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Libertarian heresies
Here is a good report on my libertarian heresies, summarizing a talk I gave at the Institute for Humane Studies a few weeks ago. Excerpt:
Russia, he pointed out, is failing as a free society not because it is poor - Putin’s shrewed management of high commodity prices has put paid to much Russian poverty - but because Russians tend to privilege their friends and contacts above all else, leading to epic levels of corruption. Corruption, of course, is a signal rule of law failure.
He then asked, somewhat rhetorically, if liberty was confined (and defined) by culture: ‘We should not presume that our values are as universal as we often think they are’. What happens, he asked rhetorically, if - in order to enjoy the benefits of liberty and prosperity - societies have to undergo a major cultural transformation, including the loss of many appealing values? Cowen focussed on Russian loyalty and friendship, but there are potentially many others. Think, for example, of the extended family so privileged throughout the Islamic world, or the communitarian values common in many indigenous societies.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 29, 2008 at 12:34 PM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
Is there any way we could hear or read the actual talk or one like it?
Posted by: Charlie at May 29, 2008 3:55:07 PM
Dang, wish I'd taken more notes - I just listened to the address and blogged it the next day, focusing on what took my interest. I've still got some stuff floating around, let me look for it and if it's useful I'll update my post.
Posted by: skepticlawyer at May 29, 2008 4:11:08 PM
If cronyism, nepotism and corruption are rampant I want less, not more, government.
Posted by: Biopolitical at May 29, 2008 4:18:25 PM
For example, three studies of the population of Iraq found that about half of all married couples were first or second cousins (with more first cousin than second cousin marriages). This keeps extended families from getting _too_ extended and thus makes them very cohesive economically and emotionally: if I organize an arranged marriage between my son and my sibling's daughter, then our grandchildren will be our mutual heirs. This makes it much simpler in terms of who inherits the family business.
The downside of the high levels of cousin marriage found from Morocco to parts of India is that Western-style individualism is less feasible.
See http://www.isteve.com/cousin_marriage_conundrum.htm
Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 29, 2008 4:24:00 PM
For example, three studies of the population of Iraq found that about half of all married couples were first or second cousins (with more first cousin than second cousin marriages). This keeps extended families from getting _too_ extended and thus makes them very cohesive economically and emotionally: if I organize an arranged marriage between my son and my sibling's daughter, then our grandchildren will be our mutual heirs. This makes it much simpler in terms of who inherits the family business.
The downside of the high levels of cousin marriage found from Morocco to parts of India is that Western-style individualism is less feasible.
See http://www.isteve.com/cousin_marriage_conundrum.htm
Posted by: Steve Sailer at May 29, 2008 4:26:20 PM
But I think Tyler's point is that if you have cronyism, nepotism, and corruption, you tend to actually get more intrusive government as a consequence, whether you want it or not.
Also, it's tough to have funtioning markets under these circumstances as well.
I think the larger point is that the libertarian approach to things needs a strong
underlying foundation of valuing prosperity and the rule of law above other
values, such as the communitarian or clan-oriented ones mentioned.
Posted by: An Onyx Mousse at May 29, 2008 4:27:18 PM
The greater heresy is to consider that question in light of open borders.
Posted by: 8 at May 29, 2008 4:48:17 PM
seems to me that Pacifists like Mennonites can have close extended families and economic freedom so maybe it is morality that is needed. Libertarians have the moral values against initiation of force done inside or outside of government. Maybe economic liberalism can only work if enough people buy into this morality.
Some people point to Somaliland and say that in these societies non-centralized government and anarchy are best state. I have not studied Somaliland enough to have a strong opinion.
I think that Somaliland gets a mention at the end of this podcast:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/04/coyne_on_export.html
Posted by: Floccina at May 29, 2008 5:26:44 PM
If people are poor as a consequence of their highly valued social mores... then why give a crap that they are poor? They are rich in what matters to them.
Posted by: Toxic at May 29, 2008 5:35:20 PM
If people are poor as a consequence of their highly valued social mores... then why give a crap that they are poor? They are rich in what matters to them.
Posted by: Toxic at May 29, 2008 5:35:26 PM
If people are poor as a consequence of their highly valued social mores... then why give a crap that they are poor? They are rich in what matters to them.
Posted by: Toxic at May 29, 2008 5:35:37 PM
If people are poor as a consequence of their highly valued social mores... then why give a crap that they are poor? They are rich in what matters to them.
Posted by: Toxic at May 29, 2008 5:35:48 PM
I'd like to second Charlie's request - Tyler, is there any way you could make available audio or a transcript of that talk, or even just your notes for it, if such exist?
Posted by: thuddmonkey at May 29, 2008 5:35:54 PM
I too would like to read a copy of Tyler's talk.
Posted by: John at May 29, 2008 5:54:37 PM
I think that Tyler is confusing the western values of friendship, loyalty, and family which are based on relatively uncontrained, free choices with "friendship and loyalty," which are based on a gang mentality, in which deviation is punished. Similarly, as some of Sadam`s family found out, making choices that don't coincide with the "family" leadership`s desires can also be punished.
In both cases, you can look back to instances in American history, in which the older versions of these "values" were practiced. In almost every case, they were used to benefit a leadership at the expense of relatively innocent, but less powerful groups.
In short, I think that evolving to versions of friendship, loyalty, and family that are closer to current western versions is going to be a positive for virtually everyone, except, possibly, the beneficiaries of the current system.
Posted by: John Bailey at May 29, 2008 6:09:00 PM
I'm working on the rest of it, everyone - it's exams in Oxford town just now, which involves both dressing up in silly clothes and studying like a maniac. Google 'sub fusc' and all will be revealed.
Give me a day or so :)
Posted by: skepticlawyer at May 29, 2008 6:35:00 PM
Radical self-criticism on a libertarian blog? You guys just earned a couple points of respect from me.
Governement probably grows with complexity. 150 years ago, most people lived on farms on a subsistenze level. There was not much to regulate and an individual farmer couldn't do much deliberate or accidental harm to others.
Today, we've got highways and cars, planes, sky scrapers, nuclear power plants, complicated medical procedures and medication, processed food. The internet can be abused in all kinds of fraudulant and criminal ways etc.
Libertarians frequently propose private institutions to replace governement based regulation or to provide infrastructure. But these institutions would have to be big as well. So size alone is not a good argument against governement.
Posted by: Ethnic Austrian at May 29, 2008 6:39:05 PM
"So size alone is not a good argument against governement."
I don't think anyone has ever said that government is bad because it's big. The argument is usually that government itself is problematic -- the quote that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one" encapsulates this rather nicely.
Thus, if government by its nature isn't terribly desirable, then more of it is even less desirable.
Posted by: Colin at May 29, 2008 6:50:47 PM
I, too, would like to read a draft of the speech, if one is availble. Thanks.
Posted by: Mike at May 29, 2008 7:08:26 PM
Obviously this is subject to the caveat that the summary is accurate...
Rather, Cowen’s positive liberty is closer to Amartya Sen’s account of ‘capabilities’ - people should be able to do certain things, and the most successful society is one where the most people can do the most things. Then - and this is where there was an audible gasp around the room - he argued that roughly 70% of the liberties worth having fall into this ‘ability’ version of positive liberty.
I would like to know if this heretical definition of liberty means anything besides respect for people's property. If it does, then I don't agree with it. (E.g. if I'm supposed to have the liberty to get an education or use the Internet, even if I don't pay for it and no one else wants to.) And if it means less than that--i.e. if you could have full liberty in Cowen's sense but still have people invade your property rights--then I think it's too narrow.
Maybe it would make more sense if I heard the speech, but I also don't get how libertarianism makes it harder for a society to respect families or whatever. Is the idea, say, that the grandfather can't tell you whom to marry if you're free to go to the city and get a job and an apartment?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at May 29, 2008 7:32:30 PM
I don't usually speak from notes, but skepticlawyer may be able to help out...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at May 29, 2008 7:34:41 PM
Chicken or egg.
Academic departments right here in the U.S. operate, it seems to me, quite a bit like the stasi or the Gambinos, minus the assassinations. Well, career assassinations maybe. I think it's the structure of the system that necessitates cronyism. People have no choices, therefore they have to suck up.
I don't really think that it's values per se, but it probably is a long-term evolution to get out of the cycle. And once you are out, you barely realize it before they pull you back in (e.g. 2 party system). If the people don't realize we are on the long road to liberty, then what's to stop us from going back in the opposite direction? Culture may help, but I feel pretty tenuous right now. I think our culture showed itself pretty amenable to police state regression over the last 7 years all because of 19 guys with carton cutters.
Posted by: Andrew at May 29, 2008 7:58:29 PM
Tyler, sorry that you don't have notes. The skepticlawyer only summarizes three of the five points. What were the other two? Thanks.
Posted by: mike at May 29, 2008 8:06:39 PM
I think our culture showed itself pretty amenable to police state regression over the last 7 years all because of 19 guys with carton cutters.
True.
And I would hold self-professed libertarians in much higher regard if it weren't for the fact that they seem to ignore that. Those who consider helmet laws a more important issue than habeas corpus ought not, IMO, be considered champions of liberty.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at May 29, 2008 9:26:34 PM
The problem is that most libertarians reflexively flinch at any mention of "positive liberties," just as the account of Tyler's talk suggests, but the vast majority of people only care about positive liberties. Negative liberties aren't an end in themselves because you desire them in order to do X, Y, and Z. Only a few of the truly hardcore libertarians (David Friedman being the most obvious example, plus Robert Nozick in the Utopia section of "Anarchy, State, and Utopia") realize this and argue in terms of how maximizing negative liberty leads to consequences that foster maximum positive liberty.
I have a wager of sorts for my fellow libertarians: Say you could live in either contemporary America or a fully libertarian society that, for now, has a Bronze Age standard of living. Which would you choose? I'll take contemporary America, because whatever its lack of libertarian purity, it still offers me vastly more choices.
Posted by: Franklin Harris at May 29, 2008 9:40:14 PM
That sounds like a classic talk.
One point concerning Russia, another concerning culture in general:
1) Russia isn't where it is because of culture. If we want to isolate a single factor, my take would be this: Russia collapsed because Perestroika started when the system was already in a very bad shape, and because these reform attempts were too moderate (too "Kadarist") to establish a functioning market economy, but radical enough to disorganize the state. The solidarities that hampered Russia reforms were:
a) company solidarity: managers and workers, in the absence of plan and market, had to coordinate to get state subsidies and scarce resouces in informal networks. This is not ancient communal solidarity, it was a consequence of the collapse of institutional references.
b) corruption networks that were not family-based, but also formed in the black market, in the communist party, etc. But, let's face it, if the oligarchs (not my favourite people) had wanted to get rich within the confines of the law, that would be exceedingly hard, since those confines were shifting.
2) As for the need to abandon communal values as we move toward modernity, that is the basic idea of the sociological classics. It is basically true, but experience also shows that culture is a highly flexible and unstable entity, not a solid structure. Culture does not survive the centuries because it is very strongly entrenched, it survives because it is highlt adaptable. Christianity, for one, has survived quite a few social systems, and democracy flourished, in different ways, in slave-owning societies in Athens and America, in contemporary liberal democracies, and in India, whose poverty and ethnic complexity should probably make it impossible according to the "democracy depends on culture" hypothesis.
Posted by: NPTO at May 29, 2008 9:57:11 PM
I have a wager of sorts for my fellow libertarians: Say you could live in either contemporary America or a fully libertarian society that, for now, has a Bronze Age standard of living. Which would you choose?
Assuming you design the choice so that the Bronze Age libertarian society doesn't trade with the current Western countries etc. in order to advance quickly in a generation, I would choose contemporary America.
But what is the point that question? I would also rather, say, we get national health care rather than my brother dies in a plane crash. What is that supposed to prove?
And it's not even that the two are unrelated. In a society closer to the libertarian ideal, people would be wealthier, have faster computers, and all the other things you presumably like about contemporary America and its options for your lifestyle.
If your point is merely that some libertarians lose perspective and need to chill out, fair enough; I agree totally. But I don't think they're making any type of mistake in their call for the government to leave them alone.
Posted by: Bob Murphy at May 29, 2008 10:09:39 PM
Bob, my point is that people are interested positive liberties (i.e., the choices actually available to them) rather than negative liberties, per se. So, we should tailor our arguments accordingly. Maybe that means, as you say, "chill out."
This is part of a more general idea I have, which I won't defend here, that there are diminishing marginal returns to respecting rights and also, ironically, diminishing marginal returns to utilitarianism, which is why most Western liberal thought ends up being an argument over reconciling the two. And it's why I also think the utilitarian/natural rights schism between libertarians is a feature, not a bug; it hints that libertarianism is correct because it, more than any other school of political thought, seems to best satisfy the broadly defined moral requirements of both.
Posted by: Franklin Harris at May 29, 2008 10:56:10 PM
I don't get the question - if society is going down the gurgler because people aren't engaging in open trading but prefer to operate in closed close-knit groups - then so what? By Libertarian standards the Russians aren't doing anything wrong. Forcing Russians to operate outside of their preferred close-knit ties would be Illibertarian.
On the other hand, I like F. Harris' question as T. Cowen rightly pointed out that governments were rather small because societies were rather small. It's hard to say whether Libertarians could really build a modern society. I believe T. Cowen hits upon another point that a functioning society does have positive duties places on people. As one commentator pointed out ( http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/TOXICVAL.HTM )'an eye for eye' was a civilising step for people and yet it's a positive duty not a negative right. 'An eye an eye' is a duty upon the victim and their assistants to procure a punishment or restitution to the level of the crime committed and no more. Compare this to many tribal and feudal societies - a small crime can be spark a long and bloody conflict that can last generations. Yet this can be considered Libertarian - a criminal has no right to place duties with regard to punishment and if a tribe stands by the criminal and against the victim and his tribe then the victim's tribe could reasonably go to war because the tribe is abetting a crime. I do believe T. Cowen has shown Libertarians again why there's no society that could be considered 'Libertarian'.
Posted by: Gil at May 29, 2008 10:59:24 PM
On the other hand, I like F. Harris' question as T. Cowen rightly pointed out that governments were rather small because societies were rather small.
I should probably clarify that my wager doesn't assume the libertarian Bronze Age society needs government growth to eventually reach a modern standard of living. In fact, I assume that it will grow more rapidly without government growth. I just don't think it's going to surpass modern living standards in one person's lifetime, which is what's at stake for the person taking the wager.
Posted by: Franklin Harris at May 30, 2008 1:02:34 AM
Two points on Tyler's talk (as summarized by skepticlawyer blog):
1. It might be good for Tyler to speak of positive capabilities as "positive liberty," but I think that, nonetheless, his doing so is bad for humankind (as compared to his just speaking of positive capabilities).
2. The expansion of positive capabilities enhances liberty ONLY by the channel that it reduces the coerciveness of restrictions. The coerciveness of a restriction ranges in magnitude, and a restriction is less coercive the less important to you it is. Expanding positive capabilities reduce the importance of any particular restriction. But it is only through this channel that the expansion of positive capabilities enhances liberty. Thus, "negative" liberty remains primary. Positive capabilities figure in only through the channel of negative liberty. Robinson Crusoe, alone on a desert island, is perfectly free, even though his positive capabilities are piss poor.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at May 30, 2008 6:28:07 AM
I think our culture showed itself pretty amenable to police state regression over the last 7 years all because of 19 guys with carton cutters.
True.
No -- unfortunately the real police-state regression in the U.S. has been going on for much longer than 7 years, has nothing to do with 9/11, and is likely to continue through the next administration and the one after that and who knows how many more. Namely -- police state excesses of the war on drugs.
Water-boarding and warrantless-wiretapping won't survive the Bush administration. The drug war -- with the enormous prison populations and the paramilitary SWAT raids -- isn't going anywhere.
Posted by: Slocum at May 30, 2008 8:18:13 AM
I'm old fashioned enough to think words have meaning. If you mean capabilities then darn it say capabilities. If you mean freedom then say freedom. We don't really advance the discussion by saying freedom when we mean capabilities.
Semantics (and semantics are important) aside, I agree with Tyler that most people care about what they can do in the capabilities sense. Give most people the choice between being rich and powerful in a police state versus poor in a free state, and most people will choose the former. [Sigh.]
The important research question in my mind is the relationship between freedom and capabilities. Most of us libertarians argue that freedom breeds enhanced capabilities. E.g., Free market societies are richer.
I like Dan Klein's point that more capabilities, ceteris paribus, can enhance freedom by lessening the severity of restrictions.
But in the end, it is important to note that just because two things are related, it doesn't follow that the two things are the same thing.
Posted by: Bob Lawson at May 30, 2008 8:53:28 AM
Maybe I'm just the weirdo here, but people who lecture libertarians about the relative importance of "capabilities" or "positive liberty" seem to be completely missing the point and responding to nothing that any libertarian I know of believes.
As a libertarian, I absolutely agree that "capabilities" are important. But my position is more like, "Yes, capabilities are important, but governments' attempts to directly increase capabilities using its powers will ultimately reduce people's capabilities." So yes, government can make sure everyone has a shot at college, but if it pursues this goal, it will almost certainly make everyone's choices much worse than they would otherwise be. I don't think in terms of "gosh, I'd rather be able to live in complete isolation than be able to go to college". I think in terms of "I'd much rather have the opportunities afforded by a society grounded in respect for property rights, than those afforded by quioxtic (sp) attempts to improve on those opportunities through the use of government."
Sen's "insight" is most emphatically NOT an insight; it is speaking from complete ignorance of what libertarians actually believe. Not surprisingly, his "Liberal (Libertarian) Paradox" is not a paradox and only applies as a criticism of non-libertarian systems. Specifically, respect for rights is NOT Pareto-inefficient; if a potential Pareto improvement would violate someone's rights, and it really is a pareto improvement, that person will -- wait for it -- WAIVE that right, which libertarians think he should be able to do. You only get an inconsistency when you adhere to the non-libertarian belief that, "Why, you don't think he should be able to waive THAT right, do you???"
Seriously, I'm interested in learning what exactly I as a libertarian am supposed to learn from Sen or the "capabilities" non-insight.
Posted by: Person at May 30, 2008 10:30:06 AM
Russia's nepotism story has changed and in many respects (not all) the Russian society today is more market driven than the society in the west. For more on this topic read about Russian "Blat". Ledeneva first wrote about it.
Posted by: jk at May 30, 2008 10:36:00 AM
If the establishment of non violent order forms the first chapters of national development, corruption is the middle and end of the story. I'm curious if anyone anywhere has any realistic approaches to dealing with corruption, especially when such is a natural outgrowth of other cultural values.
Posted by: JasonL at May 30, 2008 11:34:34 AM
More than one person has implied that larger, more complex government is an inevitable result of a larger, more complex society. Huh? The more complex things get, the more the need to break them down into component parts, or in other words, the more the need to DE-centralize. The more complex things are, the less able a small group of people will be able to understand those things, much less do anything beneficial about them. Complexity should be recognized as an argument in favor of libertarianism, free markets, and spontaneous order, not against them.
Posted by: Michael A. Clem at May 30, 2008 3:23:39 PM
People bond just because... Nothinig culture can do, exactly as with any other surviving instinct. The first step in fighting corruption is to appreciate this fact.
This is your christian tradition talking, isn't it?
Posted by: Vasily at May 31, 2008 4:36:18 AM
Bernard yomtov says, "I would hold self-professed libertarians in much higher regard if it weren't for the fact that they seem to ignore [that 'our culture showed itself pretty amenable to police state regression over the last 7 years all because of 19 guys with carton cutters']. Those who consider helmet laws a more important issue than habeas corpus ought not, IMO, be considered champions of liberty."
I would hold non-libertarians in much higher regard if it weren't for the fact that they seem to forget about issues like these when "their guy" sits in the White House. But your "those who consider helmet laws..." is a strawman; people like Radley Balko, the Cato Institute, and Alex Tabarrok have placed much more emphasis on big civil liberties issues both before and during the Bush Administration, whereas the left can't even think of any infractions during the Clinton Administration and the right can rationalize all of the Bush Administration infractions.
Secret evidence, holding foreigners without trial, Carnivore, Echelon, bombing foreign countries, nation-building were all Clinton-era policies, some of which the right opposed. Most of the Patriot Act provisions were developed during the Clinton Administration, which is how the FBI was ready so quickly when the opportunity arose. Now that the White House has changed hands, the right finds that nation-building, wire-tapping, and torture are "necessary" for national security, and the left has suddenly discovered that what was once unfortunately necessary to protect human rights has now become egregiously offensive.
Posted by: Eric H at May 31, 2008 10:42:30 AM
Lawson's comments above are right on.
Will Wilkinson picked up on my comments, and I've entered a 1400 word comment at Will's blog The Fly Bottle:
http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/05/30/positively-heretical/#comment-580741
Posted by: Daniel Klein at May 31, 2008 11:34:06 AM
NPTO has it right when he refers to culture as remarkably flexible. 'Culture' is ofen invoked as that certain something which we cannot otherwise explain and/or changes slowly. But there are many examples which show that people from other cultures behave remarkably differently in different circumstances. The traditional Arab privileging of extended families and first-cousin marriages somehow seems to fly right out the window when Arabs relocate to North America or Europe. And why is it that for centuries the Chinese and Indians were known as cultures of merchants all over the world? All over the world, that is, except China and India. And could you give me an explanation of the tendencies of Jewish culture- if there even is such a thing- which made them renowned as merchants and capitalists in Europe and the Middle East but, when they had a chance to establish their own state in Mandatory Palestine, they established a one-party socialist state?
In reference to Russia, I would suggest that, simnilarly, it is the institutions which are shaping the culture, and not the other way around.
I would also add that there is remarkably little consensus as to what culture even IS. Clifford Geertz once- I don't have there reference in front of me- counted all the definitions of 'culture' that anthropologists had been using through the first halof of the twentieth century. He got something like niniety definitions. From those, Geertz was able to boil those down to only NINETEEN different, and usually mnutually exclusive, definitions.
Posted by: Lars at Jun 2, 2008 4:45:53 PM
