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Nanny State
The government really doesn't have the right to tell you what to do, provided you are respecting the rights of others. Yes maybe public order is at stake and restriction leads to greater liberty, such as when we pay taxes for public goods. Or maybe the line between liberty and fraudulent behavior is hard to define and we should err on the side of restriction to limit criminal activity. Or maybe you can imagine a paternalism so "soft" (brussels sprouts in the SEC cafeteria?) that no one could rightfully call it coercion.
But in the majority of cases, government really doesn't have the right to tell you what to do.
You can huff and puff and tell me all about socially constructed individuals and the moral arbitrariness of the market's bargaining solution. But the more you chip away at the rights of the individual, the more you are weakening the case for the morality of state authority as well. On a day-to-day basis states are made up of acting individuals. Bureaucracy can, if used properly, be an enabler of individual autonomy. But the case for bureaucracy, when indeed that case holds, relies on the intrinsic and instrumental values of individual autonomy.
Knocking down the moral status of me -- the victim -- does not elevate the moral status of the guy who works at the Department of Agriculture. Should reading Rawls raise your opinion of The Ministry of Silly Walks?
I want my non-pasteurized, not-aged-for-six-months cheese!
If you agree with the sentiments expressed in this post, you should read David Harsanyi's new and forceful Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning American into a Nation of Children.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 8, 2007 at 07:21 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Oh good, an economist unafraid to make enormous and unjustified metaethical claims. I wonder how he'd respond if a political philosopher or ethicist were so bold about making economic pronouncements.
My hint: In our discipline, it is considered good manners to not simply make assertions but also to back them up with some kind of argument. Why should we value individual autonomy (whichever defintion of that you're referring to) above all other things? If you can't answer that good luck with making your claim about the rights of government (whatever right are!).
Posted by: Finnsense at Oct 8, 2007 8:52:38 AM
The government really doesn't have the right to tell you what to do
To be a little pedantic, government doesn't have any rights whatsoever. Individuals can have rights, but artificially constructed institution can't. What governmnet does have, of course, is power. Sometimes that power is granted by the people writ large, sometimes it's granted by cliques with guns, but at the end of the day, all a government has is power.
Posted by: Bartman at Oct 8, 2007 9:03:11 AM
If you agree with the sentiments expressed in this post, you should read David Harsanyi's new and forceful Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning American into a Nation of Children.
You would probably also enjoy Michael Bywater's excellent Big Babies, which makes a similar if broader point about universal infantilisation.
Posted by: Seamus McCauley at Oct 8, 2007 9:20:00 AM
I want my non-pasteurized, not-aged-for-six-months cheese!
And most of the population wants the freedom from risk in anything they might purchase or be allowed to do.
An example: My mother returned from Finland with two packages of dried mushrooms purchased from Stockman's (a Finnish department store). One was morels, the other false morels. The false morels are (possibly deadly) poisonous. The two were sold beside each other and the packaging was more or less identical, although there was a smallish sticker on the false morels indicating they were poisonous.
Preparation instructions were the same size for both packages with the instructions on the false morels indicating they had to be boiled thoroughly in a well-ventilated room and that the boiling water should be considered poisonous.
Would this be acceptable in North America?
Of course not. There is a general expectation that any food item you purchased should not be dangerous except in the most exceptional of circumstances. Simple things like failing to read the label should not be fatal.
Safety regulations are simply the government's response to the vast majority's preferences for being insulated from risk. I dislike the idea that the nanny state is being "imposed" from the outside. In most cases (and in this case), the government gives us more or less what we (i.e. the majority) want.
If you want to pick an fight, pick it with our society as a whole as opposed to blaming bureaucrats and politicians.
Posted by: Tom West at Oct 8, 2007 9:25:16 AM
To be fair Tom, potatoes are poisonous if you don't cook them and you don't see a lot of labels on them. We in Finland are also mushroom obsessed so it's only the foreigners who are likely to kill themselves.
Posted by: Finnsense at Oct 8, 2007 9:44:21 AM
Finnsense,
Never seen an economist make enormous and unjustified metaethical claims? Pick up a copy of the New York Times sometime and read any Paul Krugman column.
Posted by: Perry at Oct 8, 2007 10:28:07 AM
Finnsense, your comment is odd. First, you write: "Why should we value individual autonomy (whichever defintion of that you're referring to) above all other things?" The very first paragraph of my post stresses that I don't value autonomy over all things. Then consider: "I wonder how he'd respond if a political philosopher or ethicist were so bold about making economic pronouncements." This happens *all the time* and in fact I've published numerous articles in response, as has David Schmidtz. I consider it a great scandal of philosophy. Most generally, do you really think that trained philosophers are the only people qualified to hold moral views?
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Oct 8, 2007 10:32:47 AM
"My hint: In our discipline, it is considered good manners to not simply make assertions but also to back them up with some kind of argument. Why should we value individual autonomy (whichever defintion of that you're referring to) above all other things? If you can't answer that good luck with making your claim about the rights of government (whatever right are!)."
Because it all starts at the individual. No matter what your philosophical outlook, you can only prove that autonomous individuals exist. It's when people try to argue that clearly non-tangible metaethical concepts hold moral imperatives above the individual that I begin to lose interest. BTW, ethics based arguments about the value of individual autonomy is not without intellectual merit.
Posted by: John Pertz at Oct 8, 2007 10:32:53 AM
Uncooked potatoes are poisonous? I eat them all the time!
Posted by: TGGP at Oct 8, 2007 10:39:31 AM
In most cases (and in this case), the government gives us more or less what we (i.e. the majority) want.
I regretfully agree. I think the majority has decided to become big babies.
Posted by: RJ at Oct 8, 2007 10:40:17 AM
Safety regulations are simply the government's response to the vast majority's preferences for being insulated from risk.
This is naive. Many government regulations are designed to reduce competition *under the guise* of being a response to some great public safety concern. Do you think that there was actually a great groundswell of public opposition to the availability of unpasteurized milk, given that anyone who wanted to could buy pasteurized? There wasn't. Rather, this was the outcome of effective lobbying by larger milk producers. Similarly, very few people are actually concerned about the grave risks posed by the availability of herbal medicines - the entire effort to bring them under the FDA's purview (and probably ban them, more or less), is driven by corporate drug lobbyists. I will certainly concede that the public will generally go along with this kind of legislation, because it typically hurts only a small segment of the population, but it doesn't occur as a 'response to the majority's preferences'.
Posted by: bbartlog at Oct 8, 2007 11:29:32 AM
How appropriate that while promoting a book that complains about infantilization, Tyler wails "I want my non-pasteurized, not-aged-for-six-months cheese!"
How strange that while citing a Millsian rationale (the government really doesn't have the right to tell you what to do, provided you are respecting the rights of others) he disparages other ideas of Mills such as: "Again, trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description of goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons, and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principle, comes within the jurisdiction of society..." Finnsense very appropriately ridiculed Tyler's "enormous and unjustified metaethical claims".
What's enormous and unjustified? The conflation of libertarian ideas of rights with morality.
At the heart of Tyler's (and most libertarian's) problems is the fact that libertarians have no worthwhile explanation of rights. They rely on centuries-old, nonsense-on-stilts natural rights, gut feeling "I know them when I see them" say-so, or other silliness.
So now Harsanyi has written a book founded on some unfounded notion of rights, claiming that we're not macho enough. I ridicule this attitude in my Libertarianism In One Lesson; The Second Lesson: "When government provides a service, it is a crutch. When private enterprise provides the same service, you are a manly man to purchase it."
Posted by: Mike Huben at Oct 8, 2007 11:41:01 AM
Tyler,
You wrote "The very first paragraph of my post stresses that I don't value autonomy over all things.", which is not accurate. Your first paragraph accepts that government intervention is not always a bad thing but in your third paragraph you state that such intervention is only justifiable if it furthers individual autonomy.
You also wrote "Most generally, do you really think that trained philosophers are the only people qualified to hold moral views?" There's an important difference between holding moral views and having moral intuitions. People will have various intuitions whether I like it or not but it is a taste, nothing more. If you're going to wrestle with the issues and feel confident enough to try to convince others, then you need to be careful and yes, you do need to be trained. I very much doubt you would be as cavalier with economics as you are in this post with ethics. Maybe you'll reply that you are just stating an opinion here but it really does look like an argument - and to the untrained a superficially compelling one. That's a bit dangerous.
Posted by: Finnsense at Oct 8, 2007 11:52:08 AM
Back and forth and back and forth about whether USDA regulations represent a nanny state sponsored by nutrition do-gooders and food safety nuts.
That's not even in the ballpark of where federal food policy stands today.
Here is a more useful question about food safety policy: Why does the federal government forbid a private company, Creekstone, to test all its meat for mad cow disease?
Here is a more useful question about nutrition policy: Why does the federal government actively sponsor more than $600 million per year in advertising and promotion campaigns to get Americans to eat more beef, pork, and cheese -- but spends no comparable amount to promote fruits and vegetables?
Federal food policy does frequently stand in opposition to sound free market principles. But it's not the kind of opposition you might think.
Posted by: Parke at Oct 8, 2007 11:58:40 AM
Tyler writes: "Most generally, do you really think that trained philosophers are the only people qualified to hold moral views?"
Answering a question with a question is an evasion. I think his point was why should we consider YOUR moral views to be worth anything? That burden is yours to bear, Tyler.
Tyler also writes: "The very first paragraph of my post stresses that I don't value autonomy over all things."
But then you proceed to write as if you'd never said it without any explanation beyond your say-so. As finnsense pointed out.
John Pertz writes: "Because it all starts at the individual. No matter what your philosophical outlook, you can only prove that autonomous individuals exist."
No, John, that is merely a viewpoint. You are a collection of organs, which are collections of cells, which are collections of organelles, which are collections of molecules, which are collections of atoms, which are collections of yet simpler particles. And you are part of a collection of individuals which comprise a society, which is part of a collection of societies which comprise a biological species, which is part of an ecology, which is part of a planetary surface, etc. There are emergent properties at each level which are not obvious or easily described at other levels. Claiming only one viewpoint is primary or valid blinkers you to the important facts of the other levels.
Posted by: Mike Huben at Oct 8, 2007 12:07:07 PM
LOL - shouldn't this post be credited to Tyrone?
Posted by: Eric H at Oct 8, 2007 12:13:06 PM
I'm sure he's to modest to mention it, but Tyler has a better publication record in the top journals of moral and political philosophy than most philosophers. He's had papers in Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, and Social Philosophy and Policy. He has also co-authored papers with Derek Parfit, perhaps the greatest living moral philosopher. Anyway, this is beside the point, which is that intelligent social commentators should have well-developed moral views, whether they've published in Ethics or not.
Posted by: Will Wilkinson at Oct 8, 2007 12:52:02 PM
The reason people want the government to ensure food safety, etc., is not that they all want to be big babies. It's that there simply isn't enough time to learn everything that would have to be learned to do it all yourself and make good choices. If I were omniscient, and could look at a food package / medicine / etc and immediately know everything there was to know about it, I wouldn't think the FDA or government regulation were helpful either. But I am not omniscient, and nor are you, nor do I have the time to become omniscient, not even within my own profession. There is just too damn much to know and not enough time to learn it all. (As an aside on this, I used to work in a warehouse that stocked over 300,000 different products that you, an individual consumer, could buy. This was considered a medium-sized warehouse by mid-1980s standards. How long would it take you to learn just the NAMES of all those products? What on earth makes you think that you can make anywhere near an optimal choice about anything, given that you've probably never even heard of 99.99% of everything?)
So, taking a shortcut and whacking off great chunks of possible realities (e.g., that the meat has a lot of e-coli in it) may whack off some realities in which I would be better off, if I were omniscient, but mostly whacks off realities in which I would be worse off, much worse off in fact, given that I'm not omniscient.
The twin inabilities to deal with the concepts of lack of omniscience and risk, and the consequent inability to see that a large reduction in risk may well be worth a small reduction in return (when applied to things other than financial markets), and that it can therefore be OPTIMAL to choose to have government regulation even though sometimes it screws up and does inane things, is, I have long believed, a hallmark, perhaps even a defining characteristic, of the conservative mind.
Posted by: John at Oct 8, 2007 12:55:38 PM
John has hit the nail right on the head. If I had to continually decide for myself what foods were safe to eat, what drugs were risky and what weren't, what child safety seat matches my personal balance between safety and cost, I would go out of my mind. There's no question that the personal amount of liberty I enjoy would be greatly diminished if governments didn't act as my nanny a good portion of the time, and I had to decide everything for myself. I assure you that any increased liberty you may personally experience from deciding to buy unpasteurized cheese will be overwhelmed by a million others who will view the exercise of this liberty as a burden.
Posted by: Jean Gault at Oct 8, 2007 1:04:58 PM
The fallacy of the argument lies in treating "government" as an independent entity. This is a strawman.
There are types of government. One can complain that a non-democratic government is operating against the interests or desires of the majority. One could even call it an illegitimate government.
Things are different in a democracy. There are only several ways to examine the situation in this case. One can assert that the government is not a true democracy in that it doesn't do the bidding of the majority. This is a failed or imperfect or fake democracy. There are many such around the world. They hold nominal elections, but they are meaningless.
When it comes to the US one can make a similar claim. This is not philosophical but a question of fact. Does the US democracy currently reflect the desires of the majority? Many on the left think not. Many on the right think not as well, but point to different examples.
I'm going to assume that the government is adequately democratic for the moment so we can address Cowen's philosophical point. If the government is democratic and has put policies into place that reflect the will of the majority then what happens to those who don't like the results.
Tyler Cowen spends his career railing against those decisions that he, personally, doesn't like. He calls these restrictions on his personal liberty. What's the remedy? From a philosophical point of view there are only two, one can accept the tyranny of the majority as one of the limitations of democracy or one can push for anarchy.
If one is interested in practical politics one has the option to push for change of those restrictions that one opposes. If you don't like motorbike helmets then work to get the law repealed. If your arguments are convincing you may get your way.
What libertarianism ultimately boils down to is a dislike of democracy and the requirement that not everyone gets what they want. The petulant position libertarians adopt is juvenile and worse then the "nanny state" they abhor. It least the nanny state was installed in response to popular demand. You can't get everything you want in life. Grow up.
Posted by: robertdfeinman at Oct 8, 2007 1:23:14 PM
I wonder how he'd respond if a political philosopher or ethicist were so bold about making economic pronouncements.
The difference is that economists have special insight into economic questions, while philosophers have no special insight into moral questions. Or much of anything, really.
Posted by: Brandon Berg at Oct 8, 2007 1:25:30 PM
If John and Jean were right, you would expect the FDA, USDA et. al. to act in an advisory and informative manner, which would address the problem of too many choices without actually eliminating them. In order to justify the elimination of choices by force, however, you need to postulate not a consumer who is bewildered by the array of choices (for such a consumer could easily be rescued), but a consumer who will make bad choices even if informed. I wonder what they would make of the USDA's (or was it the FDA's?) recent attempt to stop a dairy from (correctly) labeling their milk as rBGH-free (or more accurately, produced by rBHG-free cows). Was that really an attempt to allay consumer confusion, or was it driven by the desire of other producers to protect their profits?
Posted by: bbartlog at Oct 8, 2007 1:30:13 PM
It's amazing how many people really won't buy into this statement of mine: "But in the majority of cases, government really doesn't have the right to tell you what to do." Shame on you all!
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Oct 8, 2007 1:43:43 PM
At least the nanny state was installed in response to popular demand.
For a few specific cases (MADD comes to mind) you can find popular support for a nanny state idea. When you consider the number of deaths caused by drunk drivers, the existence of MADD is not too surprising.
But in general - where is this supposed popular support for the nanny state? Where are the PACs? I don't see the Concerned Citizens for More Helmet Laws, the Mothers Against Raw Milk, nor any citizen's group opposed to internet gambling, alternative medicine, higher highway speed limits, and so on. When you see legislation to restrict these things, you can almost always follow the money and see that some corporate interest has decided to skew the playing field in its favor. The public-interest rationale is just added as window dressing.
libertarianism ... the requirement that not everyone gets what they want ... petulant ... juvenile ... You can't get everything you want ... Grow up
I think we're aware that there are tradeoffs in life, thanks. This is an economics blog after all.
Posted by: bbartlog at Oct 8, 2007 1:47:26 PM
Will Wilkinson,
You of all people should chime in here. I have some sympathy with Tyler's politics (though for practical not ethical reasons) but as a philosopher, you really see nothing wrong with the polemical nature of this post?
I mistakenly assumed that the problem was that Tyler wasn't aware of the unjustified (and most would agree unjustifiable) assumptions upon which his post rests for its credibility. Since that's obviously not the case I wonder what his excuse is. Maybe he would argue he's preaching to the converted and anyway it's a blog post, but in my view it's a bit cheeky.
As for your comment that "intelligent social commentators should have well-developed moral views" I agree. One sign of a well-developed moral view though, is that it is expressed with transparent assumptions and a nod to the complexity of these issues. "Government really doesn't have the right to tell you what to do." is not a sentence that possesses these qualities.
Frankly, I would be far happier if libertarians gave up using ethical arguments to support their position and focussed on the practical. It's not as though American governments are so competent it's hard to find reasons to minimise their involvement in anything.
Posted by: Finnsense at Oct 8, 2007 1:49:33 PM
