We give up leisure in order that we may have leisure,
just as we go to war in order that we may have peace.
Aristotle
Pope Francis' Exhortation: A Mixed Bag
As a Catholic libertarian, I'm troubled by this document. I have touched on this topic in a few past posts. It may sound paradoxical to others (I have touched in my recent minarchism post): I'm conservative when it comes to social norms and values (e.g., the virtues) and traditional institutions of marriage, family and church; I have concerns about a hedonistic, sexually-obsessed culture and have not done drugs, gambled or smoked anything, but I'm very reluctant to use force (government) to enforce virtuous behavior, except in protecting individual fundamental rights (life, liberty, and property). Instead I believe is using persuasion and rely on traditional institutions to rebuke a licentious culture. Although I have some concerns with the Catholic Church's authoritarian structure and bureaucracy, I have hoped that the Church would push back more on the culture instead of trying to appease it in an attempt to remain relevant. The Church radically changed centuries-old liturgies and practices and largely latched onto "progressive" causes, except for certain moral issues, often using some of the same nomenclature as the social liberals (e.g., "trickle-down" economics below). The last thing I wanted or expected from the Church was to engage in derivative rhetoric and/or to align itself with political factions advocating Statist programs. After all, Jesus spoke to individual, not social responsibilities and sidestepped political issues (e.g., the imperial tax, attempts to make Him king, etc.) The fact is the Church itself operates missions (schools, hospitals, etc.) not part of the State.
After sending mixed messages (e.g., "whom am I to judge gays") a few months back, in paragraph 213, Pope Francis makes it clear that the Church's opposition to the moral evil of elective abortion will never change:
213. Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defence of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual”.But it's very clear that Francis is not impressed with free market economics:
204. We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality. I am far from proposing an irresponsible populism, but the economy can no longer turn to remedies that are a new poison, such as attempting to increase profits by reducing the work force and thereby adding to the ranks of the excluded.
Just in case you don't get the message, here's a nugget from p. 205:
Politics, though often denigrated, remains a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good.Then this earlier section has gotten wide attention:
53. Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.
54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.
He knows that he is pissing us off:
208. If anyone feels offended by my words, I would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology. My words are not those of a foe or an opponent. I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centred mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth.
How do you respond to this? First of all, the Holy Father has an incompetent understanding of business and economics, not unlike most "progressives" or social liberals; the fact is that government social programs are notoriously inefficient and ineffective: they rarely cover all the poor, they are often morally hazardous in nature and reinforce a dehumanizing dependence on government. "Trickle-down government" goes through an impersonal parasitic overpaid government bureaucracy, not at all like Church missions that operate more efficiently and cheaper by intrinsically motivated religious, volunteers, and other.
In fact, free markets and free trade have contributed to a higher standard of living; even in Communist China, a measured liberation of parts of the economy has, in figures I've seen, multiplied incomes over the past few decades:
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| Courtesy of CNN Money |
The global economy has similarly lifted literally hundreds of millions out of dire poverty. And the pontiff doesn't understand that greater productivity means lower prices and variety for people on limited income to stretch their dollars; this additional discretionary income means more resources available to spend and invest in the real economy, generating more, often better-paying jobs. Overpriced government services come out of resources otherwise more efficiently, effectively deployed in the real economy. It's not this polemical Marxist nonsense of "exploiting" labor. Businesses, unlike government, must persuade consumers to purchase their goods and services. Businesses cannot sustain losses on an ongoing basis; it looks to trim all costs, not just labor. Business is not employing people as a public service; it hires people to meet objectives. Also the private sector often supports charities which address needs not fulfilled by government; before the US implemented a social welfare net, there were soup kitchens, charity hospitals, donated or discounted professional services, mutual aid societies and fraternal organizations looking to help the less fortunate. Just to harp on a minor point the Holy Father makes about food, take, for instance, the NYC health department which recently issued pushing on-a-string rules and regulations involving donated food items, the net effect of which is to discourage charity.
I could go on for some length, but let me quote well-known Harvard economist Greg Mankiw (HT Carpe Diem):
First, throughout history, free-market capitalism has been a great driver of economic growth, and as my colleague Ben Friedman has written, economic growth has been a great driver of a more moral society.
Second, "trickle-down" is not a theory but a pejorative used by those on the left to describe a viewpoint they oppose. It is equivalent to those on the right referring to the "soak-the-rich" theories of the left. It is sad to see the pope using a pejorative, rather than encouraging an open-minded discussion of opposing perspectives.
Third, as far as I know, the pope did not address the tax-exempt status of the church. I would be eager to hear his views on that issue. Maybe he thinks the tax benefits the church receives do some good when they trickle down.
(Catholic Libertarians.) In 2005 I went with a group to World Youth Day and we first went to Assisi and Rome before the WYD event in Cologne, Germany. We were at the Vatican and found a line for confession. We thought it would be awesome to go to confession at the Vatican, so we got in line. I'd just gone to confession a week earlier, so I was trying to think of something to confess and remembered that I always forgot to confess to downloading some games and some music when I was younger. When I got into the confessional at the Vatican (likely with some cardinal, although I like to imagine it may have been the Pope!), I made my confession, and the guy all but threw me out. In more or less words, he told me to stop wasting his time and it wasn't a sin. In an annoyed and exasperated fashion, he quickly mumbled an absolution just to get me out and told me not to worry about it. And that's my confession at the Vatican story, lol. I recommend researching the evils and immorality of the modern statist concept of intellectual property from our favorite Catholic libertarian: https://www.google.com/search (Jeffrey Tucker and IP) If it is stealing to copy my book, wouldn't it also be stealing to repeat my joke? If copying my idea really is stealing, then why is it not stealing to copy my work after the patent or copyright runs out? I mean, is it my property or is it not my property? Isn't it simple justice to require you and I to pay royalties to the inventor of fire or the wheel (or to his heirs)?
Given the fact that the Catholic Church is not exactly headed by knowledgeable economists, it doesn't surprise me. Let's put it another way: if your sister bought a CD with her own money, and you swiped it, would it be a sin? Of course. So why does the concept change just because the CD is in another form? Or say, if you copied test answers from a fellow student's answers, would that be wrong? Of course! What conceptually changes, just because the content has been digitized? If a novelist works for years on a manuscript, and you copy it, and make it available to everyone free of charge, why would any publisher pay money to him? They can't publish it profitably... Continuing with your rationalization below, yes, it would be wrong to repeat your joke without attributing the source; I do see fair use sampling as a way of promoting another person's work and make some exceptions for private, non-commercial use, e.g., a backup of purchased music. As to getting into nonsensical things like licensing the wheel and fire, no, you do not license general concepts (although you might innovate in methods to produce fire or a wheel). Many marketers of intellectual property have a trial concept, e.g., borrowing a book from the library, streaming of a pop diva's latest album, using a piece of full-featured software for a week. There are some contextual differences; for example, I thought the King family screwed up during the recent golden anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech. This was a public speech, with no money paid for attending the original rally or playing on national television; I could understand when Dr. King sued someone for marketing the speech without his knowledge or consent; posthumously, the King family has used the full performance as a fundraising mechanism. No problem with that, but they were demanding royalties for historical retrospectives of the speech.
(Milton Friedman group). "I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible.
The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending.
The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like.
If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up.
The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes." --Milton Friedman
If everyone had no income taxes , prices for everything would go up accordingly.
If everyone had no income taxes, we would have more discretionary income to invest, save or consume in the real economy, and we would not be providing a disincentive to produce to scale. Prices would only go up if we did not pursue a sound money policy, e.g., if we printed money to paper over government deficits. Granted, given freeloaders and crony interests, cutting budgets is easier said than done.
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| Via LFC |
If "getting what you pay for" is a key criterion, apply it to wasted government revenues starting with the first Congress. If government was forced to compete like the free market, it would have long gone bankrupt.
This is the problem with the conservatives they have no solution, they see government as an evil.
The problem is good government is a necessary good. It is good when government tracks down real criminals like murderers and rapists and uses force to eliminate those that initiate force. This in the long run leads to less force. Criminal enterprises are not viable methods of making wealth. Drug prohibition is not proper government and it fills prisons and averts police from solving real crimes. Bernie Madoff or the mortgage fraud of Fannie and Freddie should have been caught but instead government is treating honest bankers like criminals.
Clueless people like [discussant] don't realize that they presuppose what is to proven, i.e., the necessity of a Statist "solution". Once a conservative or libertarian is sucked into playing on the court of whom is the better megalomaniac master legal plunderer, the battle is lost. The free market will provide for consumer wants and needs without some desperate, failed central planner; the central planner proposes morally corrupt handouts and regulations which impede the free market. All trickle-down government succeeds in doing is feeding the parasitic bureaucratic class.
Take for instance Obamacare, what should be done instead? Removal of improper interstate commerce laws in insurance and removal of regulations strangling healthcare. The conservatives believe state Romney care should be the solution or nothing should be done?
Conservatives have never believed in RomneyCare; RomneyCare was more of a defensive strategy to avoid a state single-payer approach and to deal with Bush Administration threats to cut off federal Medicaid funding because they thought they were subsidizing "freeloaders". The Heritage alternative to universal HillaryCare was a catastrophic plan, not operating with a penalty approach but tax incentives (which aren't available in the after-tax individual policy market). Don't be lazy--actually research a topic.
Second note: the issue was not interstate legislation but anti-competitive state regulations, saddled with special-interest mandates, dysfunctional policies like guaranteed issue and community ratings, medical profession cartels, etc. Many corporations, operating across states, self-insure, with a pared-down federally-approved bundle of essential health benefits; conservatives wanted to generalize this policy, but "progressives" blocked them, terming it a "race to the bottom" approach.
SINGLE PAYER NOW. Corporate denial of care KILLS.
FREE MARKET NOW. Government delays in drug/other approvals or treatment KILL.
(Bastiat Institute). Time preference is a categorial requisite of human action. No mode of action can be thought of in which satisfaction within a nearer period of the future is not--other things being equal--preferred to that in a later period. The very act of gratifying a desire implies that gratification at the present instant is preferred to that at a later instant. He who consumes a nonperishable good instead of postponing consumption for an indefinite later moment thereby reveals a higher valuation of present satisfaction as compared with later satisfaction. If he were not to prefer satisfaction in a nearer period of the future to that in a remoter period, he would never consume and so satisfy wants. He would always accumulate, he would never consume and enjoy. He would not consume today, but he would not consume tomorrow either, as the morrow would confront him with the same alternative. (Mises)
Remember how the Internet mania in the late 1990's was exacerbated by businesses submitting multiple orders to ensure fulfillment? They would cancel superfluous orders after fulfillment. Companies overestimated demand, which caused a big hangover in the tech sector during the early 2000's; liquidations of near-new tech goods from bankrupted customers further saturated the market. Some of the unintended effects of easy Fed money policy in the aftermath of the Asian crisis and Y2K bugaboo.
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| Via Bastiat Institute |
The Case For Impeaching Barack Obama - Crimes Domestic (Part 2 of 2) | The Libertarian Republic http://bit.ly/1b64fPC
Unless there's a major shakeup in Congress after the 2014 midterms, impeaching Obama will never happen. Too many House and Senate members, Democrat and Republican, are co-conspirators in his crimes and they should be impeached right along with Obama.
I think the issue is more on Senate conviction of an impeached Obama; impeachment would provide demoralized Dems an election issue. Besides, Obama bought anti-impeachment insurance: think President Joe Biden.
(Personal Liberty). Whether to grant amnesty to 11 million illegals is being debated in the House once again. Do you think illegal immigrants should be allowed to become U.S. citizens? http://poll.personalliberty.com/Poll.aspx/immigration-2013?SC=P01687799
Yes. The economy benefits from unauthorized residents whom worked around an overly restrictive immigration law. Deporting 11 million people--many of them American citizens from birth--is infeasible, and anyone suggesting we should split up families is on dubious moral authority.
(LFC). Let's assess what actually happened here, and not what all the absurd bs the state tries to instill in people about government edict enforcers.
We have two adults having a tug of war with a box. That isn't a "crime", at all. The store, who set up the situation (black Friday sales) smartly realized they will probably need a little extra security help for this particular day, so they did the right thing and sought it out. Unfortunately, they sought the help of armed thugs wielding bloated egos and the legal usage of extreme force, and not people that would help them make more sales and will actually protect their store and customers.
So, when an altercation broke out, instead of having people that can exert no more force than the average person with good judgement (like an actual security officer) who might seek an end to the altercation in a more peaceful and calm manner, the store has two armed thugs who believe in their own head they can grab unarmed ladies however they wish without any recourse. They're right, of course. Who is going to help an innocent person that isn't fighting back? Nobody, because they know they are fucked if they do. They will be charged with obstructing "justice", assault on an "officer" and so on.
From what it looks like to me, the female government edict enforcer, who slipped a little while attacking the lady with the box, didn't have actual control over the lady's body, so once the male government edict enforcer who is about 100lbs heavier noticed that, he came over to use even more force to put the lady to the ground in a manner that was entirely unnecessary. Then he put his knees on her back while the out of shape female government agent handcuffed her.
Government edict enforcers, from my experience, typically "serve and protect" their egos and not much else. The store hired the wrong people to help ensure the safety and protection of their customers and an orderly black friday, and, in my opinion, are liable for the way that situation was handled.
In a free society, the most that would have happened is they would have been kicked out of the store for the night and neither would have gotten to purchase the the things they wanted.
To be clear, I believe undoubtedly some government edict enforcers have a more gentle nature and are willing to use their jobs as an avenue to help others, but this is a case of two armed thugs exerting their control, and that's it.
I don't understand why Wal-Mart didn't intercede and offer one of the ladies a rain check and a discount certificate good for the day's purchases. Another alternative would be to raffle off limited-supply items. In no case is the unprovoked legal assault of a store patron morally acceptable. In my opinion, Wal-Mart should terminate the store manager for cause, and charges should be filed against the security personnel.
Musical Interlude: My iPod Shuffle Holiday Series
Sarah Brightman, "Child in a Manger". In a prior holiday season, I stumbled across this song (the same melody is used in one of my favorite tunes, "Morning Has Broken", an upcoming selection) and liked the performance so much I licensed it for download. Incidentally, when I was on Amazon.com the other day, I noticed that they have a significant selection of holiday songs (including upcoming selections, like Faith Hill's "Where Are You, Christmas?", on sale for download at 69 cents, including original classics by Gene Autry, Burl Ives, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, McCartney, Eartha Kitt and more. (MP3 Downloads, Holiday Music, $0-.69). In past seasons, Amazon has also featured a free holiday single download daily during December
