Consequentialist Arguments Against Children's Suffrage

What's going on here?  Campaign anonymity rule thrown out

Xerographica: You don't support allowing children to vote because they are incompetent?
megaprogman: If my boys could vote, they would vote for darth vader (I just asked them). If my daughter could vote, it would be for a disney princess.
Xerographica: Are you saying that if kids could vote then we would end up with either darth vader or a disney princess as our president?
What if...?: It becomes a possibility.
megaprogman: Not likely since they are not real people, the votes would just be voided.

Not likely?  Heh.

If you ask enough adults why kids shouldn't be allowed to vote...then you'll understand what Churchill meant when he said that the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with your average voter.  Well...unless you happen to be an average voter yourself.  In that case, then you'll think that the average voter's arguments against kids voting merely confirm your own arguments against kids voting.

Would there be any ridiculous consequences of allowing children to vote?  Not if you understand the concept of tyranny of the majority.  What's a ridiculous consequence anyways?  How about prohibition?   Was that a ridiculous consequence?  Was that a good reason why women shouldn't have been allowed to vote?

Xerographica: You don't support allowing women to vote because they are incompetent?
megaprogman: If my wife could vote, she would vote for alcohol to be illegal (I just asked her)
Xerographica: Are you saying that if women could vote then we would end up with prohibition?
What if...?: It becomes a possibility.
megaprogman: Not likely since they are not real people, the votes would just be voided.

That people believe there's a problem with allowing kids to vote...clearly indicates that there is not.

In related news...check out my arguments against personal shoppers for public goods...What's Wrong With a Representative Democracy?  What do you think?  Are my arguments so good or no good?

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".

Anarcho-capitalism and Pragmatarianism

Anarcho-capitalists can be divided into two groups...consequentialist and deontological.  The consequentialist anarcho-capitalists believe that the private sector can do everything better than the government.  For example, anarcho-capitalists like David Friedman and Peter Boettke make economic arguments for eliminating the government.  Perhaps they might say that their favorite political philosopher was Adam Smith.

Deontological anarcho-capitalists...more commonly known as "natural rights" anarcho-capitalists...make moral arguments for eliminating the government.  For example, the "taxes are theft" argument is an argument that "natural rights" anarcho-capitalists would make.  They'll also frequently use words like "aggression" and "violence" and "rape"...and "hate".  If "natural rights" anarcho-capitalists had to choose one of their favorite political philosophers chances are really good that they'd choose Murray Rothbard...Do You Hate the State?

Personally, I've never heard a consequentialist anarcho-capitalist make the "taxes are theft" argument...but plenty of deontological anarcho-capitalists have no problem making consequentialist arguments.  In theory though...a "natural rights" anarcho-capitalist should support abolishing the government no matter what the consequences would be.  Just like a consequentialist anarcho-capitalist should support a little government if it can be proven that the consequences are better than abolishing government.

When it comes to pragmatarianism...so far, all the "natural rights" anarcho-capitalists that I've proposed the idea to have vociferously rejected it.  On the other hand, only two consequentialist anarcho-capitalists have had anything to say about it.  James E. Miller seemed open to the idea while David Friedman did not see the value....

I don't think that letting taxpayers allocate their taxes among options provided by the government solves the fundamental problems of government. - David Friedman

Unfortunately, that's all he said.  He never substantiated his claim...and the suspense is killing me.  Well...not quite...but I would really love to hear his critique.  Some thing with Peter Boettke!  Any other consequentialists...anarcho-capitalist or otherwise...are certainly welcome to share their critique of pragmatarianism as well.

In the meantime...I'll try and figure out what's going on with all these "natural rights" anarcho-capitalists.  For example, when I posted my libertarian pudding image on the Ron Paul Forums...one of the anarcho-capitalists who wrote this critique of pragmatarianism...modified my image in a way that made his opinion on pragmatarianism quite clear.

Here was my response...

Anarcho-Capitalist, if the government is truly shit...then wouldn't allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes help them understand that the government is shit? Most of the people I talk to fanatically believe that the government is not shit. They believe that the government helps flush shit down the toilet.  

Both sides of the debate can't be 100% correct. What I don't understand is...if you're so dogmatically certain that your perspective absolutely reflects reality...then why wouldn't you tirelessly promote allowing taxpayers to see exactly how their own, individual, hard-earned taxes are being spent? What else could more effectively open their eyes? You say that their money is just being flushed down the toilet yet you don't want them to open their eyes. It just doesn't follow. 

The other side believes that you're nuts...and you believe that they're nuts...so why not just empower 150 million self-interested, utility maximizing, purposefully acting, psychic profit seeking taxpayers to use their hard-earned taxes to prove which side is truly nuts? What are you afraid of? The more you fight against pragmatarianism the less credible your position becomes.

With that in mind, here's the illustration that I came up with.  Feel free to disseminate it and modify it

Here's a snippet of what I had written earlier over on the libertarian forum...Taxes Are Not the Problem...

The goal of pragmatarianism is to highlight the folly of committees determining funding. You can think whatever you want about taxes and still agree with the fundamental premise of pragmatarianism. Anarcho-capitalists, minarchists and libertarians can argue for days about whether taxes are truly necessary...but they should all be able to support the key premise of pragmatarianism: it's a myth to believe that a committee can determine the optimal level of funding for an organization. If you believe that a committee can determine the optimal level of funding for any organization...then that is the same thing as believing in socialism.

Pragmatarianism is something that we should all be able to support.

Pragmatarianism Disproved?

A couple guys from the libertarian forum just started an anarcho-capitalist blog.  Their blog is off to an auspicious start given that their first post was an in-depth critique of pragmatarianism...Pragmatarianism Disproved.

They cover many of the relevant economic concepts...with graphs even!  But what's really funny is that they based most of their critique on a 100% tax rate!!  Ouch...my most of me!  As I mentioned in my entry on pragma-socialism...try as I might...it's impossible for even me to imagine a pragmatarian system with a 100% tax rate.   I just can't wrap my mind around it.

My bottom line rebuttal doesn't directly address their points.  It addresses the fact that they used a 100% tax rate as their example.  That's what's really fascinating.  The Magna Carta Movement gave taxpayers the keys to the car and for some reason they decided to drive us from our current tax rate all the way over to a tax rate of 100%.  How do the guys from the LibertarianAnarchy blog explain the taxpayer's behavior?  

The most universal economic principle is that everybody wants the most bang for their buck.  This is what Adam Smith considered "self-interest".  The neoclassical economists refer to this as "maximizing utility" and the Austrian economists refer to this as "people acting purposefully".   

If we somehow ended up at a 100% tax rate then....as far as I can tell...there are only two possibilities... 

1. All those economists were wrong...people do not want the most bang for their buck

2. A tax rate of 100% would give taxpayers the most bang for their buck

I can argue for days and days against a government committee setting a tax rate of 100%...but I've got absolutely no argument against millions and millions of self-interested...utility maximizing ...individual taxpayers acting purposefully to set a tax rate of 100%.  

At this point it might help for me to explain how taxpayers would indirectly determine the tax rate.  Basically...the tax rate reflects how much the government does.  The more things the government does...the greater the justification for a higher tax rate.  The less things the government does...the greater the justification for a lower tax rate.  In a tax choice system...people could vote for things that they wanted the government to do...but it would be up to taxpayers to use their own, individual, hard-earned taxes to indicate exactly what the government should do.  

For example...if taxpayers chose not to allocate any of their taxes to the drug war...then the scope of government would narrow....and people would pressure congress to decrease the tax rate.  If taxpayers chose to allocate their taxes to public healthcare...then the scope of government would expand...and people would pressure congress to increase the tax rate.  This is assuming of course that enough taxpayers allocate enough of their taxes to congress to maintain its existence.  

Regarding the moral arguments...

He truly doesn't care--at all--about the infringement of Natural Rights and libertarian ethic.

Here's what the anarcho-capitalist David Friedman has to say on the topic of moral/deontological arguments versus consequentialist arguments.  

The short version...

I generally prefer consequentialist arguments. I think I understand economics better than I understand moral philosophy, and possibly better than anyone understands moral philosophy. - David Friedman

The long version...

I guess the first thing is that it offers arguments which don't require that people already share your religion...using the term "religion" broadly. That as far as I can tell, nobody, whether deontological libertarians or communists or anyone else really has a really convincing argument to show that their moral views are right. Many people believe that they do but I don't think that they do. Ayn Rand, at least, presented an argument. Ayn Rand claimed in effect to have defeated David Hume's is ought problem. Hume argued that you couldn't derive on ought from an is. I have a discussion up on my webpage of the holes in Rand's arguments. As far as I can tell she simply didn't do it. I don't think it can be done as far as I know. So in order to persuade people by a natural rights argument there has to be some reason why they believe in natural rights to start with because you don't have any good arguments to show that they ought to believe it. Whereas my argument...it claims to show...it hopefully shows...that my system would be better in terms of the value that almost everybody already has. So I'm really saying if you regard natural rights to be really important...well look...in my system rights will rarely be violated. If you regard people being happy and being healthy and living long lives...look in my society people will be in effect wealthier than in societies with governments, therefore you should like the results of those things...and so forth and so on. So I think that I have an argument which does depend on convincing people that economics is relevant to human behavior but doesn't depend on convincing them of your particular right and wrong beliefs.

Now the further problem with at least the versions of deontological libertarianism that I'm familiar with is that in the form in which people often state them they lead to conclusions that nobody believes. I spend a chapter in Machinery and Freedom going through that and if you really believe that the solution to polution is to say that nobody is allowed to pollute anybody else's property without their permission well you can't really exhale because carbon dioxide is a pollutant and you can be sure that some of the carbon dioxide you exhale will go onto somebody else's property. And similiarly you can't turn on a lightbulb because your photons will trespass. And once you start trying to make a more sophisticated version of the theory which deals with those...pretty quickly you start running into the kind of arguments that you run into in the consequentialist defense of libertarianism. - David Friedman, Legal Systems Without Government

In my post on the opportunity costs of public goods...I shared a few videos of Rachel Maddow arguing for more spending on public goods.  In one of her videos she says...

Not every idea that is good for the country, is a profit making idea for some company somewhere.  It's never going to be a profitable venture for some company to come up with this idea and build it on spec.  That's not going to happen!  We need some government leadership, frankly, to get something done in common that's going to benefit the country as a whole. - Rachel Maddow, Lean Forward

Rachel Maddow was making a consequentialist argument.  Her goal is for the government to do things that "benefit the country as a whole".  The thing is...Rachel Maddow and I are not going to have a very productive discussion if she makes consequentialist arguments and I respond with deontological arguments.  It's like if she says something in English and I respond in Chinese.  If her target audience understands English...then why would I argue in Chinese?  If her target audience cares about benefiting the country as a whole...then why would I argue for property rights? 

Sure you could argue that property rights actually do benefit the country as a whole..but that would of course be a consequentialist argument.  If property rights do have any sort of measurable value/benefit...then why wouldn't the tax allocation decisions of millions and millions of taxpayers reflect this truth?

Here's what else the guys at the LibertarianAnarchy blog have to say about morality...

By analogy, the founder of pragmatarianism plays the role of a sort of amoral deity: concerning morality, he says that we ought to make no judgement.

Pragmatarianism is neutral on morality because everybody already has their own morals.  Pragmatarianism isn't a religion.  With regards to making judgments though...

Yesterday on Fox....Bill O'Reilly had Lt. Col Ralph Peters on his show.  During their discussion on Afghanistan...Peters said, "When we invest our blood and treasure I expect a positive return".  This is of course the universal "maximizing utility" concept that I discussed in the beginning.  Compare it to this quote that the guys at LibertarianAnarchy blog shared...

There is always open to each actor the prospect of improving his lot, of attaining a value higher than he is giving up, i.e., of making a psychic profit. What he is giving up may be called his costs, i.e., the utilities that he is forgoing in order to attain a better position. Thus, an actor’s costs are his forgone opportunities to enjoy consumers’ goods. - Rothbard

Coincidentally...David Henderson, over at the Econlog Blog, also saw the same show on Fox....Sunk Costs in War.  Here's a bit of my comment...

It's been a few years since I was stationed in Afghanistan, but looking through my photos in the folder which I dedicated to "crops"...I see figs, grapes, pomegranates, wheat, eggplant, etc...but by far the most common crop was the opium poppy. If a small village only had one crop then it would invariably be the opium poppy.

Whether it's a retired Colonel expecting a positive return from his taxes...or Rothbard discussing psychic profits...or Afghan farmers selecting the most lucrative crops...it should be self-evident that everybody wants the most bang for their buck.  This is the universal economic principle.

If we allow taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...then we can be all but certain that they would behave according to this universal economic principle.  The question then becomes...why do so many supposed proponents of this principle struggle to recognize the value of pragmatarianism?  What am I missing?  Why wouldn't we want to give the taxpayers the keys to the car?  What are we afraid of?

That's the mystery!  The proof is in the pudding but neither side is willing to taste the pudding.  

OR...maybe I'm the one that is missing something obvious!  It kind of makes more sense that I'm the bonehead....versus everybody else being the boneheads.  Well...keep the critiques coming!  Eventually we'll solve the mystery.