The title of this post was Barry Goldwater’s campaign slogan in the 1964 Presidential election. Despite the fact that Goldwater was mostly correct on every issue, he was pummeled on election day by Lyndon B. Johnson.

It turns out that being right is independent of the election outcome. This revelation is not surprising. Voters are rationally ignorant about issues, candidates, and good policy. Only people genuinely entertained by politics will spend much time going over all the arguments and becoming experts. They make up a small and statistically insignificant portion of voters.

Compare an individual’s decision in the voting booth to an individual’s decision to purchase a new car. Which one will a individual spend more time researching? Which one does an individual have a strong incentive to make an informed decision?

There are a few factors that actually determine the election. The determinants are a combination of fixed local ideology, national sentiment, and the local public relations campaigns. The only thing a politician has control of is the public relations aspect. He convinces voters that he is a person worthy of office. He presents himself in a likable manner and runs a functional campaign.

This can be disheartening for intellectual libertarians who believe in the merits of American democracy. Success within the democratic system requires successful techniques, not truthful arguments. The arguments are important, and that’s why libertarians care in the first place, but are worthless in the end against a better run leftist campaign.

If libertarians want to catalyze a marginally freer America, they should learn how to win elections.

H/T Patri Friedman

Because the Bureaucrat Gods working for Montgomery County are also taxi entrepreneurs? C’mon, this regulation is unnecessary and harms both consumers and producers.

Private certification readily exists. If consumers get worried about being cheated, taxi cab companies would find it in their self interest to compete on brand reliability. All it takes is to latch on to a reputable company. A cab with “Verisign” (or any firm I trust) on its side would suffice.

Competitive pricing keeps rates low. These companies are restricted from figuring out the cheapest profitable price they can offer this service. The district officials have no way (trial and error) of figuring out efficient prices. There is no monopoly in the taxi cab industry that even warrants potential regulation.

Let’s return the taxis to voluntary deals, and watch prices go down and quality go up.

H/T Don Boudreaux

1. Natural Rights: Probably the most popular position among the hard core of self-identified libertarians, some of whom make opposition to the initiation of force the defining characteristic of libertarianism. For most or all of them, both of Frank’s statements are false. Following arguments along the lines of Robert Nozick’s distinction between desert and entitlement, they hold that what matters is not what you end up with but how you got it. Whether or not the rich would have willingly given money to the poor in a zero transaction cost world is irrelevant to the legitimacy of coerced transfers by the state.

2. Social Contract: The contract is a metaphorical one. What people would have agreed to if … is a common basis for deducing it, which makes this a plausible basis from which to defend the position Frank is arguing for. The only problem is that it is not a position popular with self-identified libertarians, few of whom are Rawlsians.

3. Consequentialism: The argument is that libertarian institutions lead to results that most people would prefer to the results of alternative institutions. This is the position I have usually argued from; while I have some sympathy with the moral intuitions underlying the natural rights position I lack arguments to support those intuitions, so prefer to take other people’s objectives as given and argue that my preferred institutions would better achieve them. Utilitarianism is one version of consequentialism, but not the only possible one.

In terms of convincing people, I think number 3 is by far the most effective. Most non-libertarians don’t care about trampling over peoples’ natural rights (number 1) if they think it is the best way to produce a desirable outcome (see: Machiavelli). The objectively true statement “taxation is theft” will rarely give someone an “aha” moment about liberty. But a well reasoned libertarian can demonstrate desirable results are only compatible with freedom, and change a person’s mind about the proper role of the state.

After accepting libertarian consequences are highly desirable for all people, number 1 makes a lot of sense. It’s no coincidence that the fair process (private property & liberty) achieves the efficient outcome. It’s based on human nature, and why voluntary actions are preferable to involuntary ones. Murray Rothbard really has this stuff down well.

As a libertarian who gets grilled about his uncommon beliefs, I can safely say it’s hard for me to show that libertarian institutions produce desirable outcomes for every situation. That doesn’t mean it’s not true, it’s just hard to be able to show everything until you’ve studied many subjects at length. Libertarianism is constantly on the defense (see: Rand Paul). That’s why I generally refer people to a book (Free to Choose) before I can have a serious conversation about libertarianism as a whole. I don’t have the facts for each specific program. There’s an entire logical narrative, and it’s best digested in book format.

Three of my friends who are not libertarians have said they are going to read Free to Choose this summer. Expect an update in the far future on how that went for them. It’s not even my favorite libertarian book, but I think it is a good introduction.

“Overall you could do worse than to eat here, which implies donor opinion is a constraint on raising WB salaries explicitly.” –Tyler Cowen

His post is in reference to the recent oil spill, but it could easily be applied to the bail-out of big banks as well. He claims that regulation is needed to prevent Big Business from using their political connections to avoid paying the price for their mistakes. He ignores the fact that caps on tort liability and the bail-out mentality are both a result of government intervention in the market, and are opposed by libertarians. He follows up with a vague rebuttal to commenters who pointed out his mistake:

“…in practice, politicians will find ways to shield the powerful, as illustrated by the $75 million cap on damage payments from oil spills. Some readers responded by saying that no true libertarian would support such liability limits, which, um, missed the point.”

But even in practice, political power is not fixed. The cap on liability is a classic case of regulatory capture, where standards are set by government to the benefit of “insider” firms. Indeed, concentrated interests such as oil lobbies often win out over general interests such as the need for an efficient tort system. The question is how to proceed in order to dismantle the perverse effects of concentrated political power. It seems like Krugman is the one who has missed the point. Libertarians favor limiting the power of government in all areas while Professor Krugman favors rewarding bureaucracies and increasing regulation. This is because his whole political philosophy rests on the idea that people have to be controlled by a handful of elites with the common good in mind. In a final post on the subject, Krugman makes another bizarre claim:

“But one thing we tend to forget in this age of Reagan is the importance and virtues of a dedicated bureaucracy: when you have professional government agencies with a job to do, and treat them with respect, that job often gets done.”

In other words, we just need to believe in bureaucracies and they will do the right thing.

Back in the pre-industrial era, the easiest way to amass a large fortune was by stealing it. The most efficient way to steal from a large number of people is by taxing them. Politically privileged individuals went door-to-door and leeched of the peasantry.

There were people that pushed back against these injustices. The oldest legend of Robin Hood portrays him as a freedom fighter. From Cathy Young at the Reason blog:

As scholars have noted, the earliest Robin Hood ballads, which date back to the 13th or 14th century, contain no mention of robbing the rich to give to the poor. The one person Robin assists financially is a knight who is about to lose his lands to the machinations of greedy and unscrupulous monks at an abbey. (Corrupt clerics using the political power of the Church are among Robin Hood’s frequent targets in the ballads.) The Sheriff of Nottingham is Robin’s chief opponent; at the time, it was the sheriffs’ role as tax collectors in particular that made them objects of loathing by peasants and commoners. Robin Hood is also frequently shown helping men who face barbaric punishments for hunting in the royal forests, a pursuit permitted to nobles and strictly forbidden to the lower classes in medieval England; in other words, he is opposing privilege bestowed by political power, not earned wealth.

Later, the legend evolved and was adapted to more aristocratic tastes; by the 17th Century, Robin Hood turned from an outlawed farmer into a dispossessed aristocrat and, eventually, a patron of the poor. Yet the fight for liberty and against tyrannical authority remained central to the story, particularly since Robin is often portrayed as a man fighting to reclaim his unjustly confiscated lands—and against high taxes. Indeed, even the hilarious Mel Brooks parody Men in Tights (1993), a send-up of Robin Hood movie conventions, has the hero (Cary Elwes) telling Prince John, “If you don’t stop levying these evil taxes, I will lead the people of England in a revolt against you!” Tea, anyone?

I have long theorized that at least some of the leftward drift in academia can be explained by the fact that it has one of the most abusive labor markets in the world.  I theorize this because in interacting with many professors, I am bewildered by their beliefs about labor markets more generally; many seem to think of private labor markets as an endless well of exploitation where employees are virtual prisoners with no recourse in the face of horrific abuses.  Yet this does not describe the low wage jobs in which I’ve worked–there were of course individuals who had to hold onto that particular job for idiosyncratic reasons, but as a class, low wage workers do not face the kind of monolithic employer power that a surprising number of academics seem to believe is common.

It is common, of course–in academia.  Until they have tenure, faculty are virtual prisoners of their institution.  Those on the tenure track work alongside a vast class of have-nots who are some of the worst-paid high school graduates in the country.  So it’s not surprising to me that this is how academics come to view labor markets–nor that they naturally assume that it must be even worse on the outside.  And that’s before we start talking about the marriages strained, the personal lives stunted, because those lucky enough to get a tenure-track job have to move to a random location, often one not particularly suited to their spouses’ work ambitions or their own personal preference. . . a location which, barring another job offer, they will have to spend the rest of their life in.”