Consequentialist Discussion - Ron Paul Forums

For a while now I've been participating on the Ron Paul Forums.  In order to avoid giving Ron Paul any negative publicity...the forum owners move all anarcho-capitalist discussions to the Political Philosophy subcategory...which is only accessible to members of the forum.  When I joined the forums, that seemed to be the category most relevant to pragmatarianism, so that's been the only place where I've participated.

Unfortunately, nearly all the anarcho-capitalists there are of the "natural rights" type.  Meaning...they make moral arguments against the government...ie "taxes are theft".  Not too long ago however, a few members and myself had a discussion of a decidedly more consequentialist...aka "results"...nature.

The discussion we had seemed extremely productive...but my perception might be skewed given that I've participated in so many less productive discussions with people making moral arguments.  Kinda like how hunger, the best sauce, can make even the most meager dishes taste delicious.  But if you're at all interested in consequentialist discussions then I highly recommend reading the discussion which took place on the 9th page of this thread....Where Do Ron Paul's Ideas Come From?  Well...for me it's on the 9th page because I always change my settings to display the maximum amount of posts per page.

In another entry of mine...Is There a Platypus Controlling You...I mentioned another highly worthwhile post that another member had written.  In my opinion, both these two things...wistfulthinker's comments on coercion... and the consequentialist discussion... make it well worth the minimal effort it requires to sign up to the Ron Paul forums in order to read them.

Part of the challenge when it comes to pragmatarianism is articulating my thoughts.  How can I most effectively communicate the value of applying market principles to the public sector?  It seems like I'm constantly revising and tweaking the delivery in an attempt to get it right.  When I get it wrong...people's responses highlight my failure to explain some key concept.  The tricky part is when somebody stops responding .  It doesn't mean that I got it right...but there's just no evidence for me to figure out exactly where I failed.

Here are a few guesses...

1. They gave up...they decided it wasn't worth their time to continue the discussion (opportunity cost)
2. They wanted to respond...they just never got around to it
3. They couldn't respond...they were unable to counter my arguments 

Of course, in  my mind, what I'm saying is true.  So I get the sense that, if somebody does start to understand my argument, then it will be disconcerting for them to have their fundamental beliefs challenged.  By no means is it a pleasant sensation or experience to begin to understand that your accepted beliefs are actually myths.  

Some myths are harmless.  Personally, I would never try and dissuade somebody of their belief in Santa Claus or God.  On the other hand...some myths are extremely harmful.  Believing in congress is decidedly harmful.  It's really not a good idea to allow 538 people to decide how 150 million people's public funds should be distributed.

What's the best way to dissuade people of their beliefs in congress?  The best way has to be based on consequentialist arguments.  Somehow you have to demonstrate that it's extremely beneficial to allow 150 million people to directly allocate their own taxes among the various government organizations.

Here's my post...which happens to be the last post...from the discussion on consequentialism...

[Update] helmuth_hubener replied to this post.  You can read my response to his response here...The Magna Carta Movement.

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newbitech, helmuth_hubener put it better than I could...especially with his example of the man rushing to get his wife to the hospital. From the anarcho-capitalist perspective...forcing people to pay taxes is like forcing that man to stop and give that other guy directions. That wouldn't be an efficient allocation of his limited resources.

Pragmatarianism, on the other hand, says that people should be forced to pay taxes...but they should be allowed to choose which government organizations receive their taxes. Forcing people to pay taxes recognizes the value of the collective...while allowing people to choose which government organizations receive their taxes recognizes the value of the individual.

Let's consider the following...

If you read enough (if you are young enough), eventually the truth will become evident and you will realize that having one group have a monopoly on ultimate decision-making over an arbitrary geographical area is total craziness! You'll have an aha! moment, and step back and look at that idea and say "how could anyone think that's a good idea? Why would a monopoly over all ultimate decision-making be likely to lead to good results, when a monopoly over anything else, say, paper-making, inevitably leads to bad results?" You'll likely realize things like:
1. Monopoly over ultimate decision-making doesn't work. How could it? It's crazy.
2. Monopoly over ultimate decision-making destroys prosperity.
3. Monopoly over ultimate decision-making is immoral. It is opposed to natural rights / human nature. - helmuth_hubener

The challenge here is to try and figure out how allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes could lead to bad results. How could injecting individualism into the public sector be a bad thing?

Pragmatarianism is pragmatic consequentialism. My hero...Deng Xiaoping...was a pragmatic consequentialist. He went around saying that it shouldn't matter whether a cat was black or white...what matters is whether it catches mice. What I'm going around saying is that it shouldn't matter whether an organization is public or private...what matters is whether it produces good results.

Why would any taxpayers spend their money on an organization that produces bad results? Would you? Nobody would. Yet helmuth_hubener and others don't seem to trust the opportunity cost decisions of millions and millions of taxpayers. This is the part I really struggle to understand. The problem has never ever ever ever been with the taking...it's always been with the spending.

A committee should never impose priorities. They are welcome to respond to priorities...they are welcome to try and tell you what your priorities should be...they are welcome to try and influence your priorities by sharing partial knowledge with you. Congress though, unlike the board of a fortune 500 company, tries to impose its priorities on an entire nation. This is a recipe for substantial failures.

Unlike with socialism though...congress does't control all the resources. So rather than producing epic failures...our system produces recessions/depressions. Mises and many others were certain that a mixed system was unsustainable...and it would inevitably slide towards socialism. I kind of doubt this though because our system does self-correct to some extent...but the core problem is never addressed. Well...aside from those that advocate throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I have no problem with the existence of government...or congress...or taxes....as long as taxpayers are allowed to use their individual taxes to indicate what their priorities are. I can't argue against the priorities of 150 million taxpayers. The priorities of taxpayers should shape the government...the government should not shape the priorities of taxpayers.

In other words...taxpayers should be the sculptor...and the government should be the medium. It's a fatal conceit to believe that it should be the other way around.

Honestly though...for as long as I've been a member of this forum...this is the first time we've ever had an honest to goodness consequentialist discussion. Every other time it's been the deontological argument..."taxes are theft".

Constitutionalism Equals Socialism

Constitutionalism = a committee determines the scope of government = Socialism = Conceit

versus

Pragmatarianism = taxpayers determine the scope of government = Tax choice = Humility

We all make mistakes.  It's conceited for people to think that they are infallible.  The more conceited that somebody is...the more eggs that they are willing to put in one basket...the greater the consequences of their mistakes.  Therefore...

Scarcity + Fallibilism = Hedge Our Bets = Tax Choice

In other words...

It follows, then, that a less centralized society has the advantage of a greater diversification of its performance across a larger number of preceptors.  This is because diversification here dilutes the impact of the ability, or the lack thereof, of each preceptor on the aggregate societal performance. - Raaj K. Sah, Fallibility in Human Organizations and Political Systems

Banned From Bleeding Heart Libertarians

Where to start?  Let's try and get the obvious out of the way first.  A while back I created a thread on the Ron Paul Forums asking for people's thoughts on whether another member (whose views I did not agree with) should have been banned...Should ProIndividual Have Been Banned?

One of the members had this to say on the subject...

Site owners can ban whomever they want for whatever reason they want. They have the right to do it. Nobody else has a right to be here. What are good reasons for banning people? I don't know, that's up to the site owners to decide based on what they're trying to accomplish. I'm in no position to second-guess it. - erowe1

The first three sentences should go without saying.  A website is a person's property and they can limit access to it for whatever arbitrary/legitimate reasons they want.  But should this fact restrict our freedom to challenge those in positions of authority?  Wouldn't it be strange if a forum dedicated to Ron Paul had an explicit rule about not challenging those in positions of authority?

Recently a member of the same forum shared this video of a fellow by the name of John Bush.  In this video he protests having been wrongfully banned from the Austin City Council....



Do you agree with what he is saying?  Should it matter?  Personally I do not agree with most of what he is saying...but I strongly support his right to question those in positions of authority.  To misquote Voltaire, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Again, I get that a city council is public property while a website is private property.  But how/why/when authority is exercised over others on private property can offer a unique and valuable opportunity to understand how/why/when authority is exercised over others on public property.

With that in mind...here are the goals of this post...

1. Promote the BleedingHeartLibertarians.com website/concept
2. Encourage people to make the effort to understand fundamental economic concepts
3. Encourage people who do understand fundamental economic concepts to make the effort to meet people half way.  
4. Promote tax choice
5. Promote Vermin Supreme for president 
6. Encourage people to question when somebody is banned
7. Encourage a broader definition of censorship

It might seem like I'm trying to accomplish too much here...but it's all tightly tied together.  For example...I can't promote the Bleeding Heart Libertarians (BHL) website without warning you that chances are really good that you're not going to make heads or tails of most of their blog entries.  This isn't because you're stupid...it's simply because their blog entries are written by PhDs who generally only have to worry about communicating their ideas to other PhDs in the same field.

One of the guest contributors to the BHL website, Peter Boettke, recently wrote a blog entry on the relationship between economics and philosophy.  In one of my comments I stressed that all the contributors to the BHL website should really consider making an effort to meet people in other fields half way.  Unfortunately, you won't be able to read my comment because the owner of the BHL website, Matt Zwolinski, deleted every single one of my comments from his website (again, this is his prerogative).  But...you can still read a reply to my comment...

Dittos. This blog entry, and particularly the comments, has basically made my head hurt and left me bewildered.  Oh, well. I guess this one is just inside baseball and I should leave it to the pros. - Rod Engelsman

If Peter Boettke and Rod Engelsman don't make an honest and genuine effort to meet each other half way then they both lose.

If you do happen to understand all the concepts discussed on the BHL website then power to you.  If not, then look the concepts up on Wikipedia.  If that doesn't help then by all means please post a comment that lets the BHL contributors know exactly which aspects you're struggling with.  You can signal that you made an effort to meet them half way by encouraging them to improve the Wikipedia articles that failed to help clarify the concepts in question.  They really shouldn't have a problem doing so given that Wikipedia itself was inspired by Hayek's concept of partial knowledge.  If you're concerned with people judging you for asking a "stupid" question then just post your comment anonymously.

So why in the world am I promoting a website that I was just banned from?  The answer can be found in the name of the website...Bleeding Heart Libertarians.  The goal of the website is to address the common perception that libertarians do not have hearts.  Or perhaps the goal of the website is to help libertarians understand the value in having a heart?  Or perhaps the goal of the website is to help liberals understand the economic arguments for libertarianism?  Or perhaps the goal of the website is to combine moral and economic arguments into one powerful argument?

Whatever its true goal is...the BHL website is notable for recognizing that a problem does exist somewhere in this general area.  For example, here's what Vermin Supreme had to say about libertarians...

But I also believe that in order for that to happen we also have to take the responsibility for ourselves. We have to take responsibility for others. We have to offer mutual aid and support and care to our fellow citizens. It's those two things. The libertarians, you know, are just about abolishing the government and letting shit fall where it may. But I believe that's a mistake. I believe that we can dismantle the government gradually, if the citizens take up more of the slack. It's all a certain Republican idea you know...taking the government down. But they offer no alternative to helping people other than charity. I mean...civics, citizenship...Americans don't know what it means to be a citizen any more. 

If you haven't already done so then please vote for Vermin Supreme on Americans Elect.  Citizens taking up the slack is what tax choice (pragmatarianism) is all about.  If any citizens didn't want to take up the slack then they would still have the option to just give their taxes to congress.  The challenge is that to effectively evaluate the idea of tax choice you really need to have a decent grasp of a few basic economic concepts.

The problem is...trying to share these basic economic concepts is exactly what led to my banishment from the BHL website.  The last straw for Matt Zwolinski occurred on this blog entry of his...What We Can Learn From Drowning Children.  In this instance...not only did he delete my comments from the page but he also deleted his replies to my comments.  Fortunately, before he did so I managed to copy and paste our entire discussion over to my own blog...Fallibilism vs Fairness.

Again again...Zwolinski certainly has the right to delete whatever he wants from his website for whatever reasons...completely irrespective of whether his reasons are good, bad or ugly.  As I indicated in my Self-Ownership Survey...people should have the right to shoot themselves in the foot.

If I hadn't saved our discussion though...then none of you would have been able to read it.  So could Zwolinski's effort to delete our discussion count as censorship?  The way I see it...you are perfectly capable of choosing for yourself which comments you read and which comments you ignore.  The internet has made us all extremely proficient in filtering out trash.  But one person's trash is another person's treasure.  Do you really want somebody else deciding for you what counts as trash/treasure?  Personally, I'm leaning towards expanding the definition of censorship to include whenever somebody restricts your ability to decide for yourself whether something is trash/treasure.  This broader definition of censorship would allow us to argue that the government engages in censorship by blocking tax choice.

Hopefully I've made it clear that Zwolinski certainly had the right to delete my comments from his website.  Yet...hopefully it's also clear that it's my right to question his motivations for doing so.  Here's how I perceive his motivations...

On the Debate Politics Forum I created this thread...Why Is Your Partner Cheating On You?  My point wasn't to talk about cheating...yet a few people really felt the need to discuss my misunderstanding of how cheating really works.

Xerographica: SmokeAndMirrors, ok, here's the deal. I'll admit that I don't understand how cheating works and you'll admit that you don't understand how the invisible hand works. Deal?
SmokeAndMirrors: Nope. I understand the "invisible hand" concept perfectly well. I just have no reason to address it because your argument unraveled before I ever got there.  Like Goshin, I have now ceased to be interested.

A) SmokeAndMirrors was perfectly willing to discuss cheating.  B) She said she understood how the invisible hand works.  C) She "conveniently" ceased to be interested in further discussion when it came time to demonstrate her understanding of how the invisible hand works.

Zwolinski's behavior was nearly identical to that of SmokeAndMirrors...

A) Zwolinski was perfectly willing to discuss business discrimination and foreign intervention with me.  B)  He said he was "familiar" with the economic concepts that I had frequently mentioned.  C) He "conveniently" banned me from his BHL website rather than respond to any of my economic arguments.

Basically...we all failed.  They failed to acknowledge their perfectly reasonable ignorance and I failed to encourage them to meet me half way.  It wasn't a total loss though because these documented failures can provide others with the opportunity to learn from our mistakes.

That's the thing.  We all make mistakes...and we all only have limited resources...and we all have access to different information...and we all have different values.  Therefore, we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket.  In other words... Scarcity + Fallibilism = Hedge Our Bets = Tax Choice.  This was the idea that I failed to convey to Zwolinski in our discussion on fallibilism vs fairness.

It just so happens though that I'm currently reading an excellent book on Reason and Persuasion.  This book, which makes Plato's ideas much more accessible, was written by John Holbo.  John Holbo is a contributor to the Crooked Timber Liberal website which is where he posted an entry on Selling Votes.  The comment that I shared on his entry led to the two of us having a long discussion on selling votes.  His willingness to discuss revealing preferences is partly what motivated me to purchase his book.  None of this would have occurred though if I had been banned from the Crooked Timber Liberal website.

The kicker is that I was technically banned from the Crooked Timber Liberal website.  Nearly two months prior to commenting on Holbo's entry, I had posted a comment on Chris Bertram's entry on Renouncing the facts in the name of method (Mankiw channels Lukacs).  Bertram replaced my comment with this message...

[Crooked Timber comments threads are an opportunity to engage in conversation, not the granting of a soapbox for you to promote your private obsessions. Please go away. CB]

You can read my original comment here...Crooked Timber Liberals - Monopolizing the Facts.  Recently I discovered that now I am both technically and actually banned from the Crooked Timber website.

Chris Bertram, who is a liberal, and Matt Zwolinski, who is a libertarian, both saw my comments as trash.  That's why they saw value in eliminating my perspective from their websites.  What they couldn't see though were all the possible future discussions that they had blocked.      

This ties into Bastiat's concept of the seen vs the unseen as well as Hayek's concept of conceit vs humility.  All our perspectives are valuable but extremely limited.  This means that it's easy to focus on what we can see but extremely difficult to focus on what we can't see.  It's easy for Zwolinski and Bertram to see the value of their own perspectives but it's extremely difficult for them to see the value of my perspective.  If it was easy for people to focus on what they couldn't see then they would have embraced tax choice a long time ago. As it is, political tolerance is blocked and/or ignored by men of the system...

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. - Adam Smith

For the longest time we've debated what the government should do.  The solution is simply for the government to do what we pay it to do...no more and no less.  I may not agree with how you spend your taxes...but I will strongly support your right to do so.  If I do want you to spend your taxes on the things that I treasure...then I will rely solely on the persuasive power of the available evidence/facts.  As Milton Friedman strongly emphasized, "If we can't persuade the public that it's desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it."

Another Milestone - Anti-Pragmatarianism Propaganda

It's another hard-times milestone!  But beggars can't be choosers...right?  Over on the Ron Paul forums I started this thread... Why Shouldn't the Government Engage in Aggression?  In that thread, noneedtoaggress shared the very first anti-pragmatarianism propaganda...

"Can't allocate taxes toward propaganda.  Forever Pragmatarian."

What do you think?  Not bad eh?  If this had been the olden days then a copy with the typo would have been priceless.  So much for the olden days.  Well...if you do print it out...feel free to mail it to me and I'll sign it for you.  You could sell it on ebay for at least $400 for sure.

The state would allow people to allocate their taxes to some type of propaganda.  Yeah...because who knows where advertisement ends and propaganda begins.

It was a good thing I saved the image because a second later he replaced it with this version...

"The State won't allow me to allocate taxes to propaganda.  Forever Pragmatarian."

You have my thumbs up to widely disseminate this anti-pragmatarian propaganda around the internet.

Now...stare at this propaganda and listen to Natural Anthem by the Postal Service.

A Defense and Critique of Austrian Economics

My comment on Matt Zwolinski's blog entry Libertarianism, Political Action, and Cultural Change...

Here's my criticism of the Austrian Econ approach...but let me first begin with a defense of the approach. Let's start off taking a look at Adam's definition of economics..."When I use the word "economics" I am referring to the academic discipline of "economics" which you will find in "economics departments" at many universities."

Economics is simply the study of scarcity..."don't you know matches is scarce on this island" (Rabbitson Crusoe). If all our resources were unlimited then the field of economics wouldn't exist. The most important economic question is...how can we guarantee the best possible use of limited resources? Well...Matt's article in question offers a perfect example of the solution.

"Libertarians, like everyone else, have limited time, money and other resources. And if we want to advance the cause of liberty, we should use those resources in the way that has the highest expected return. The Paul campaign is not it."

The economic term for this concept is "opportunity cost". Matt wants all Ron Paul supporters to consider the opportunity costs of the time/money that they spend on Paul's campaign. In order to maximize the return on your investment you should consider what you are going to forego/sacrifice as a result of your spending decisions. In other words...a dollar that you spend on Paul's campaign can't also be spent supporting the IHS.

What the Austrian Econ approach has completely correct is that you can't efficiently allocate resources by proxy. Why is that? Because there's no way of truly knowing whether Matt is correct that the Paul campaign does not offer the highest return on our investment. In other words...it's entirely possible that Matt might be wrong. Of course, it's entirely possible that Paul's supporters might be wrong as well.

Now, what many of the academic disciplines at the "economic departments" are trying to do is to create models that can accurately predict whether Matt is right or wrong. Is it possible to create a model that accurately computes the myriad of possible factors? Sure. Are we even vaguely close to being able to create such models? Obviously not.

Matt can't truly know whether Paul's campaign does not offer the highest expected return because he, like the rest of us, only has partial knowledge...

"The problem is thus in no way solved if we can show that all the facts, if they were known to a single mind (as we hypothetically assume them to be given to the observing economist), would uniquely determine the solution; instead we must show how a solution is produced by the interactions of people each of whom possesses only partial knowledge. To assume all the knowledge to be given to a single mind in the same manner in which we assume it to be given to us as the explaining economists is to assume the problem away and to disregard everything that is important and significant in the real world." - Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society

That's my defense of the Austrian approach. Here's my criticism...

What the Austrian Econ approach has completely wrong is the belief that there is no third solution. Just because we can't efficiently allocate resources by proxy does not automatically imply that we should reduce the scope of government. It just implies that we should have the option to directly, rather than indirectly, allocate our taxes.

Just like it's a good thing for people to consider the opportunity costs of donating to the Ron Paul campaign...it would also be a good thing for people to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions. We would benefit as a country if each and every taxpayer was given the freedom to try and maximize the return on their tax investment.

This invisible hand approach to the scope of government...aka pragmatarianism...would allow us to hedge our bets.

A Fictitious Dialogue with a Ron Paul Supporter

fisharmor: It is completely unethical for the government to imprison, beat, torture, rape, and kill people for refusing to pay taxes!!
Xerographica: Would you want to be able to use your taxes to boycott the tax enforcement GOs?
fisharmor: No!!
Xerographica: No?
fisharmor: You don't get it...I find theft of my property to be unethical.
Xerographica: But...you wouldn't want to deprive the tax enforcement GOs of your taxes?
fisharmor: No! You're being unreasonable for not understanding how strongly I feel about taxes.
Xerographica: But in a pragmatarian system you'd be able to withhold your taxes from all but one GO...
fisharmor: Taxes are unethical and I could care less what my stolen money is used for
Xerographica: Even if your taxes paid for unnecessary wars?
fisharmor: Look, the problem here is that you've never heard of the self-ownership principle.
Xerographica: I'm pretty sure I understand and appreciate the concept...but I don't think you're grasping that pragmatarianism is a system that would allow you to allocate your taxes according to your moral principles
fisharmor: You don't truly understand the self-ownership concept if you support taxes
Xerographica: I'm not supporting taxes...I'm supporting freedom...
fisharmor: The only way to support freedom is by advocating for the total elimination of taxes
Xerographica: Even if advocating for the total elimination of taxes guaranteed that you wouldn't get any freedom?
fisharmor: Yes, that's what it means to be ethically principled...you never compromise your ethical principles even if doing so helps perpetuate the very thing that you're ethically opposed to.
Xerographica: But...I'm not asking that you compromise your ethical principles....
fisharmor: Are you advocating for the elimination of taxes?
Xerographica: Well...no...
fisharmor: Then you're asking me to compromise my ethical principles.