, corporations, clubs, standards-setting bodies, consumer information services, and charitable foundations.
Agree fully.
3. Government must be kept in its place. We hold government officials to high standards of competence, honesty, and fairness. However, we do not confuse government with family. We do not confuse government with religion. We do not confuse government with business. We are conscious that any expansion of government responsibility, however well-intended, crowds out those institutions that are the true bulwark of our society.
I disagree with the last sentence. Many expansions of government, for instance tax incentives and foundation law, boost civil society. Relative to current political debates, however, I am on Arnold's side.
4. We celebrate the successes of others. We are glad when an entrepreneur becomes wealthy by finding a way to fill a customer need. We are glad when an immigrant family climbs the ladder of success. We are glad when people living in other countries make economic progress and spur us to innovate and improve.
Fully agree.
Ethical Principles
5. Government cannot legislate morality, but it does mess with the incentives. Those incentives should never be tilted against the institution of the family whose mission is to raise children to be fine, upstanding citizens.
I don't think all incentives should favor families, for instance higher education should be priced, unlike in much of Europe, and divorce should be fairly easy.
6. We maintain an ongoing conversation about morality and ethics. This conversation is informed by the Ten Commandments and Biblical scripture. It is informed by the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. It is vital to continue the conversation, even when consensus is difficult.
The Ten Commandments are pretty tricky, first there are eleven of them presented in the Bible, second they are presented in three different versions, third I would consider worshipping graven idols.
7. Like new businesses, new moral ideals can revitalize our society, even though many of them fail. For example, we recognize that we are a better people without racial segregation or barriers to the education and career opportunities for women. However, we judge some social experiments to be failures, including eugenics, Communism, and nihilistic cultural relativism.
A mouthful. What about non-nihilistic cultural relativism? Does that have a place? Do arranged Indian marriages count as eugenics?
International Principles
8. Our ideology does not have to be sustained by military suppression. Although it can inspire people to fight against tyranny, ultimately our ideology allows us to live in peace.
What is "military suppression"? The U.S. military should not have to suppress American citizens but it should try to prevent China from taking over Taiwan. I doubt if permanent peace is possible, though I wish it were.
9. We believe that people all over the world yearn for liberty, and for them we stand as a beacon and a champion. But we recognize that freedom is not ours to give when community leaders are not ready to seize the opportunity that it offers.
I am never sure how many people really yearn for liberty. I wish more of them did.
10. When foreign leaders issue threats against us, we take them at their word and act accordingly.
I am not sure words are the best way of reading true intentions. Many threats are issued for domestic consumption, or are best ignored. Some real villains stay pretty silent.
This is Tyler answering, by the way, not Tyrone. I feel what is missing is a more explicit platform about the importance of long-run economic growth, plus there should be greater consideration given to dealing with catastrophic events such as pandemics, natural disasters, nuclear terrorism, and so on.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 1, 2007 at 10:27 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
By upholding Constitutional principles for limited government, we sustain our individual freedom.
If Kling voted for Bush in '04, post-Padilla policy, the above is clearly crap, and he ought to spare himself the energy and others the irritation. I have no idea how he voted.
Posted by: SomeCallMeTim at Feb 1, 2007 10:53:10 AM
"I would consider worshipping graven idols."
But only if they come with a mean feijoada on the side.
Posted by: Keith at Feb 1, 2007 10:55:58 AM
I find it hard to take seriously any argument which invokes the Ten Commandments without actually listing them. If someone lists them, and argues for legal defense of, for instance, "honor thy father and thy mother lest ye die", then I seriously think that they are a crank.
Posted by: michael vassar at Feb 1, 2007 11:33:55 AM
yawn. I mediocre list at best.
Posted by: snoopy at Feb 1, 2007 12:03:09 PM
50 years ago the idea that you can not legislate morality was commonly used as an argument against civil rights legislation.
Posted by: spencer at Feb 1, 2007 12:46:44 PM
And what a devestating argument it is. By instituting federal regulation, the discussion was ended. When I was growing up (70's, early 80's), no discussion was permitted on these issues. As a result, later generations have no idea about why the behavior condemned by these laws is so condemned. We are left with the federal government as an oracle of morality.
Is this a small thing? The civil rights industry completely turned doctor King's vision on its head in less than two decades. Attempts to stop instutional discrimination by organs of the state itself are loudly denounced, and require uncertain court cases to proceed. Most people don't know whether to agree or disagree, because they simply have never been exposed to the underlying principles which the civil rights movement was advancing.
But it get much worse. When government becomes The Oracle of Morality, then absolutely no aspect of life is safe from legislation.
Never mind, we're already there.
Posted by: Nathan Zook at Feb 1, 2007 1:07:44 PM
The "legislating morality" line has been problematic to me for some time, even as I continue to argue against it. The problem I run into is always that at any stage, you are in some way legislating morality, although it tends to be a social rather than religious moral code. Lying, cheating, stealing, murder, etc... could all easily fall under the realm of "morality" in the religious sense (in fact, they're all mentioned in the ten commandments), yet are also all (to some extent) illegal in any secular society, as they would also be in a theocracy. Therefore, I would suggest that we do away with the phrase "legislating morality," since (save for the nihilists among us, if there does exist any with sincerity) we all tend to be in favor of it in some form. Of course, what is meant here is an entitlement to privacy with regards to how we practice religion and interract with one another in certain contexts, but I can't help but think there's a better way to say it.
Posted by: d.cous. at Feb 1, 2007 1:22:02 PM
What is often also missing from these abstract discussions of libertarian principles is the cultural and political context of the ideas they are against. We hear so much hot air from conservatives attacking Socialism and Communism (usually lumping them together). 65 years ago, Socialism was the dominant political position in almost all aspects of our life. Then, as now, it was preached in the main-stream churches, written about by the dominant academics, such as Reinhold Neibhur, and idealized by newspapers, magazines, and popular media. Unlike now, the powerful business interests also saw it as a good tool for: undermining labor movements with small, distributed costs rather than large, personal costs; gaining rents through pork, such as the Interstate Highway system, which also paved the way for whole new industries to emerge; and opening up new markets. In Europe, Socialism was the only bulwark against the spread of communism.
Posted by: Darin London at Feb 1, 2007 1:34:45 PM
d.cous.: "You can't legislate solutions to moral issues when there are substantial minority positions (or, in the more extreme cases, near equally sized plurality positions)."
Posted by: billb at Feb 1, 2007 1:53:45 PM
Divorce should be fairly easy...
There are lots of positive externalities from marriages that remain together. These are consumed primarily by the children of the couple, but I think society benefits substantially as well. Even without the obvious moral arguments in favor of marriage, I think there is a compelling reason for the state to provide incentives for marriage, or, at least, not to have disincentives to marriage.
Tyler, why do you think divorce should be easy?
Posted by: bastiat at Feb 1, 2007 2:48:49 PM
Nathan Zook, I don't know what to be more surprised at: your curmudgeonly "young people these days" attitude, or your fascination with the mythical perception of the government as "The Oracle of Morality." As someone from a younger generation, I assure you I understand why racism is condemned. And so do my peers. Where could you possibly get the idea that younger generations don't understand that? I think you'll find that there is less racism with each passing generation in America, and not just because the government tells us it is wrong. (Aren't young people infamous for rebelling and doing what the government/The Man/older generations don't want them to do?)
Are you saying that people who discriminate never got to fully explain their position? The government never game them a chance to explain themselves? Or that young whippersnappers these days just don't know...
Posted by: eriks at Feb 1, 2007 4:06:30 PM
Regarding the Ten Commandments, especially this ongoing push
by some folks to have them posted all over the place because of
their alleged universality, and aside from the issue Tyler noted
of their being competing lists of them in the Bible itself, only
about five of them are really pretty universal, with only three
of those showing up generally in legal codes, all of them with
plenty of caveats and loopholes. The three legal code ones are:
thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not bear
false witness. The other two are goody-goody family values stuff,
that rarely shows up in legal codes and is frequently violated,
the honor the father and mother and the prohibiton against adultery,
although in some states this is technically illegal, with a D.A. in
Luray, VA being busted for it about two years ago when his mistress
got pissed off at him for cheating on her.
The others are all very sectarian, such as the prohibition worshiping
graven images, conflicts within Christianity over which led to the
Iconoclastic Wars and also big parts of the Protestant Reformation
(check out all those sculptures of Jesus and Mary in Catholic churches),
not to mention the Sabbath rules (is it Saturday like the Jews and
the Seventh Day Adventists say, Sunday like most Christians say, or
Friday like the Muslims say?), and so forth, not to mention of course
the fundamental assertion of monotheism over polytheism.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Feb 1, 2007 5:10:11 PM
I don't think the government should promote a specific vision of family over other possible models. I don't think the nuclear family model is the best fit for such a mobile labour force. Preferable to let the market come up with something better.
d.cous: ...at any stage, you are in some way legislating morality, although it tends to be a social rather than religious moral code. Lying, cheating, stealing, murder, etc... could all easily fall under the realm of "morality" in the religious sense
But if the rationale behind a law is to maintain social order (e.g. people shouldn't steal because capitalism needs a working property rights system), then that's not really legislating morality. To be sure, you can still sneak in a lot of morality legislation via thin rationalizations (e.g. anything relating to marriages), but I think it's still a good start to force lawmakers to at least come up with a non-moral rationale for the law.
BTW, I believe Tyler favors easy divorce because of this.
Posted by: fling93 at Feb 1, 2007 6:36:44 PM
No fling93 - d.cous is right. We don't just want "social order" - after all, N. Korea has social order. Legislation is always based on some view of morality - what we think has value, think is Good. It's not a huge point, but I agree w/ d.cous that the phrase isn't helpful and should probably be dropped.
Posted by: BC at Feb 2, 2007 12:27:00 AM
After living in several countries around the world I am convinced that just about nobody yearns for liberty, and a substantial number fear and hate it.
Posted by: jb at Feb 2, 2007 5:00:21 AM
[When foreign leaders issue threats against us, we take them at their word and act accordingly.]
Since the USA in general issues far more threats than it receives (as you would expect; Mike Tyson also issues far more threats than he receives), I am not at all sure about this one.
Posted by: dsquared at Feb 2, 2007 5:12:44 AM
That sneaky bastard Kling is just trying to justify Iran and North Korea getting nuclear weapons to defend themselves!
Posted by: Barbar at Feb 2, 2007 6:47:43 AM
BC,
The point remains that one doesn't need to believe stealing is "morally wrong" to think it should be taxed (in the form of prison), only that their are costs not born by the decision-maker. Yes, its a system of morality to say that all trades must be mutually agreed upon, but its a system that essentially demonstrates that morality is a matter of subjective values, not something to be agreed upon and legislated.
Posted by: snoopy at Feb 2, 2007 9:27:20 AM
Except for the bit about the Ten Commandments, aren't Kling's principles just warmed over Milton Friedman, written with a lot less verve?
Posted by: Tim Gray at Feb 2, 2007 10:52:17 AM
d.cous is right. We don't just want "social order" - after all, N. Korea has social order.
No, we want liberty as well, which means as few laws as possible. If you legislate morality, you'll get more laws and less liberty and get a state more like North Korea.
You presume legislating morality is a good thing, but that's only if the morality that is legislated is yours. Typically, it's somebody else's, and you wouldn't like it very much if that somebody else had a very different religion or moral system.
Legislation is always based on some view of morality - what we think has value, think is Good.
Running red lights is not illegal because it's morally wrong, but because we need an orderly system of traffic flow so arbitrarily set up the convention that red means stop and green means go (it could very easily have been the other way around). On the other hand, it is immoral to lie, but that is not illegal -- except when it also involves breaking a contract or committing fraud (because those have economic consequences -- economic trade will decrease if contracts are not enforced and fraud is prevalent). But note that it's perfectly legal, for example, for a guy to lie to a woman in telling her that he loves her just so that he can have sex with her. Similarly, adultery is legal in most states.
And let's not forget all the laws on the books due to rent-seeking, like tariffs and subsidies. Nothing to do with morality, and all to do with self-interest.
Posted by: fling93 at Feb 2, 2007 12:42:36 PM
Fine, snoopy, but it's still a moral position.
Fling93 - this is really just a matter of semantics - you're applying the term "morality" to anything akin to traditional Judeo-Christian no-no's. i'm using the term more broadly because, at the end of the day, I don't think the distinctions can be drawn. Running red lights in our society is immoral because we think it is immoral to put other's lives at risk for no reason. Again, we legislate with an eye to producing some good/preventing some bad. Identifying these goods and bads is an exercise in morality - in fact, even determining what "self-interest" is requires moral thinking. You and I probably broadly agree on matters of legislation, which simply means we broadly share the same moral view. We colloquially make the distinction between morality and legality, because there are some areas of morality that we don't think should be enforced by the state. But that doesn't mean that all laws aren't based on a moral vision - and this is why I agree w/ d.cous that the phrase should be dropped.
Posted by: BC at Feb 2, 2007 2:17:38 PM
I guess the traffic light example merely illustrates that you can make a moral argument about any behavior at all. Which I think is a good reason why a defender of liberty should oppose legislating morality.
even determining what "self-interest" is requires moral thinking.
I'm not so sure about that. Financial self-interest (which is what rent-seeking typically involves) just requires making numerical calculations. No morality required. Just figure out what laws would result in more money in your pocket. Amoral entities such as firms have had no problems making such calculations.
We colloquially make the distinction between morality and legality, because there are some areas of morality that we don't think should be enforced by the state.
I don't think it's just a colloquial difference. I think there is a clear distinction between arguing on the basis of right and wrong versus order and chaos. Furthermore, how do you identify the areas of morality that should not be state-enforced? Presumably, we both agree that conduct that has little impact upon society or the social order shouldn't be legislated. Things like consensual sex between consenting adults, or consumption of drugs and/or pornography in the privacy of one's own home. So why not just make that the distinction?
This way, the people who consider such things morally wrong would have to argue about the behavior's impact upon the larger social order rather than just makign appeals to morality. Note, you can't really back up a moral argument with anything. The person you're debating either shares your moral view or they don't. With an argument based on social order, you can instead discuss the pros and cons of the expected effects of the behavior and of the proposed law. I would presume that the drawbacks of outlawing lying and adultery are why they are still legal even though they are widely agreed to be immoral.
Posted by: fling93 at Feb 2, 2007 5:29:38 PM
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Posted by: mirror at Feb 6, 2007 4:21:29 PM
Thank you, fling93, for clarifying this discussion about legislating morality. You're right; we just need to make the distinction that we don't want government to legislate personal morality. Thus, as a proponent of limited government, I say the State has no business telling an adult what drug he may or may not put in his body, nor any business controlling with whom an adult engages in consentual sex. Those are issues of personal morality, or, vice. We do, however, authorize government to enforce certain standards of conduct without which civil society cannot exist. Actions like theft or murder must be illegal and punishable to avoid a state of affairs where the strongest (or the most ruthless or devious) impose their will upon everyone else. That kind of anarchy would leave individuals most unfree, and really the whole point of government is to secure the basic liberties that accompany an organized society. As was discussed earlier, laws against running red lights have nothing to do with morality in any normal sense of the word; we have them because they allow the orderly traffic flow modern society wants and needs in order to function properly. Otherwise, you end up with roadway anarchy - I could just buy some sort of tank and make my drive to work a lot quicker, while those living in the vecinity would be left decidedly less free to travel. The debate about legislating personal morality boils down to this: an individual's action can be rightly prohibited by government if it interferes with his neighbor's right to personal safety or private property. Actions that do not directly violate another's rights should be free from meddling by the State. We can punish the bank robber and the red light runner, but throwing the neighborhood stoner in jail is utterly unacceptable because what he does with his free time in his own home is none of our stinking business.
Posted by: caleb at Feb 8, 2007 12:25:54 AM
The missing element in every human 'solution' is
an accurate definition of the creature.
The way we define 'human' determines our view of self,
others, relationships, institutions, life, and future. Many
problems in human experience are the result of false
and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised
in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.
Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe.
The balance is a vast void of human ignorance. Human
reason cannot fully function in such a void; thus, the
intellect can rise no higher than the criteria by which it
perceives and measures values.
Humanism makes man his own standard of measure.
However, as with all measuring systems, a standard
must be greater than the value measured. Based on
preponderant ignorance and an egocentric carnal
nature, humanism demotes reason to the simpleton
task of excuse-making in behalf of the rule of appe-
tites, desires, feelings, emotions, and glands.
Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament,
cannot invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist
lacks a predictive capability. Without instinct or trans-
cendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with
foresight and vision for progression and survival. Lack-
ing foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and
is unwittingly committed to mediocrity, collectivism,
averages, and regression - and worse. Humanism is an
unworthy worship.
The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with
a functional faith while not-so-patiently awaiting the
foot-dragging growth of human knowledge and behav-
ior. Faith, initiated by the Creator and revealed and
validated in His Word, the Bible, brings a transcend-
ent standard to man the choice-maker. Other philo-
sophies and religions are man-made, humanism, and
thereby lack what only the Bible has:
1.Transcendent Criteria and
2.Fulfilled Prophetic Validation.
The vision of faith in God and His Word is survival
equipment for today and the future. Only the Creator,
who made us in His own image, is qualified to define
us accurately.
Human is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
nature and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of
Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive
characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
foundation of his environments, institutions, and re-
spectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is orien-
ted to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the
universe.
That human institution which is structured on the
principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator with
...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the natural
Order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are
necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and
nature's God. Biblical principles are still today the
foundation under Western Civilization and the American
way of life. To the advent of a new season we commend the
present generation and the "multitudes in the valley of
decision."
Let us proclaim it. Behold!
The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV
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Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 1, 2008 10:10:43 PM
Posted by: at Oct 22, 2008 10:27:25 PM
thank you very much
Posted by: jad games at Feb 9, 2010 2:14:18 PM
