[This is part of a series of posts on Friedrich A. Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty. Here's the full list.]

Inequality is so strongly associated with poverty that the words are interchangable. When people say that inequality is a bad thing, they use examples of poverty to show this. Poverty itself is often defined in terms of inequality - if you earn less than half of average for people in your country, then you're poor. By definition, inequality then leads to poverty.

This relativistic definition of poverty is meaningless on a global scale. If you accept that poverty is the same thing wherever you live, that having rich neighbours doesn't make you poor, then it doesn't matter where you draw the poverty line: You won't find a correlation with inequality. You may even find that poverty decreases as inequality increases. The rich get richer, but the poor get richer too. Inequality has grown, but which do you think matters more to the poor themselves, their relative poverty or their absolute poverty? Their earning less than other people, or their not being able to feed their own family?

This view, which raises inequality from a bad thing which causes poverty to a neutral thing which doesn't stand in the way of progress, is controversial, but not very difficult to demonstrate. Hayek aims higher - he believes that inequality is better than neutral, it is a good thing, and is required for growth and progress to happen at all.

Hayek begins by attempting to define and justify progress. He rejects optimistic visions of a neverending and unstoppable walk up the staircase of perfection, much like the views of early Darwinians who saw evolution as a staircase towards homo sapiens. Hayek's view of progress is not as bleak as the modern view of evolution as a process that adapts downwards when it can, upwards when it must, where a complex organism is no "more" evolved than a simple one, but there's the same subversive open-endedness to it. Hayek sees progress as an unpredictable process of adaptation and learning, a changing of tools and goals, which may not necessarily lead anywhere good.

Though progress consist in part in achieving things we have been striving for, this does not mean that we shall like all its results, or that all will be gainers. And since our wishes and aims are also subject to change in the course of the process, it is questionable whether the statement has a clear meaning that the new state of affairs that progress creates is a better one. Progress in the sense of the cumulative growth of knowledge and power over nature is a term that says little about whether the new state will give us more satisfaction than the old. The pleasure may be solely in achieving what we have been striving for, and the assured possession may give us little satisfaction.

So why then seek progress? Because the striving that causes progress is a good thing by itself, even if the unpredictable results may not be.

It is not the fruits of past success but the living in and for the future in which human intelligence proves itself. Progress is movement for movement's sake, for it is in the process of learning, and in the effects of having learned something new, that man enjoys the gift of his intelligence. The enjoyment of personal success will be given to large numbers only in a society that, as a whole, progresses fairly rapidly. .. In order that the great majority should in their individual lives participate in the advance, it is necessary that it proceed at a considerable speed.

This is not blind faith in the future, but there is an element of faith here. Even if progress is merely the large scale byproduct of individual achievement, which we agree is a good thing, and we can end progress only by severely restricting individual freedom, for all we know we may still be better off halting where we are today. Hayek is not even certain that it is better to live today (ie. the 50's) than it was a hundred years ago. This is overly relativistic - any 19th century person offered a chance to live in a future free of most of the threats that concerned them, would probably accept, just as people in today's poor countries would rather live in rich ones. And I find Hayek's belief that humanity must progress because this is somehow our essence, always reaching for our potential, even one that may destroy us, fatalistic. Imagine if we were told with certainty that we are creating an inherently unstable civilization, which will destroy us. Would we still want progress for its own sake?

But of course we will never be told any such thing by anyone we can trust - the future is unknowable - and though I believe Hayek's support for progress contains a leap of faith, he makes that leap in the face of a dilemma that has no predictably good solutions. For what are the alternatives to progress? To freeze our world as it exists is impossible, for our world exists in a state of rapid progress. A world that doesn't progress will have to look different from the one we know. From experience we know that the alternatives to a society based on invidual freedom (in a wide sense which includes modern democratic socialism) are bad. And even fascists and communists wanted progress. We simply don't know of any political system without progress that is both stable and desirable. Ancient Egypt was stable, but who'd want to live there?

So the question is not if we want to stumble blindly down the labyrinth of history or not, but whether we want us or the competition to do it, whether we want an adaptable and free society to face the unpredictable, or a rigid and authoritarian one. So the choice is not so difficult, but it is impossible not to embrace progress without foreboding.

Which leads us to the dependency of progress on inequality. Hayek's argument is unusual, but simple: Progress means adoptation of new behavior, new products, new social structures, and new ideas. What's new is rarely available to the majority until it has been experimented with or discovered by a minority. Having a wealthy minority allows experimentation with products and behavior that may not yet be affordable by the majority, but which may become affordable if given time to develop.

Consider cars, which began as a luxury, and turned into a consumer product. Would this have happened if there had been no rich early adopters to buy the first, expensive, unreliable cars? There's a similar story with computers, which were so expensive that only a military with a war budget could afford to invent them, then gradually became cheap enough for very large companies, then medium companies, small companies, rich or very dedicated individuals, moderately rich and moderately dedicated individuals, and today almost anyone.

The story plays itself out over and over again as the introduction of new products and new kinds of products has become as regular as the seasons. The most interesting inventions depend on early adopters, people who are willing to take a chance on the expensive and unreliable first version of the product. Wealth diversity contributes to this, along with individual freedom in general.

At any stage of this process there will always be many things we already know how to produce but which are still too expensive to provide for more than a few. And at an early stage they can be made only through an outlay of resources equal to may times the share of total income that, with an approximately equal distribution, would go to the few who could benefit from them. .. The new things will often become available to the greater part of the people only because for some time they have been the luxuries of the few. .. As long as the graduation is more or less continous and all the steps in the income pyramid are reasonable occupied, it can scarcely be denied that those lower down profit materially from the fact that others are ahead.

The argument goes beyond the invention and introduction of products. Hayek sees individual experimentation as the force behind progress, and having a wealthy minority around opens up avenues of general experimentation that are closed to the rest of us. It allows them to acquire knowledge that may eventually benefit everyone.

The growth of knowledge is of such special importance because, while the material resources will always remain scarce and will have to be reserved for limited purposes, the uses of new knowledge (where we do not make them artificially scarce by patents of monopoly), are unrestricted. Knowledge, once achieved, becomes grauitously available for the benefit of all. It is through this free gift of knowledge acquired by the experiments of some members of society that general progress is made possible.

This is an extension of Hayek's argument for individual freedom, and the same appeal to unpredictability applies: Wealthy minorities are a good thing because we don't know how they may use that wealth. We don't know what they'll discover, or which doors they by accident, eccentricity or genius may open for the rest of us. They're not "better" by virtue of being rich, but they're different, and that makes them useful to our overall process of experimentation.

The same applies on a global scale, even between free and unfree economies. Once a discovery is made, it is cheap for others to benefit from it. The Soviet Union benefited from the technological advances of the West, advances communism was unable to make on its own, thus contributing to the illusion that communism was viable. After World War 2, Europe benefited from the fact that the wealthy United States was years ahead in terms of consumer products and cultural and social change, much of which we later adopted. They experimented on our behalf, and we embraced their results, again contributing to an illusion that social democracy is equally viable to a more free market. As for the Third World:

There can be little doubt that the prospect of the poorer, "undeveloped" countries reaching the present level of the West is very much better than it would have been, had the West not pulled so far ahead. Furthermore, it is better than it would have been, had some world authority, in the course of the rise of modern civilization, seen to it that no part pulled too far ahead of the rest and made sure at each step that the material benefits were distributed evenly throughout the world. If today some nations can in a few decades acquire a level of material comfort that took the West hundreds or thousands of years to achieve, is it not evident that their path has been made easier by the fact that the West was not forced to share its material achievements with the rest - that it was not held back but was able to move far in advance of the others?

This may sound like apologism on behalf of a lucky few, and perhaps it would be, if it weren't true. The West has, by accident and often without good intentions, cleared a path which though difficult to follow, allows poor countries to replicate our accomplishments in a fraction of the time it took us to achieve them in the first place. This has already happened to many countries, and will continue to happen with others. This doesn't mean that additional active aid may not make the path easier to follow, (though some specific ways of doing this have proven harmful), only that the single largest contribution to ending global poverty is our own success. Instead of being ashamed of this, we should acknowledge it, even while we look for ways to eliminate global poverty even faster.

There is a contradiction here between Hayek's relativistic and somewhat faith-based embrace of progress, and his implication that we can change the speed of progress by adjusting our level of inequality. If continued progress may make people worse off a hundred years from now than they are today, and if less inequality is a way to slow down progress, doesn't that justify a policy of economic equality?

Perhaps the way to resolve this is by saying that progress in the short term is driven by all the good things the people of the world know are finally within their reach, and that inequality has thus been justified up to a point just beyond the horizon. Progress beyond that point is however unpredictable, and its justification rests on a guess/hope/belief combined with the knowledge that there is no good alternative to progress.

In any case the knowable takes priority over the unknowable, and what we know is that progress and inequality has served us very well so far. We also know that to change our own course now would jeopardize the hope of the rest of the world to achieve what we take for granted. So we continue, and leave the decision to halt progress to a much later generation, one that knows of poverty and hunger only from history books.

Imagine if we were told with certainty that we are creating an inherently unstable civilization, which will destroy us. Would we still want progress for its own sake?"

yes, because from destruction creativity gains new energy and inventiveness. and reach New heights as history have presented itself with resent examples (Germany and japan after ww2). Progress and destruction go hand in hand you might say.

That you find hyak's claim fatalistic is rational enough , but for creativity, which lead too progress, instability and destruction is favourable.

"From experience we know that the alternatives to a society based on invidual freedom (in a wide sense which includes modern democratic socialism) are bad."

That you think s. d. gives you freedom enough is fine, it's probably true. But I believe that individual diversity focus, would be better for progress and creativity.

I agree with Hyak on this one, which takes me back too the problem of social democracy. The security oriented and mediocrity focused Social democracy is limiting in the structure itself. From government too the social institutions (the ohh so many institutions). Creation of the Utopian *heaven is a place on earth*

And we keep popping happy pills...

Njet: yes, because from destruction creativity gains new energy and inventiveness. and reach New heights as history have presented itself with resent examples (Germany and japan after ww2). Progress and destruction go hand in hand you might say.

Sounds like voodoo history to me. Destruction is not a good thing. There's something appealing about tearing everything down and start from scratch, the appeal of revolution, but the appeal disappears once you look at it from up close. Are you saying, for instance, that Germany and Japan (and all of us?) were better off fighting and losing World War 2 than they would have been if they had taken a democratic path in the 30's? And that whatever benefit you see in this was worth the price of tens of millions of people, including Europe's Jews?

Besides, the destruction I'm talking about is not the destruction of an evil civilization at the hands of a good one, but the self-destruction of a good civilization by some weird unpredictable factor. Anything from artificial black holes to the invention of a product or discovery of an idea that undermines the fabric of society itself. Back to the stone age, or thereabout. And no, contrary to popular belief, the stone ages were not famous for their vast outpourings of creative energy and inventiveness. Not saying I think this will happen, only that the future is unknowable, in the same way that the 20th century was unknowable to the people of 1905.

That you think s. d. gives you freedom enough is fine, it's probably true. But I believe that individual diversity focus, would be better for progress and creativity.

Social democracy doesn't give people enough freedom, but it gives enough to be a viable political system, it's able to be adaptable and exploit much of the knowledge of individuals.

Bjørn:
"Sounds like voodoo history to me. Destruction is not a good thing."

Looking at history through the eyes of the humanist is not favourable if it is progress and inventiveness you are looking for. That you call it voodoo history can not be on my behalf since i did not make history. Through the eyes of the cool and objective historian however, war and destruction is favourable (creativity etc.). Personally i don't like it, it's just a fact of nature. Which we are a part of.

Bjørn:
"Are you saying, for instance, that Germany and Japan (and all of us?) were better off fighting and losing World War 2 than they would have been if they had taken a democratic path in the 30's? And that whatever benefit you see in this was worth the price of tens of millions of people, including Europe's Jews?"

Did we not win the war? Again, it's beneficial to look at this objectively, then progress has advanced rapidly because of the war. The Jews killed during the war is a loss too progress itself, regarding the cleverness and inventiveness of this people, who knows if not humanity would have advanced even further, if they had survived the mass murder, but that's just speculation.

Bjørn:
"Besides, the destruction I'm talking about is not the destruction of an evil civilization at the hands of a good one, but the self-destruction of a good civilization by some weird unpredictable factor."

That unpredictable factor is here, and always will be, but we still keep on progressing even at the expense of hundreds of innocent individuals through cancer research and biology studies. The humanists of the future will criticise this, as they always do when government abuse comes up too the surface after a decade or two. What we learnt after ww2 is that individuals will do anything (and i mean anything) if it's government policy.

Progress will hopefully make the unpredictable factor smaller.

Destruction is not only a good thing, it's an essential thing.

Enterprises which are no longer working need to end. And the easier and less painful that end is made, the better off we all are.

This is an interesting chapter in Hayek's book. I think that I am like a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic in wanting to see, in our societies, a fair distribution of riches. Ideally, I would like to see everyone enjoy the same advantages in terms of personal income, educational opportunity, etc. Given this bias, Hayek's insistence on the importance of an elite, or upper class, is disconcerting to me. I don't like to hear it -- whether or not he's right about a society's need for a rich vanguard of this sort. I gave up some years ago on the utopian dream of a true equalitarian society; however, I still recognize that a humane society cannot let its citizens go without medical care or food or education or housing if they are, for some good reason, unable to provide these things for themselves. And so, in that sense, I still believe in a forced redistribution of wealth.

It could be that our principal disagreement -- the issue that most markedly separates Europe from the US -- is the extent to which and manner in which wealth should be redistributed. Europeans believe that a society should enforce a greater degree of ecomonic equality than do Americans. Isn't government ownership of utilities, transportation, etc. simply a means to redistributing wealth? Europe's higher taxes are more of the same -- an attempt to enforce economic equality. Lately, Europe has been making noises that suggest it wants to see a global redistribution of income. America is accused of being a greedy imperialist power that wants to plunder the world. Europe's focus on economic equality sets it at odds with America.

You need to read more of Hayek.

Take a look at "The Fatal Conceit".

There's no such thing as "fair". It's a meaningless term. As empty of objective content as "social justice".

To the degree that "fair" does have meaning, it can only be applied to the specific actions of particular individuals in particular circumstances.

This notion that it can be extended to become an attibute of not an individual's behavior but of the emergent behavior of an economic system is simply flawed.

The effects of individual choices in a free society are not distributed in any way that could be considered "fair". They cannot be. No free system can guarantee anything about the eventual outcome of the myriad individual choices that make it up.

And no person, group, process, or system can have a sufficient grasp of the details to determine what "fair" is, outside of particular individuals involved in a particular transaction.

Jeff wrote: "The effects of individual choices in a free society are not distributed in any way that could be considered "fair"."

I agree with you, Jeff. However, I don't think folks in Western Europe would necessarily share your opinion. As I say, I think this is where Europeans have a very different view of what a government should do about economic inequality. I think that economic equality is a higher priority for Europeans. By saying this, I'm hoping to draw some Europeans into a discussion of this difference between them and us. I think that this one difference might be the defining difference -- and an extremely divisive issue, in the long run. We won the Cold War, but I wonder if Europe isn't drifting left anyway. European opposition to globalization and attempts there to link it to "American imperialism" suggest to me that the European campaign for economic equality has gone global. It seems that economic and demographic realities should force Europe to abandon some of its socialist predilections for government control. But popular sentiment there still favors the quest for economic equality, I think. Europeans are pretty pissed off at us right now, but I think that their very dim view of us has less to do with Bush (a temporary phenomenon) than with permanent differences in our respective ideas of what a society should be. And this idea of economic equality might be at the heart of the problem. The Europeans seem much more willing than we to sacrifice personal freedom for social stability. They will even submit to having a larger chunk of their personal incomes confiscated and redistributed -- in the interests of achieving a more equitable and (presumably) more stabile society. Stability may, in fact, matter more to them than freedom and democracy. In any case, their reluctance to oppose dictators like Hussein and Milosevic and fight for freedom makes me think so.

"I think that economic equality is a higher priority for Europeans. By saying this, I'm hoping to draw some Europeans into a discussion of this difference between them and us."

Perhaps you are onto something here. I as a European definately see the good sides of having a society where even the poorest get the necessities of life, like hospital care if they need it and education. I recently visited Singapore, where they are more capitalistic than what I'm used to in Europe and AU, and was stunned by seeing lots of old people (70-80) working in less paid areas as door openers and cleaners at mcdonalds and other food courts.

One might say they as old people have brought this onto themselves by not working hard enough when they were young, however, I think it seems heartless for a society which is so modern, and rich, and not even taking properly taking care of their own old. The same case goes for education and hospitals. As a society which is so rich and advanced as the western is today, we should be able to take care of our less fortunate.

Perhaps thats where we Europeans differ from Americans, are we more compassionate?

Allan wrote: "As a society which is so rich and advanced as the western is today, we should be able to take care of our less fortunate."

I agree, Allan. The question is: how much should we do for them? I don't think it's just compassion that built the welfare systems of Europe. I think there is also a desire in Europe to reign in the rich in order to maintain some semblence of economic egalitarianism. I think that this is due partly to a socialist ethos that pervades Western European societies (a dislike of the rich) and partly to a totalitarian tendency to control things in general -- in order to ensure stability in the society. I think that, for Europeans, stability is more important than individual freedoms. This is why Europe would rather Hussein had remained in power in Iraq.

"I think that this is due partly to a socialist ethos that pervades Western European societies (a dislike of the rich) and partly to a totalitarian tendency to control things in general -- in order to ensure stability in the society. I think that, for Europeans, stability is more important than individual freedoms. This is why Europe would rather Hussein had remained in power in Iraq."

No neeed to repeat yourself.. :p
I do agree with you that there is a certain amount of jealousy among people towards the rich. In Norway we even have a name for this phenomenon "Janteloven". But you know as well as I that is is the results that matter, and not your intentions for getting there. Anyways, as a result, Norway has arguably the highest standard of living world-wide, and ranks as the best country to live in by UN. That says something..

"The question is: how much should we do for them?"

No. The real question is whether what we'll do for them we'll do through the government or through non-governmental approaches.

The government is not the society, and is not the appropriate mechanism for dealing with all social ills.

To get back to Hayek:

It is one of the greatest weaknesses of our time that we lack the patience and faith to build up voluntary organizations for purposes which we value highly, and immediately ask the government to bring about by coercion (or with means raised by coercion) anything that appears as desirable to large numbers. Yet nothing can have a more deadening effect on real participation by the citizens than if government, instead of merely providing the essential framework of spontaneous growth, becomes monolithic and takes charge of the provision for all needs, which can be provided for only by the common effort of many.

Norway has created a wonderful, egalitarian society with a very high standard of living. That's very true. I lived there for two years, didn't like what I felt was a subtle coercive pressure to conform, but admired most of what I saw in Norway. There is not much to fault in Norwegian society -- I grant you that.

Hayek talks about the importance of an elite class -- of a vanguard that will experiment and innovate. The society in general depends on a vanguard like this for its new ideas, he says. If I read him right. Like you, Allan, I like the idea of a society of peers. And I don't care much for Hayek's elite. However, I wonder if societies like Norway pay a price for their aggressive egalitarianism. I read recently that Norway, for instance, does not do well in terms of research and development. Now, there may be reasons for that that have nothing to do with egalitarian policies. I don't know. I just wonder. How does Norway do in terms of startup companies and venture capitalism? Are entrepreneurs encouraged, or must they look outside Norway for capital, subsidies, tax breaks, labor?

//The society in general depends on a vanguard like this for its new ideas, he says. If I read him right.//

He's not arguing for some sort of moral or ethical elite.

He's just saying that we all benefit when there are people who can afford to buy products when they are new, experimental, and expensive.

Jeff writes: "He's not arguing for some sort of moral or ethical elite. He's just saying that we all benefit when there are people who can afford to buy products when they are new, experimental, and expensive."

Hayek says that we need a vanguard that will experiment with "new syles of living." My phrase "new ideas" was misleading. "Lifestyle" would have been better.

Jeff Dege: You need to read more of Hayek.

That's not a convincing way to begin an argument. Do you think that Hayek has all answers, and that when people disagree it can only be because they haven't fully comprehended the wisdom of Hayek's words? If not, "Hayek said so" is an irrelevant argument.

There's no such thing as "fair". It's a meaningless term. As empty of objective content as "social justice".

Of course there's such a thing as fairness - it's not very well defined, but almost everyone has an idea of what it means, and to a large extent these ideas overlap. I can say that it wasn't fair that our team lost to the other team, because we played better and they were just lucky. Nobody will have a problem understanding what I mean by that. Or I can say that it's not fair that my lazy no-good neighbour wins the lottery when so many hard-working people go poor all their lives. Agree or not, you know exactly what I mean by that. So fairness is not a "meaningless term". Just vague and subjective.

What you mean is that fairness is meaningless as a political goal. Everyone has their own views of what's fair, and if we tried to uphold what the majority thought was fair, the attempt would make us a lot poorer and less free. Fairness still has a meaning, (whatever the majority thinks everyone deserves), but it's not a meaning that belongs in politics.

And no person, group, process, or system can have a sufficient grasp of the details to determine what "fair" is, outside of particular individuals involved in a particular transaction.

Well, since fairness already is subjective, actually everyone can determine what it is. And then you can vote over that. Let's say the majority believes it isn't fair that anyone should earn more than $150 000 a year - which is pretty much the case in Norway, and a force behind our economic policies. Now you have a democratically determined common concept of fairness. It won't do any good, but at least not many people will earn more than average. So again: the argument here is that fairness is dangerous as a political ideal, not that it's somehow inherently meaningless or self-contradictory.

Gill Doyle: We won the Cold War, but I wonder if Europe isn't drifting left anyway.

Norway at least has drifted towards the right on economic policy, from orthodox social democracy after the war to the gradual liberalization of the last 25 years. Compared to the 50's, we're a free market paradise. Did you know there was a big political fight over whether to allow anyone who wanted to to buy their own car? Car sales were heavily regulated until the early 50's, and many thought it to be an unnecessary luxury product. All kinds of monopolies have been privatized or exposed to competition since then. Not saying we're no longer a social democracy, but you're wrong to say that Norway is gradually drifting left, (unless you're looking at a very short term perspective, in which case it is meaningless to discuss political trends.)

Hayek talks about the importance of an elite class -- of a vanguard that will experiment and innovate. The society in general depends on a vanguard like this for its new ideas, he says. If I read him right.

No - the rich are not the only source of new knowledge, but they are one source of new knowledge. Closing off that source entirely just because we don't think they deserve to be so well off only damages ourselves.

I'm suggesting you read more Hayek because we're talking about Hayek, and what he believed.

As for "fairness", as I said, it can only have meaning regarding specific individuals in a specific interaction.

The only meaningful standard of fairness is that everyone involved thought it was fair at the time.

The opinions of those not involved, or of those involved after the fact, have no relevence.

Firstly, fairness may be subjective, but such is "justice" also. The problem is that the right takes "natural rights" and "freedom from coercion as granted, even though there are many cultures that do and have disagreed upon that notion of justice. So if the fact that people does not agree on a law for that law to be a fact, then we wouldn`t be able to have any laws at all, because there are no laws that every individual agrees upon. The concept of conservative "justice" is just a subjective concept of fairness that have been allow to exist so long that it has become a religion.

And what is fair can be discussed. You could for example argue that it is not fair that your fate shall be decided by factors which you have no control over whatsoever.

Also, I think that Hayek has misunderstood the notion of relative poverty. Relative poverty is not that anyone has less than the rich, it is that someone has considerable less that what is being considered "normal". It is theoretically possible to have a rich elite, without having relative poverty. Also, the negative aspects of relative poverty are quite real. Relatively poor have a poorer social network, have more menial jobs, have a lesser propability of getting married, have a larger propability of livning in a difficult neighoburhood and so on.

I also think that freedom as freedom from coercion have no value. What has value is positive freedom to do what you want, and the free market does not supply that, because you also need resources to do what you want. Also, a free market society is also very hierarcial and in a sense autoritarian. The free market makes people very dependent on each other, something that creates great economic power and uneven dependance between individuals.

The government should not get involved in helping the poor. Private groups such as Habitat for Humanity have proven to be more effective than government programs. And behind all government programs is a moral arrogance--it is YOUR duty to provide money for the poor, they tell the rich and the moderately well-off, and WE are going to tax you to make sure that you do.
Whereas private organizations are for people who volunteer their resources for a cause that they believe in.

I also think that freedom as freedom from coercion have no value. What has value is positive freedom to do what you want, and the free market does not supply that, because you also need resources to do what you want. Also, a free market society is also very hierarcial and in a sense autoritarian. The free market makes people very dependent on each other, something that creates great economic power and uneven dependance between individuals.

The free market does not make people those things--human nature does, and, on a broader level, the nature of being a living thing does.

There is no such thing as "positive freedom". You have the freedom to choose how you will adapt to your circumstance, but you will never have the freedom to choose your circumstance. Not even a rich man has that. He can't be rich and choose for people to treat him like just another normal person. He can't be rich and choose not to be noticed by the public eye, just like the Beatles couldn't choose to make their fans go away. Freedom is one thing, but no one is a God.

I think that Hayek's Fatal Conceit is definately the book of choice when talking about opinions on the subject we've drifted to.

The government should not get involved in helping the poor. Private groups such as Habitat for Humanity have proven to be more effective than government programs.

Have they? Is that the reason why poverty is much more widespread in those countries that rely in private charities? Japan has very low taxes, no welfare for abled bodied men and every other precondition that should make private charities work. Even though, private charities in Japan and Taiwan are utter failures, and they are not able to adequatly care for those that have come in trouble.

And behind all government programs is a moral arrogance--it is YOUR duty to provide money for the poor, they tell the rich and the moderately well-off, and WE are going to tax you to make sure that you do.

No, it is really not about morals, but a more "fair" social contract. Social contracts to have their theoretical problems, but they are still a better solution than non-existant "natural rights", that libertarians mess about. The reason is not primarily "caring for the poor", but to make people with different political ideals be able to live togehter. Why should the rest accept a libertarian state, when they do not think that liberatrianism is the right way to rule the society? Why should those who want socialism not attempt to seize a libertarian society by violence? Why do people have a "moral obligation" to accept rules and morals that they deem as unfair? Since peoples morals are different, society should resmeble more than one moral, and be a middle ground between several of them, not a libertarian society based upon the special interests of a couple of groups alone.

Whereas private organizations are for people who volunteer their resources for a cause that they believe in.

That is actually part of the problem, because that implies that the well of have the power to determine whether the needy shall live. I think that the positive "right" to life is more important than the "right" to drive a Jaguar instead of a Ford. Also, private charity does not redistribute power. An important reason to have welfare is to somewhat reduce the power of employers of low skilled labour, and increase the power of lowly skilled labour.

The free market does not make people those things--human nature does, and, on a broader level, the nature of being a living thing does.

But the free market alters the way it functions. Primitive societies are really not that hierarcial, and if they have a clas structure, it is fairly simple with a chief and shaman on top, and an egalitarian structure below. The reason libertarian "scientists" have found a couple of exceptions does not prove that much. Also, we can see from earlier cultures in Europa and Asia that also our peoples shared the egalitarian ethos of many current tribes. We can see that every known early culture have a distain for "trade for profit", merchants were frowned upon both in early Rome and China. That implies that trade for profit and a hierarchical structure based on it were fairly foregin to early peoples and cultures.

Also, that fact that that may be "human nature" does not debuke my point as such. And the way if functions today, it has nothing to do with human nature. There is a huge difference between such dependency in primitive natural societies and today. In those old societies, the balance of the dependency were fairly even. Most individuals had the same skills and abilities, and most types of work were done collectively, thereby making it diffictult to seperate the efforts of individual tribe members. Such even dependence does not give power in itself, because the ration of depedence between the members of the tribe is fairly even, and therefore does not give any power. The problem with modern societies is that that dependence is extremly uneven, and therefore grants power.

Also, it has been in human nature from the start of trade, to regulate trade. Since the tribal "big men", wealth derived from trade have been redistrubuted to "buy votes", and even the old kings of Babylon imposed rudimentery labour laws. That fact that historically trade and regulation have existed side by side, obviously have passed Hayek by.

There is no such thing as "positive freedom".

Doesn`t the ability to choose to do what you want exist?

You have the freedom to choose how you will adapt to your circumstance, but you will never have the freedom to choose your circumstance. Not even a rich man has that. He can't be rich and choose for people to treat him like just another normal person. He can't be rich and choose not to be noticed by the public eye, just like the Beatles couldn't choose to make their fans go away. Freedom is one thing, but no one is a God.

Yes, but they still have a large array of positive options of choice that most other people lack. Also, I would claim that some options are more important than others. Without food and shelter, you effectively loose the positive choice over your own time, because your life becomes a constant garble for food and shelter. At the same time, taxing well off people so that they can only afford a Jaguar and not a Rolls Royce does not take many options away from them. They still retain the important option of having a means of transportation, with the same capabilites, therefore, redustribution may actually increasen the aggregate amount of positive options available to people.

Damn, that took the quotes away, hopes it still makes sense! Well, I post to rethread some point more independently. I therefore post a simliar thread I wrote, about exactly the same topic:

If you look at the world, the poor are certainly more hated in countries without a welfare state. What I think is dehumanizing is the lives the poor have in countries like Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. "Personal duty to support the poor" is just a lot of bull, because libertarians on the other can claim that charity "distorts the market". Libertarians won`t help poor people because their ideology claim that the poor are poor because they deserve to be poor. The hostility by net payers is less than you should think in many european countries, because those paying have often themselves used welfare, or may go on some kind of welfare in the future. Those on welfare are not a static group, only aroundt 10 to 30 percent on those on welfare in the various countries goes on welfare for longer periodes than a year. The picture of a large static groups that recieve welfare are to a large part created by quasilibertarian propaganda.

Actually, the socialdarwinists were among the first people to champion private charity, headed by Herbert Spencer. They thought that private charity was great because it made it possible to deny aid to unwanted segments of the population. I therefore think that private charity instead of welfare is a socialdarwinist idea. And the reason why europeans think that the state should take care of poor people, is that every experience shows that private charities simply does not work! They rightly feel that those who advocate private charity the way americans conservatives does, are the same people that honestly doesn`t give a damn about the poor.

Another problem, that "helping the poor" is actually not the main motivation for welfare in european countries. Welfare was rather seen as a way to create a more fair social contract, to combat signs of severe political and social unrest, give more economic power to the workers and to make life economically safer for everyone. These are functions that private charity will not fullfill, even if it is partially working. The problem here is that the conservatives critize the supporters of the welfare state by using a strawman.

When it comes to that voluntary "duty" of taking care of the poor, why can`t the law be upheld in the same manner? If people are kind enough and takes the time to help the poor, why can`t they protect their neigbours life and property in the same manner?

There is also a severe problem with your line of reasoning, if the welfare state is the cause of these problems, shouldn`t these problems be visible in other european countries long before they were visible in the USA? The european countries had the various services of the welfare state between 30 and 60 years earlier than the US. You would therefore expect that the negative effects of the welfare state would be visible in those countries at least 30 years earlier than in the US. That is not the case. Rather, we rather see that the US lie between 20 to 30 years earlier than the european countries in those developments, and Scandinavia was in those respects like the american late forties until the late seventies. The causation seems to work in the exact oppostie of what you would expect, something that severly hampers the strength of your hypothesis.

You also stress personal responsibility, but does that phenomenon really exist? Do people really control their own economic status? To claim that an individual is in control of it`s own economic status, that individual should have been able to affect that status with it`s own free choices. Because if we do not have the ability to control our own actions, rewarding or punishing such actions would be just as fair as saying that everyone born with red hair should recieve twice the wage as anyone else.

That is an idea that I find rather dubious. Of course, we have the basic theories of physics, that what happens in the universe is either an effect of cause and effect or pure chance. Both these two actually put severe limitations on the existence of free will. Cause and effect does that because it makes every choice you make a direct result of previous external causes, and therefore free will does not exist. Even if some free will should exists, there seems rather obvious that cause and effect have a large effect on the decisions that human beings make, because if it wouldn`t, sciences like biology, social sciences, psychology and economics simply wouldn`t make any sense at all. So it would be rather impossible to claim that complete free will exists. That would imply ignoring the existence of mental illness. The fact that lobotomy and chemical substances alter they way people acts, close to proves that cause and effect at least to some degree determine what actions individuals make. And therefore, is would not appear reasonable to make people responsible for choices they make that are not acutal choices. In the same manner, people cannot really be responsible for actions that come about by pure chance, because the outcome of a game of pure chance is something that noone control.

But we don`t need to go to those lengths to critize the notion of persona responsibility. On a market you trade with other individuals. In every trade both parties have to agree on the trade before it can take place. If one of the parties refuse the deal, the deal doesn`t get thru. That implies that your fate is in the hands of other people, because nothing that goes on on the market is decision of one actor alone. That implies that personal responsibility may not always be to keep an individual responsible for it`s own actions, but to keep it responsible for the actions of someone else. The decision of other people to hire someone else insteand of you, not to hire you or buy the services of someone else instead of you.

And yes, I know what the reply will be, that it is your responsibiliy to make yourself attractive. This is hovewer also something that is not always possible. It is important to know that we compete for a limited number of good positions against other people. This implies two things that contradicts the individuals own responsibility. Firstly, there is a limited number of good possibilities around, and that implies that every individual cannot be able to grasp those possibilities, it is just practially and logically impossible. That means that even if every individual did their absolute best, a large portion of them would still be stuck in low wage work. Secondly, your success is not only determined by the actions that you do, but the actions of those you compete with. You do not get a good job by doing a great job, but by doing a better job than those you compete with. That implies that your success is to a large degree determined by the abilities of those you compete with, and since you do not control the abilities of others, you is not wholly responsible for the outcomes of the competition.

Another factor is that other things may restrict your ability to be able to make yourself attractive. One huge problem is genetic abilities, that makes it practially impossible for many people to take a lot of opportunities. You may have parents that are poor and thereby get problems with growing up in a bad neighborhood and such. You also may have severe mental trauma from being tormented at school or at home. Another problem is that the consequences of your actions can be practially impossible to determine in advance. Also, a lot of opportunites/jobs are distributed among friends, something that inhibits equal opportunities.

When it comes to theft, I do not really think that the libertarian system is legitimate at all. Why? In the "natural state", the primitive tribal societies, there is really nothing wrong with stealing the property of members of other tribes. There, all property belongs to the tribe that can defend it. Actually, most "property" is kind of collective, because a single individual is not able to defend his property alone. He therefore have to share with the rest of the tribe to not get his property stolen from him. That is the natural state, and no such rights exists. Actually, many claim that these societies are barbaric and cruel, and they are partly right, and that just confirms that human beings have no natural respect for any rights whatsoever, and rights as such are social constructs. Actually, the whole concept of inalienable rights is only a couple of hundread years old.

And why should other people respect other peoples property rights? I only think that people can be expected to abide by rules which the percieve to be fair. Justice is less interesting as a concept, because it is only a construct that gives meaning in these discussions if some kinds of rights exists, and all "natural rights" are just bogus, invented by the upper middle class to support their special interests. If you make a rule that says that red haired people gets paid $40 an hour and everyone else gets paid $10 an hour, why should the rest accept those rules? That is really a very simplified way to explain a free market. You see, what market value you achieve on the market is really not much more a factor you control than the color of your hair. The free markets lets people freely make money based on their talents, but peoples talents are very different, and only some kind of talents will give a handome reward. I therefore do not think that those who do not have the talents needed to make great money has any "moral duty" to accept those rules. Remember that in the natural state, with no rules, it is rather "eat or be eaten", and if someone find the rules of society as something very unfair that have been imposed on them by the majority or those with the most power, they really have no "moral obligation" to accept those rules either.

The fact that coercion is wrong is just a poor appeal to emotion. Quite ironic as the libertarians claim to base their belief on "reason", that`s surely a laugh. Actually, libertarianism grossly distorts the meaning of "oppression". Because what they see as oppression is people with a great job, earing tens of thousands of dollars after tax and have an extremly high standard of living as "oppressed" because they pay taxes. That way the do not make other people feel sorry for those poor oppressed rich people, it only makes the words "oppression" and "coercion" lose their negative meaning, and may over time legitimize REAL oppression. Because if an american stockbroker is oppressed, oppression suddenly doesn`t become that bad. It actually even gets worse, because according to libertarian ideology, the welfare clients are holding the stockbrokers as slaves! Something I find a rather ridicolous metaphor, because the stockbrokers have much more real choice over their situation, a much higher standard of living and a much happier life then the welfare clients.

Actually, most libertarian ideology is just about "branding" things they don`t like, like taxes and regulations, with things that most people find objective like "theft" and "slavery". I must also laugh when libertarians and conservatives/quasilibertarians state things like "the world is unfair, accept it". Well, I will reply, "if you have more than others, people will attempt to take if from you by force, it has been that way since the dawn of time, and it will allways be that way, so accept it".

Yes, we have the libertarian claim that taxes are slave labour and such, but I think that that point is extremly overstated. The reason many liberals, social democrats and so on support what you call "slave labour", is that we are very aware of the power you gain from controlling something that someone else needs or wants. This power is just as capable in bringing someone into servitude as the whip. People are dependent on each other, and such depedence will bring a large number of people into a kind of servitude, because they have to work for someone else in practice to get what they need and wants(a behavorist inspired view of humans someone blurs the distinction between them). This is the reason I think that some use of coercion is right, because the use of coercion decreases the amount of power individuals can exert based on controlling what other people need. This way, the use of coercion will actually decrease the total amount of power in a society. Actually, I think that the libertarian view of coercion as the sole form of power betrays a rather naiv view of humans and society, where every individual exists completely independent from each other and the resources that can be found in the nature outside. I do repeat something from another post, because I certainly feel that it is relevant here.

It is correct that not doing what the mafias wants have quite severe consequensed, you may die a painful death. That at once invalidates the comparison between the mafia and the state, because the worst thing that can happen to you if you don`t do what the state wants is prison. Actually, going to prison in a welfare state, and certainly a nordic welfare state, can be quite cozy compared to holding a low wage job or being homeless in a free market society. There is of cource ofter siginificant differences, because the mafia would never offer people unemployment assurance. Also, the state is a part of a kind of social contract with the majority behind it, while the mafia is a fringe criminal organization. The state takes into consideration the consequences for both parties, the mafia does not.

But back again to that big appeal to emotion, coercion is not wrong. Coercion is an intregral part of nature. Here, libertarianis often contradict themselvens rhetorically. They claim that “the world is unfair, live with it”, as you have to accept anything that is percieved to be “the natural order of things”. Hovewer, coercion is considered extrely wrong, even if coercion is at least as big a part of the world as unfairness. Why is unfairness okay and coercon so wrong, when both are quite normal phenomena in our cruel world?

Actuall, coercion is one of the ways of survival that nature has given us, and giving up on coercion actually means altruism, because many have to give up a means of furthering their interests. That coercion is wrong is really just a libertarian poor attempt to appeal to sentimentality. It is nothing than a moronic appeal to emotion, that doesn`t really work anywhere else than in the US on a larger scale. If people shall give up the “right” to use coercion, it is only fair that they get something in return. You are basing your view upon the notion that coercion is “naturally wrong”. You are actually using “natural rights” as a tool, even if you don`t admit it! In a “natural society” without any manmade laws, the rich and productive would be plundered and even killed. I think that is the reason we don`t see accumulation of wealth and technological development in society without any protection of such rights. What the libertarians want, is that people shall obey their selfmade law that coercion is wrong, without giving anything back in return. Remenber that the law of violence and numbers is the law of nature, not the law of “coercion is wrong”. Primitive tribes did not see anything wrong with pillaging neigbouring tribe, or preassuring tribesmen to be “charitable” to the “less fortunate”.

My main problem is that in any society with a division of labour, people are dependent on the decisions of other people. Because in every trade, two partys must agree to the trade going thru, and that leaves both parties at the others whim. If the ratio of dependence had been fairly equal, this would not have been a problem, as can be seen in very primitive agricultural villages. The problem comes when some parties are more depedant on the other than the other is on them. This causes the parties that are less depedent on others to be able to exert considerable power over the dependent parties, leaving the dependent parties with a sense of not being able to control their own life. If we hovewer use coercion to increase the dependents partys control over their own life, the ones who are coerced does not suffer from an equally great loss of positive freedom. They poor might gain the choice of having a car, rather than not having a var, while the more wealthy just get their choice of car a little bit limited. The same way, having welfare may give the poor a choice to how to spend their days, what to work with. The ones who are coerced does not lose such control hovewer, because they can work with exactly the same things that they would have been doing had they not been coerced. They neither get a feeling of their employment opportunites being reduced, with the exeption of some loss due to some reduced economic growth.

This is also a considerable difference between slave labour and taxes. Serving as slave labour means that you are taken prisoner, and made to work for other people unconditionally. The other choice is to be killed, and option that is far worse than the "original position" you were in before anyone coerced you. What about paying taxes? If "my" system had been in action, you would only pay taxes if you were working. You can freely choose to work and not to work. That is a big difference, you only work for others if you want to, and if you do not work, noone will actually force you to do it. Actually, you would get food and shelter even if you did not work. You therefore actually have an actual choice to work for others or not to work for others. The result of not working would be much less severe than not working in a libertarian society. Therefore I do not think that taxes is a serious form of oppression, that you actually can avoid it without feeling pain.

There is also another important point here, I do not feel that this is "punishing" the successfull, because they will after they have paid taxes still be better off than if they had not worked, and they would still be better off than those having a lower market value. Even if they are rewarded by the market, and some of that reward taken by the state, they will still be rewarded is you sum up the rewards and "punishments" by society as a whole.

Also, they who work for others are able to earn so much that the will pay money to others, based on they using the power that they got from their abilities and skills. If you make a rule that says that red haired people gets paid $40 an hour and everyone else gets paid $10 an hour, why should the rest accept those rules? That is really a very simplified way to explain a free market. You see, what market value you achieve on the market is really not much more a factor you control than the color of your hair. The free markets lets people freely make money based on their talents, but peoples talents are very different, and only some kind of talents will give a handome reward. I therefore do not think that those who do not have the talents needed to make great money has any "moral duty" to accept those rules. This is because the market is "unfair". Of course, you could say that killing someone or stealing from them is unfair, but it is still a reaction upon an unfair society. Remember that in the natural state, with no rules, it is rather "eat or be eaten", and if someone find the rules of society as something very unfair that have been imposed on them by the majority or those with the most power, they really have no "moral obligation" to accept those rules either. If you accept that people have very limited ability to control their lives, something using physical/reductionist explanations on the human brain causes, a relatively egalitarian distribution of wealth would be most fair. This is the distribution of wealth that we can find in primitive, pre-"pharao" socieites. The default for a human society is therefore a society that is relatively fair. If people are percieving being treated unfair by the market, I see no reason that they should not attempt to revert to the "original position". If the ideas put forward by the "Bell Curve" is correct, blacks would actually be quite legitimate in attempting to install a situation of "armed anarchy".

Someone on this board once wrote about the unemployed as "stranded sailors" coming upon a settled island and demanding "welfare". I think that that way of seing it is completely wrong. People are born into a society, and the property rights over land, regardless of whether it is used or not, takes away the individuals possibility to really make it independent of other people. That way, property rights over land and resources actually creates collectivism, because it forces people into a system of mutual dependence upon each other. Also, humans are genetically coded to compete for the same resources, social status and "mates". One of the prime urges of every living thing is to procreate, and to do that, getting hold of the best sexual partners and most attractive social networks is alfa omega. One very important way to compete for such things is "social status". Therefore, aquiring wealth is therefore a way to outcompete your competitiors. In my view, "non aggression" is rather pointless, because humans do as all other living things by their nature compete with other human beings to obtain resources that they all compete to obtain.

In sum, the view that individuals take, create or deny opportunites to others with almost every action they do, reduces coercion to just another form of such intervention. Also, as when I mentioned the importance of social status, the social status is not taken away, because welfare may only strengthen the poor in absolute wealth, but they will not bring them up to the same social status as those who work. Just the same way as those taxed still keep their interesting jobs they choose themselves, they also keep almost all of the advantages gained by social status. Therefore, I really do not think that being coerced is all that damaging for the middle class, and certainly not the rich.

When it comes to the remark that humans by nature are hierarchical, that is not wholly true, because human beings have an ability other animals lack, a complicated language. The complicated language makes the weaker individuals able to gang up on the strongest male, thereby making the existence of "alfa males" in small humans societies close to impossible. That makes human societies by nature quite different from other animal societies.

## This relativistic definition of poverty is meaningless on a global scale. If you accept that poverty is the same thing wherever you live, that having rich neighbours doesn't make you poor, then it doesn't matter where you draw the poverty line: You won't find a correlation with inequality.##

But is that the correct way to view it? I think it certainly is not. The self esteem and social status of a individual is caused by how he is compared to the individuals living around him, and not what someone is Africa has. Off course, a lot of that could be attempted dismissed as "envy", but what is wrong with envy? Eny is a part of human nature, just like egoism. It is actually quite comical when libertarians use "human nature" to legitimze their beliefs, but come out with appeals to emotion like "envy" and "theft" when confronted by the sides of human nature that does not conform to libertarian theory. Actually, the failure to take notice of the phenomenon of relative poverty only shows that the libertarian perception of human nature is extremly flawed.

## Inequality has grown, but which do you think matters more to the poor themselves, their relative poverty or their absolute poverty? Their earning less than other people, or their not being able to feed their own family?##

That only complies with poor countries, because in rich countries almost everyone has food. When you feed your familiy, you will rather be concerned that your kids doesn`t get accepted into the cool crowd because they don`t have a mobile phone. ALso, if you use a global definition of poverty, american homeless people are not poor, because they actually own more than bushmen og aboriginals that still live in the desert, and they are afterall fine. It is the absolute, not the relative meassure of poverty that are absurd. There is also some meassure of this, because when people are polled how much you need to feed a family, the sum actually increases with economic growth.

## I think that this is due partly to a socialist ethos that pervades Western European societies (a dislike of the rich) and partly to a totalitarian tendency to control things in general -- in order to ensure stability in the society. ##

Well, a dislike for the rich, to a certain degree is very healthy. I would claim that the housenigger/"Uncle Tom" mentality of american and japanese workers are just as harmful, because it makes it easier to ignore poverty and other social ills.

Also, the free market is also authoritarian in a sense, in that it imprints a moral that says that the individual shall accept what others offer to them, and shut up. That is a autoritarian outlook I think. The reason americans think the welfare state is autoritarian, is that they completely ignore non coercive power. Coercive power may actually be anti-authoritarian, because it removes economic power from the hands of those with a high market value. Coercion thereby creates a more even balance of power, because the middle classes still retain most of their economic power, as the same time as those worse off actually gains power. The welfare state rather creates a more equitable balance of power, while I consider communsim and libertarian as more autoritarian, because the give all the power to a single power structure.

No, it is really not about morals, but a more "fair" social contract."

How can you say that with a straight face? The idea of "fairness" is a moral idea.

The reason is not primarily "caring for the poor", but to make people with different political ideals be able to live togehter. Why should the rest accept a libertarian state, when they do not think that liberatrianism is the right way to rule the society

Well, I didn't really say anything about libertarianism, so I'm not really sure why you've decided to toss that label around. As Hayek pointed out, a strong government is necessary to enforce rule of law.

But I don't think it's the government's place to redistribute wealth. What you seem to be saying is that it's only fair for everyone to pay a little bit in order to go along with what some people believe, because those people don't think it's right to just rely on private humanitarian institutions.

I don't find that point of view persuasive. While a so-called Libertarian, as you dubbed them, is forced to pay money to support what someone else believes, under the system that I am discussing, people are still free to support the fight against the poor. They just can't coerce other people into helping them; they have to persuade.

It's called freedom. I have made my twenty bucks and I'll decide what to do with it. If I don't want to donate any of it to charity, that makes me selfish, but it's my choice to make.
Habitat for Humanity, among other institutions, has managed to pool a huge amount of resources from the donations of people who think that what they're doing is important.

On the other hand, a government-run wellfare program forces everyone to pay, even those who do not believe that it's their duty to.

Wellfare is, always was, and always will be a moral topic, sir. Even if we ignore the obvious inefficiencies of said system, the moral question of whether it is the government's place to tell people that they have to be charitable is front and center.

As for the question of whether there's higher poverty in non-welfare states--well, your example of Japan is most interesting, but their economic troubles run a little deeper than you seem to be implying. The level of corruption has more to do with it than the lack of welfare.

I'd like you to point to a positive example of how welfare jumpstarted an economy, or how big-government states have lower unemployment.
I suspect you'll have trouble finding such an example; though after the November elections here in the US many expressed a desire to go to Canada, I very much doubt that they'd have an easy time finding a job there.

Europe does not look much better; Germany with its terrible unemployment comes to mind immediately.

## How can you say that with a straight face? The idea of "fairness" is a moral idea.##

Okay, I meant "morale" as "being kind", I just used the word wrong. Still, "justice" and "freedom" are still moral ideas.

## Well, I didn't really say anything about libertarianism, so I'm not really sure why you've decided to toss that label around. ##

Because american conservatism is really nothing but a form of quasilibertarianism. The source of american conservatism is classical liberalism, not european conservatism.

## What you seem to be saying is that it's only fair for everyone to pay a little bit in order to go along with what some people believe, because those people don't think it's right to just rely on private humanitarian institutions.##

Firstly, I must state one thing, you totally ignore a lot of what I wrote about private charity. My point was exactly that the welfare state is about much more than being "kind", and the reason the welfare state came about was to create a "peace treaty" between "capitalists" and "socialists". You do not adress those reasons to have a welfare state at all!

Also, libertarianism is also about living in a society that not everyone believe in. Not everyone think that coercion is wrong. What moral right have you to tell others that coercion is wrong? In the "natural state", the primitive tribal societies, there is really nothing wrong with stealing the property of members of other tribes. There, all property belongs to the tribe that can defend it. Actually, most "property" is kind of collective, because a single individual is not able to defend his property alone. He therefore have to share with the rest of the tribe to not get his property stolen from him. That is the natural state, and no such rights exists. Actually, many claim that these societies are barbaric and cruel, and they are partly right, and that just confirms that human beings have no natural respect for any rights whatsoever, and rights as such are social constructs. Actually, the whole concept of inalienable rights is only a couple of hundread years old.

And why should other people respect other peoples property rights? I only think that people can be expected to abide by rules which the percieve to be fair. Justice is less interesting as a concept, because it is only a construct that gives meaning in these discussions if some kinds of rights exists, and all "natural rights" are just bogus, invented by the upper middle class to support their special interests. If you make a rule that says that red haired people gets paid $40 an hour and everyone else gets paid $10 an hour, why should the rest accept those rules? That is really a very simplified way to explain a free market. You see, what market value you achieve on the market is really not much more a factor you control than the color of your hair. The free markets lets people freely make money based on their talents, but peoples talents are very different, and only some kind of talents will give a handome reward. I therefore do not think that those who do not have the talents needed to make great money has any "moral duty" to accept those rules. Remember that in the natural state, with no rules, it is rather "eat or be eaten", and if someone find the rules of society as something very unfair that have been imposed on them by the majority or those with the most power, they really have no "moral obligation" to accept those rules either.

The fact that coercion is wrong is just a poor appeal to emotion. Quite ironic as the libertarians claim to base their belief on "reason", that`s surely a laugh. Actually, libertarianism grossly distorts the meaning of "oppression". Because what they see as oppression is people with a great job, earing tens of thousands of dollars after tax and have an extremly high standard of living as "oppressed" because they pay taxes. That way the do not make other people feel sorry for those poor oppressed rich people, it only makes the words "oppression" and "coercion" lose their negative meaning, and may over time legitimize REAL oppression. Because if an american stockbroker is oppressed, oppression suddenly doesn`t become that bad. It actually even gets worse, because according to libertarian ideology, the welfare clients are holding the stockbrokers as slaves! Something I find a rather ridicolous metaphor, because the stockbrokers have much more real choice over their situation, a much higher standard of living and a much happier life then the welfare clients.

Actually, most libertarian ideology is just about "branding" things they don`t like, like taxes and regulations, with things that most people find objective like "theft" and "slavery". I must also laugh when libertarians and conservatives/quasilibertarians state things like "the world is unfair, accept it". Well, I will reply, "if you have more than others, people will attempt to take if from you by force, it has been that way since the dawn of time, and it will allways be that way, so accept it".

## While a so-called Libertarian, as you dubbed them, is forced to pay money to support what someone else believes, under the system that I am discussing, people are still free to support the fight against the poor. They just can't coerce other people into helping them; they have to persuade##

And as I stated earlier, that gives some people to much power. I would gladly use coercion to take away from the middle class the choice of whether the poor should live or die.

## It's called freedom. I have made my twenty bucks and I'll decide what to do with it. If I don't want to donate any of it to charity, that makes me selfish, but it's my choice to make.##

Yes, but whether you should earn those twenty bucks is a result of what other people have decided. Their choice to either hire you or not or to buy your services or not. This is escpecially relevant here.

You also quite unsuccessfully attempted to disregard the concept of positive freedom. I argued that redistribution might actually increase the amount of positive freedom, and positive freedom in stark contrast to negative freedom has a value in itself.

## Wellfare is, always was, and always will be a moral topic, sir. Even if we ignore the obvious inefficiencies of said system, the moral question of whether it is the government's place to tell people that they have to be charitable is front and center.##

But welfare also takes away the markets ability to tell those people what they should do if they want to survive. The government and the market are in a sense the same thing, the aggregate choices of other people that functions to decide what options other people should be able to have. You also take the idea that people should accept that coercion is wrong for granted. If those with "marked power" are free to use the power as they see fit, why shouldn`t the rest use their coercive power for all that it is worth? And just claiming that "coercion is wrong" does not count as an argument.

Welfare does neither have to be defende morally, it can also be legitimzed using utilitarianian argumenation. That the law of dimishing utility and other things like shorter working hours and more security causes redistribution to cause more utility.

## As for the question of whether there's higher poverty in non-welfare states--well, your example of Japan is most interesting, but their economic troubles run a little deeper than you seem to be implying. The level of corruption has more to do with it than the lack of welfare##

I did not look at poverty in general, but hardship among the non-working poor. The example also works for Taiwan, Hong kong and even the US. Private charities does simply not do enough, and the do not help the working poor.

## I'd like you to point to a positive example of how welfare jumpstarted an economy,##

Well, I do not think that societies laws are written in stone, as you believe. For the welfare state to be viable, the economy have to be quite developed. The welfare state can be introduced, when the country is rich and more economic growth is not a high priority anymore.

## or how big-government states have lower unemployment.##

But I do not see unemployment as a problem in itself. I actually prefer it to having a class of working poor and the working conditions of employers like Wal-Mart and Lidl.

## Germany with its terrible unemployment comes to mind immediately.##

Yes, but that only is true for the last 15 years period. If you look at a longer perspective, the european economices have performed very well earlier. Also, I do not think that more growth produces enough utility for a conversion to a higher growth system to be worth while in western europa.

It appears that for americans, economic growth and "freedom" is the new folk religion.

When it comes to unemployment, that has several factors attached to it.

The size of public sector is not significantly correlated to economic growth. How it affect employment is a complicated matter. Countries with large public sectors, typically scandinavian countries has some of the highest employment rates in the world - even with less flexible labour markets, significant social security etc.

International surveys points to many institutional effects that have a larger impact than size of public sector. Share of union members, unemployment benefit ratios, marginal tax rates etc.

But it seems most of all to do with the wage contract coordination is. There are basically three scenarios one usually starts with. The scandinavian model, largely coordination where large labour unions negiotiates with the employers organization. On the other end is the anglo-american system with negioting taking place at a very low level, within one company og with single employees to a larger extend. In the middle is the unfortunate continental europe model.

Results are lowest unemployment in the scandinavian system, with the anglo-american right behind, but with much larger income inequalities. The continental system is plauged with higher unemployment ratios. There are some economic reserach on this, but they do not agree on whether the low umenployment in the anglo-american system is caused by the low level of coordination or by other institutional factors as lower unemployment benefits, more flexible labour market etc.

The land with the highest employment was Iceland, the last time I checked.

This whole discussion boiles down to different views on the "social function" that one thinks of as best. One can argument from the subjective belief of "justice" and "fairness", one can argue with economc efficiency with or without accepting diminishing marginal return of money or utility. So this is not really an discussion of economic optimality. Economics are only a tool for politics to take use of, because diffenent political views have different social welfare functions - which in turn decides what is "optimal".

"Well, a dislike for the rich, to a certain degree is very healthy. I would claim that the housenigger/"Uncle Tom" mentality of american and japanese workers are just as harmful, because it makes it easier to ignore poverty and other social ills."

Just how much experience do you have with American or Japanese workers?

Is your bigotry founded entirely on ignorance?

## Just how much experience do you have with American or Japanese workers?

Is your bigotry founded entirely on ignorance?##

Well, it shows the way they vote, especially the japanese ones. Off course, it doesn`t apply to everyone, but there is just enough of them to tip the political scale.

Political violence is in any colur the real sicness. Bin-Laden who has raisen to a political state is nothing else than a wantded
murderer. I rememder the bombe in a railvaystation in Bolognia and thing how unfair it is to kill bystanders and people og the masses who try to cope with theyr lives. The dark side of Europe, relgius and political fanatics who so well knoww what others shal do with theyr lives and what they shal think. There are so many ways to work politicaly so the stange thing is that muslim choose violence
This is the greate mistake, and 911 was a tragedy for the muslim world and the relation with the west.

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