Donations vs. Taxes

Here’s a short video illustrating the coercion behind government-mandated charity.

For more, see GeorgeOutToHelp.com.

I discuss related issues in my Huffington Post article, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-t-schwartz/questioning-your-compassi_b_574030.html”>Questioning your “compassionate” politics. For example, if you really care about helping a certain group of people, asking government to do it is the last thing you should want. This is like committing yourself to donate to a charity forever, regardless of its efficiency and effectiveness.

I found this post via a link to Reason.tv in comment on Arnold Kling’s post, “Donations vs. Taxes.”  In response to criticism, Kling writes:

[T]he idea that I need to show my gratitude to others by expressing support for coercion seems perverse. I would think that voluntary donations would be a much more sincere expression of gratitude than joining in the project of collective coercion.

The tale of the slave, by Robert Nozick

How free are you?

Some food for thought by Robert Nozick, an excerpt from Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 290-292 (1974), winner of the National Book Foundation’s National Book Award in 1975.

Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you.

1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master’s whims. He often is cruelly beaten, called out in the middle of the night, and so on.

2. The master is kindlier and beats the slave only for stated infractions of his rules (not fulfilling the work quota, and so on). He gives the slave some free time.

3. The master has a group of slaves, and he decides how things are to be allocated among them on nice grounds, taking into account their needs, merit, and so on.

4. The master allows his slaves four days on their own and requires them to work only three days a week on his land. The rest of the time is their own.

5. The master allows his slaves to go off and work in the city (or anywhere they wish) for wages. He requires only that they send back to him three-sevenths of their wages. He also retains the power to recall them to the plantation if some emergency threatens his land; and to raise or lower the three-sevenths amount required to be turned over to him. He further retains the right to restrict the slaves from participating in certain dangerous activities that threaten his financial return, for example, mountain climbing, cigarette smoking.

6. The master allows all of his 10,000 slaves, except you, to vote, and the joint decision is made by all of them. There is open discussion, and so forth, among them, and they have the power to determine to what uses to put whatever percentage of your (and their) earnings they decide to take; what activities legitimately may be forbidden to you, and so on.

   Let us pause in this sequence to take stock. If the master contracts this transfer of power so that he cannot withdraw it, you have a change of master. You now have 10,000 masters instead of just one; rather you have one 10,000-headed master. Perhaps the 10,000 even will be kindlier than the benevolent master in case 2. Still, they are your master. However, still more can be done. A kindly single master (as in case 2) might allow his slave(s) to speak up and try to persuade him to make a certain decision. The 10,000-headed master can do this also.
   

Fornication in public parks

Earlier this week I finished reading Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement by Brian Doherty, a senior editor at Reason magazine.  It’s a great read for anyone interested in the history of the free-market activism in the United States.  Here’s one of my favorite parts.  Nothing deep, but worth noting, from page 585:

Libertarians do enjoy their badboy reputation, especially among conservative ranks, for taking the personal liberty thing as far as it can go. As an old movement joke goes, “You libertarians are the types that would allow fornication in public parks!” What do you mean, public parks?”

And in case you’re wondering, a Google search for “privately owned parks” does return some hits.  The top hit is an article in an economics journal that says

Privately owned parks continue to proliferate worldwide. Their rapid expansion represents an important yet little understood private sector incursion into an activity long dominated by governments.

Photo of private park sign: from an on-line ad for Cookeville Tennesee vacation cabin rentals.

Realizing Freedom by Tom Palmer

If you’re interested in defending free markets, I highly recommend listening to or watching Tom Palmer‘s talk about his new book, Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice at a Cato Institute book forum last week. Tyler Cowen’s comments about it are also worthwhile.

http://www.cato.org/jwmediaplayer44/player.swf

The event and book sites linked above summarize the content. There’s also a link to the mp3 version, which you can split up into separate tracks using a nifty program like Slice Audio File Splitter. (Yes, my media player is old & lacks a bookmarking feature.)

Here’s an excerpt of a book review by Alberto Benegas-Lynch, Jr. of the National Academy of Sciences
in Buenos Aires , Argentina:

Civilization means understanding and endorsing certain values and principles, which in turn depends on an open debate of ideas. This collection of essays provides a unique and insightful perspective on classical liberalism. Palmer’s arguments are powerful and combine the abstract with the tangible in unusually well written and thoroughly researched essays. They are a philosophical feast, touching on a board range of topics. It is an honest and outspoken voice. It is entertaining and enlightening. The essays are a sweeping blow to those who advocate collectivism and they reinforce the stand of those of us who believe that a free society is a much better place to live for all persons of good will.