David Boaz

There’s been some talk this week about a few people who once called themselves libertarians and have now turned up in alt-right circles, at the Charlottesville march or elsewhere. As I told the Daily Beast, “People change ideologies all the time. Some libertarians become conservatives, some become welfarist liberals, a few drift into creepy extremes.” And of course it’s not just libertarians. Hillary Clinton says she was a Goldwater Girl, a lot of ex-communists became the original neoconservatives, and Nobel laureates in economics have tended to move toward classical liberalism (libertarianism). But since the topic has come up, let me just agree with Nick Gillespie that “The alt-right—and Trumpism, too, to the extent that it has any coherence—is an explicit rejection of foundational libertarian beliefs in ‘free trade and free migration’ along with experiments in living that make a mess of rigid categories that appeal to racists, sexists, protectionists, and other reactionaries.” And add my own commentary, excerpted from my 2015 book The Libertarian Mind:

The dignity of the individual under libertarianism is a dignity that enhances social well-being. Libertarianism is good not just for individuals but for societies. The positive basis of libertarian social analysis is methodological individualism, the recognition that only individuals act. The ethical or normative basis of libertarianism is respect for the dignity and worth of every (other) individual. This is expressed in the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s dictum that each person is to be treated not merely as a means but as an end in himself.

Of course, as late as Jefferson’s time and beyond, the concept of the individual with full rights did not include all people. Astute observers noted that problem at the time and began to apply the ringing phrases of Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and the Declaration of Independence more fully. The equality and individualism that underlay the emergence of capitalism and republican government naturally led people to start thinking about the rights of women and of slaves, especially African American slaves in the United States. It’s no accident that feminism and abolitionism emerged out of the ferment of the Industrial Revolution and the American and French revolutions. Just as a better understanding of natural rights was developed during the American struggle against specific injustices suffered by the colonies, the feminist and abolitionist Angelina Grimké noted in an 1837 letter to Catherine E. Beecher, “I have found the Anti-Slavery cause to be the high school of morals in our land—the school in which human rights are more fully investigated, and better understood and taught, than in any other.”

The abolitionist movement grew logically out of the Lockean libertarianism of the American Revolution. How could Americans proclaim that “all men are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” without noticing that they themselves were holding other men and women in bondage? They could not, of course, and had they tried, they would have been reminded by people such as the great English scholar Samuel Johnson, who wrote in 1775, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?” The world’s first antislavery society was founded in Philadelphia that same year. Jefferson himself owned slaves, yet he included a passionate condemnation of slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence: “[King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him.” The Continental Congress deleted that passage, but Americans lived uneasily with the obvious contradiction between their commitment to individual rights and the institution of slavery.

Although they were intimately connected in American history, slavery and racism are not inherently bound together. In the ancient world the act of enslaving another person did not imply his moral or intellectual inferiority; it was just accepted that conquerors could enslave their captives. Greek slaves were often teachers in Roman households, their intellectual eminence acknowledged and exploited.

In any case, racism in one form or another is an age-old problem, but it clearly clashes with the universal ethics of libertarianism and the equal natural rights of all men and women. As Ayn Rand pointed out in her 1963 essay “Racism,”

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage … which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

In her works Rand emphasized the importance of individual productive achievement to a sense of efficacy and happiness. She argued, “Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge—for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment—and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).” That is, some people want to feel good about themselves because they have the same skin color as Leonardo da Vinci or Thomas Edison, rather than because of their individual achievements; and some want to dismiss the achievements of people who are smarter, more productive, more accomplished than themselves, just by uttering a racist epithet.

And as I wrote when a group of newsletters seemed to connect racist ideas to the libertarian movement:

Libertarians should make it clear that the people who wrote those things are not our comrades, not part of our movement, not part of the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Robert Nozick. Shame on them.

More on libertarianism, individualism and race – and feminism and gay rights – in The Libertarian Mind.

I see that my colleagues are referring to the new online Encyclopedia of Libertarianism as “a Wikipedia for libertarianism.” I suppose that’s sort of true, in that it’s an online encyclopedia. But it’s not exactly Hayekian, as Jimmy Wales describes Wikipedia. That is, it didn’t emerge spontaneously from the actions of hundreds of thousands of contributors. Instead, editors Ronald Hamowy, Jason Kuznicki, and Aaron Steelman drew up a list of topics and sought the best scholars to write on each one – people like Alan Charles Kors, Bryan Caplan, Deirdre McCloskey, George H. Smith, Israel Kirzner, James Buchanan, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Jeremy Shearmur, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Norman Barry, Richard Epstein, Randy Barnett, and Vernon L. Smith, along with many Cato Institute experts. In that regard it’s more like the Encyclopedia Britannica of libertarianism, a guide to important topics by top scholars in the relevant field.

The Britannica over the years has published articles by Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Marie Curie, Leon Trotsky, Harry Houdini, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Milton Friedman, Simon Baron Cohen, and Desmond Tutu. They may have slipped a bit when they published articles by Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Lee Iacocca. And particularly when they chose to me to write their entry on libertarianism.

Was it a typo or a Freudian slip? The Washington Post reports:

As president-elect, for instance, Trump took Boeing to task for cost overruns when he tweeted that the Air Force One program’s $4 billion expenditures were “out of control” and suggested the contract be canceled….

Trump was more complementary on Feb. 17, when he made appearance at a Boeing factory in South Carolina and concluded his remarks by saying, “May God bless you, may God bless the United States of America, and may God bless Boeing.”

The reporters meant “complimentary.” But indeed the point of the article is just how “complementary” big government and its big contractors are. Headlined “Why America’s biggest government contractors balked at criticizing Trump,” the article explores how CEOs started jumping off President Trump’s advisory councils after his disappointing remarks about white supremacists marching in Charlottesville – but not “the four government contractors on the president’s advisory councils — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Harris Corp. and United Technologies.” After all, 

In many ways, contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin are more dependent on government decision-making than other companies that took part in the councils.

Indeed, if a large part of your business comes from government contracts, you’d better be very careful about criticizing the president of the United States. Especially a president who has little sense of the proper limits of presidential authority:

Those negotiations [over a new fighter plane] were marked by unusually close interactions between Trump and the business executives involved. Bloomberg later reported that Trump allowed Boeing chief executive Dennis A. Muilenburg to listen in on a call with a key government manager for the F-35 program as Trump sought information on the two planes.

President Trump’s tweets, legal problems, chaotic White House management, and other high-profile troubles may have diverted attention from a problem that many of us pointed out before he was elected: his “economic nationalism” that seems to mean in practice protectionism, crony capitalism, and a promise that he’ll personally run the U.S. economy.

Government contractors understand this. Even before he was elected, Trump intervened to “persuade” Carrier to keep a plant open in Indiana. How? Was it the state tax credits? Or something less public? The CEO of Carrier’s parent company United Technologies, Greg Hayes – who was later on the president’s manufacturing council – acknowledged that the deal to keep the plant open probably wasn’t really economic. But:

I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night. I also know that about 10 percent of our revenue comes from the U.S. government.

When companies get in bed with government, that’s the bargain they make. And as we’ve just seen, that bargain not only leads to economic decisions that make us all poorer, it stifles the free speech of those dependent on government decisions. And that’s a problem when government is the biggest landlord, employer, arts patron, and purchaser of goods and services in society.

The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, published in 2008 in hard copy, is now available free online at Libertarianism.org. The Encyclopedia includes more than 300 succinct, original articles on libertarian ideas, institutions, and thinkers. Contributors include James Buchanan, Richard Epstein, Tyler Cowen, Randy Barnett, Ellen Frankel Paul, Deirdre McCloskey, and more than 100 other scholars.

A couple of years ago, in an interesting discussion of social change and especially the best ways to spread classical liberal ideas at Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty, historian David M. Hart had high praise for the Encyclopedia: 

The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism provides an excellent survey of the key movements, individuals, and events in the evolution of the classical liberal movement….

One should begin with Steve Davies’ “General Introduction,” pp. xxv-xxxvii, which is an excellent survey of the ideas, movements, and key events in the development of liberty, then read some of the articles on specific historical periods, movements, schools of thought, and individuals.

He goes on to suggest specific articles in the Encyclopedia that are “essential reading” for understanding “successful radical change in ideas and political and economic structures, in both a pro-liberty and anti-liberty direction.” Here’s his guide to learning about the history of liberty in the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism:

1. The Ancient World
   1. “Liberty in the Ancient World”
   2. “Epicureanism”
   3. “Stoicism”
2. Medieval Period
   1. “Scholastics - School of Salamanca”
3. Reformation & Renaissance
   1. “Classical Republicanism”
   2. “Dutch Republic”
4. The 17th Century
   1. “English Civil Wars”
      1. “The Levellers”
      2. “John Milton” & “Puritanism”
   2. “Glorious Revolution”
      1. “John Locke” & “Algernon Sidney”
      2. “Whiggism”
5. The 18th Century
   1. 18thC Commonwealthmen - “Cato’s Letters”
   2. The Scottish Enlightenment
      1. “Enlightenment”
      2. “Adam Smith”, “Adam Ferguson” & “David Hume”
   3. The French Enlightenment
      1. “Physiocracy” - “Turgot”
      2. “Montesquieu” & “Voltaire”
   4. “American Revolution”
      1. “Declaration of Independence” - “Thomas Jefferson” & “Thomas Paine”
      2. “Constitution, U.S.” - “James Madison”
      3. “Bill of Rights, U.S.”
   5. “French Revolution”
      1. “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”
6. The 19th Century
   1. “Classical Liberalism” - the English School
      1. “Philosophic Radicals”
      2. “Utilitarianism” - “Jeremy Bentham”
      3. “Classical Economics” - “John Stuart Mill”
   2. “Classical Liberalism” - the French School
      1. “Jean-Baptiste Say” & “Benjamin Constant”
      2. “Charles Comte” & “Charles Dunoyer”
      3. “Frédéric Bastiat” & “Gustave de Molinari”
   3. Free Trade Movement
      1. “Anti-Corn Law League” - “John Bright” & “Richard Cobden”
   4. “Feminism and Women’s Rights”
      1. “Mary Wollstonecraft”
      2. “Condorcet”
   5. Abolition of Slavery - “Abolitionism”
      1. “William Wilberforce”
      2. “William Lloyd Garrison” & “John Brown”
      3. “Frederick Douglass” & “Lysander Spooner”
   6. [The Radical Individualists]
      1. “Thomas Hodgskin”, “Herbert Spencer”, & “Auberon Herbert”
   7. The “Austrian School of Economics” I
      1. 1st generation - “Carl Menger”, “Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk”
      2. interwar years - “Ludwig von Mises”, “Friedrich Hayek”
7. Post-World War 2 Renaissance
1. “Mont Pelerin Society” - “Friedrich Hayek”, “Milton Friedman”, “Karl Popper”, “James Buchanan”
2. Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) & “Antony Fisher”
3. Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) & “Leonard Read”
4. Institute for Humane Studies & “F.A. Harper”
5. The Austrian School of Economics II
   1. post-WW2 2nd generation - “Ludwig von Mises”, “Friedrich Hayek”, “Murray N. Rothbard”, “Israel Kirzner”
6. “Chicago School of Economics” & “Milton Friedman”
7. “Objectivism” & “Ayn Rand”
8. “Public Choice Economics” & “James Buchanan”

I could add more essays to his list, but I’ll restrain myself to just one: Along with the essays on the Constitution and James Madison, read “Federalists Versus Anti-Federalists” by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel.

By the way, you can still get the beautiful hardcover edition. Right now it’s half-price at the Cato Store.

Why are Americans less likely to move to better opportunities than they used to be? The Wall Street Journal reports:

When opportunity dwindles, a natural response—the traditional American instinct—is to strike out for greener pastures. Migrations of the young, ambitious and able-bodied prompted the Dust Bowl exodus to California in the 1930s and the reverse migration of blacks from Northern cities to the South starting in the 1980s.

Yet the overall mobility of the U.S. population is at its lowest level since measurements were first taken at the end of World War II, falling by almost half since its most recent peak in 1985.

In rural America, which is coping with the onset of socioeconomic problems that were once reserved for inner cities, the rate of people who moved across a county line in 2015 was just 4.1%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. That’s down from 7.7% in the late 1970s.

One particular problem with today’s immobility is that people find themselves in areas where jobs are dwindling and pay tends to be lower. Why don’t they move to where the jobs are? This comprehensive article for the Journal by Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg points to a few factors:

For many rural residents across the country with low incomes, government aid programs such as Medicaid, which has benefits that vary by state, can provide a disincentive to leave. One in 10 West Branch [Mich.] residents lives in low-income housing, which was virtually nonexistent a generation ago.

And then there are regulations that discourage mobility:

While small-town home prices have only modestly recovered from the housing market meltdown, years of restrictive land-use regulations have driven up prices in metropolitan areas to the point where it is difficult for all but the most highly educated professionals to move….

Another obstacle to mobility is the growth of state-level job-licensing requirements, which now cover a range of professions from bartenders and florists to turtle farmers and scrap-metal recyclers. A 2015 White House report found that more than one-quarter of U.S. workers now require a license to do their jobs, with the share licensed at the state level rising fivefold since the 1950s.

Brink Lindsey wrote about both land-use regulations and occupational licensing as examples of “regressive regulation”—regulatory barriers to entry and competition that work to redistribute income and wealth up the socioeconomic scale—in his Cato White Paper, “Low-Hanging Fruit Guarded by Dragons: Reforming Regressive Regulation to Boost U.S. Economic Growth.”

The Journal notes that 

the lack of mobility has become a drag on the entire U.S. economy.

“We’re locking people out from the most productive cities,” says Peter Ganong, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Chicago who studies migration. “This is a force that widens the urban-rural divide.”

Ganong made similar points in a Cato Research Brief, “Why Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined?”

Declining mobility hurts U.S. innovation and economic growth and widens the rural-income culture gap. Government regulation plays a major role in declining mobility. But as Lindsey noted, those regulations are “guarded by dragons”—”the powerful interest groups that benefit from the status quo, all of which can be counted upon to defend their privileges tenaciously.” Despite the potential for agreement by right, left, and libertarian policy analysts on the problems with regressive regulation, all those wonks together may be no match for organized dentists, barbers, massage therapists, and homeowners who perceive that they benefit from keeping others out.

I’m delighted to learn from Eric Boehm at Reason that a $35 million stadium subsidy is “pretty close to dead” after Potomac Nationals owner Art Silber pulled the matter from the Prince William Board of County Supervisors consideration ahead of a planned vote July 18. However, taxpayers in other Northern Virginia counties may still be at risk, as the Nationals search for a less fiscally responsible county board nearby. 

I wrote about the Nationals’ attempt to milk the taxpayers last month:

The county found a consulting firm to produce, as it has done for many governments, an optimistic economic analysis: It suggests that a new stadium would generate 288 jobs, $175 million in economic impact, and $4.9 million in tax revenue over a 30-year lease. Similar studies have proven wildly optimistic in the past. In 2008 the Washington Post reported that Washington Nationals attendance had fallen far short of what a 2005 study predicted. As Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys wrote in a 2004 Cato study criticizing the proposed Nationals stadium subsidy, “The wonder is that anyone finds such figures credible.”…

Silber and the board of supervisors want the taxpayers to know that this time is different; their $35 million bond issue isn’t a government giveaway:

In Prince William, the board of supervisors is considering a proposal in which it would use bond money to build the stadium. The team would then reimburse the county the entire cost over the course of a 30-year lease.

“We’ve all read about certain professional sports teams threatening to leave if a local government doesn’t buy them a new stadium. The exact opposite is happening here,” said Tom Sebastian, a senior vice president with JBG. “The Potomac Nationals have agreed to pay 100 percent of the cost to construct a new stadium so that they can stay in Prince William County.”

I will gladly pay you Tuesday, 30 years from now, for a hamburger today.

Congratulations to Americans for Prosperity, Supervisor Pete Candland and his colleagues, and especially to the taxpayers of Prince William County. 

A couple of news stories about Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.):

In a historic act of protest, Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives refused to observe the regular order of the House, staging a sit-in protest over the lack of legislation on gun control….

In sharp comments pointed directly at House Republicans, Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Cedric Richmond (D-La.) directed blame at the National Rifle Association and the cowardice of GOP members….

“You are doing what you are doing because you don’t have the guts to stand up to the gun lobby,” said Richmond in a speech at the start of the House-floor sit-in, with comments addressing what he viewed as GOP obstruction.

“If you shoot a police officer, you’re going to make the 5, 6 and 10 o’clock news. But if you shoot a congressperson you’re going to make the world news,” said Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.)….

Some lawmakers are carrying firearms or installing security systems at their homes and offices. Some have decided not to hold town hall meetings at all — restricting voters from meeting their elected leaders. Some are demanding that the government pay for a security detail for every member of Congress….

It’s another reason to continue protecting themselves, several said.

“I definitely know where my firearm is at all times,” Richmond said.

So I’m curious: Does Rep. Richmond have a firearm in the District of Columbia? Does he have a valid permit for it, which is extremely difficult to get despite the Supreme Court’s Heller decision? Does he support the proposal by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) to give members of Congress a special exemption from the strict D.C. rules? Does he believe that members of Congress should obey the same laws that apply to everyone else?

Broadway Journal reports that theater professionals are very concerned about the Trump administration’s no-doubt-idle threats to defund the National Endowment for the Arts:

“It’s important money for us,” said Jeffory Lawson, the managing director of the Chelsea-based Atlantic Theater Co. As with any lost funding, replacing those grants would be challenging, he said. And beyond dollars, the NEA confers a stamp of approval for a project, which is appealing to other donors. It’s “a highly competitive grant application,” he said, that’s reviewed and rated largely by theater professionals. “It’s not just a bureaucrat making a decision.” (The NEA claims that $9 in private donations follow every $1 it grants.)

I don’t know why people who prize their independence, and are very proud these days to be defying the government in their plays and public comments, are so eager for a “stamp of approval” from that very government. In fact, I’ve written about that problem before, such as in this 1995 speech to the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts:

Government funding of anything involves government control. That insight, of course, is part of our folk wisdom: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” “Who takes the king’s shilling sings the king’s song.”

Defenders of arts funding seem blithely unaware of this danger when they praise the role of the national endowments as an imprimatur or seal of approval on artists and arts groups. Jane Alexander says, “The Federal role is small but very vital. We are a stimulus for leveraging state, local and private money. We are a linchpin for the puzzle of arts funding, a remarkably efficient way of stimulating private money.” Drama critic Robert Brustein asks, “How could the NEA be ‘privatized’ and still retain its purpose as a funding agency functioning as a stamp of approval for deserving art?”

In 1981, as conservative factions battled for control of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice explained the consequences this way:

The NEH has a ripple effect on university hiring and tenure, and on the kinds of research undertaken by scholars seeking support. Its chairman shapes the bounds of that support. In a broad sense, he sets standards that affect the tenor of textbooks and the content of curricula….Though no chairman of the NEH can single-handedly direct the course of American education, he can nurture the nascent trends and take advantage of informal opportunities to signal department heads and deans. He can “persuade” with the cudgel of federal funding out of sight but hardly out of mind.

I suggest that that is just the kind of power no government in a free society should have….

On NPR this morning, an activist complained …  saying, “My ancestors didn’t fight for the concept of official history in official museums.” But when you have official museums, or a National Endowment for the Arts serving as a “seal of approval” for artists, you get official history and official art—and citizens will fight over just which history and which art should have that imprimatur.

“Stamp of approval,” “ripple effect,” “ ‘persuade’ with the cudgel of federal funding”—all of this is asking the federal government to pick winners, not just in automobile or energy companies, but in art and literature. Is that really a model for independent artists?

Broadway Journal reports that theater professionals are very concerned about the Trump administration’s no-doubt-idle threats to defund the National Endowment for the Arts:

“It’s important money for us,” said Jeffory Lawson, the managing director of the Chelsea-based Atlantic Theater Co. As with any lost funding, replacing those grants would be challenging, he said. And beyond dollars, the NEA confers a stamp of approval for a project, which is appealing to other donors. It’s “a highly competitive grant application,” he said, that’s reviewed and rated largely by theater professionals. “It’s not just a bureaucrat making a decision.” (The NEA claims that $9 in private donations follow every $1 it grants.)

I don’t know why people who prize their independence, and are very proud these days to be defying the government in their plays and public comments, are so eager for a “stamp of approval” from that very government. In fact, I’ve written about that problem before, such as in this 1995 speech to the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts:

Government funding of anything involves government control. That insight, of course, is part of our folk wisdom: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” “Who takes the king’s shilling sings the king’s song.”

Defenders of arts funding seem blithely unaware of this danger when they praise the role of the national endowments as an imprimatur or seal of approval on artists and arts groups. Jane Alexander says, “The Federal role is small but very vital. We are a stimulus for leveraging state, local and private money. We are a linchpin for the puzzle of arts funding, a remarkably efficient way of stimulating private money.” Drama critic Robert Brustein asks, “How could the NEA be ‘privatized’ and still retain its purpose as a funding agency functioning as a stamp of approval for deserving art?”

In 1981, as conservative factions battled for control of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice explained the consequences this way:

The NEH has a ripple effect on university hiring and tenure, and on the kinds of research undertaken by scholars seeking support. Its chairman shapes the bounds of that support. In a broad sense, he sets standards that affect the tenor of textbooks and the content of curricula….Though no chairman of the NEH can single-handedly direct the course of American education, he can nurture the nascent trends and take advantage of informal opportunities to signal department heads and deans. He can “persuade” with the cudgel of federal funding out of sight but hardly out of mind.

I suggest that that is just the kind of power no government in a free society should have….

On NPR this morning, an activist complained …  saying, “My ancestors didn’t fight for the concept of official history in official museums.” But when you have official museums, or a National Endowment for the Arts serving as a “seal of approval” for artists, you get official history and official art—and citizens will fight over just which history and which art should have that imprimatur.

“Stamp of approval,” “ripple effect,” “ ‘persuade’ with the cudgel of federal funding”—all of this is asking the federal government to pick winners, not just in automobile or energy companies, but in art and literature. Is that really a model for independent artists?