1.0 Introduction
By "libertarianism",
I mean propertarianism, a right-wing doctrine.
In this post, I want to outline some ways of arguing against this set of ideas.
(On this topic, Mike Huben
has much more extensive resources
than I can allude to.)
2.0 On Individual Details
I like to use certain policy ideas as a springboard for
arguments that they have no coherent justification in economic theory.
Unsurprisingly, the outdated nonsense market fundamentalists push does not have empirical support either.
I provide some bits and pieces here.
Consider the reduction or elimination of minimum wages. More generally, consider advocacy of
labor market flexibility.
I like to provide numerical examples in which firms, given a level and composition of net output,
want to employ more workers at higher wages. Lots of
empirical
work
suggests wages and employment are not and cannot be determined by supply and demand.
Lately, I have been developing examples of international trade. (I think these examples need
work when produced means of production can be traded.) In these numerical examples, the
firms in each country specialize as in the theory of comparative advantage. That is,
they produce those commodities that are relatively cheaper to produce domestically.
I explicitly show processes for producing capital goods and assume that capitalists
obtain accounting profits.
Numeric examples demonstrate that a country can be
worse off with trade than under autarky. Their production possibilities
frontier (PPF) is moved inward. So much for the usual opposition to tariffs.
Some like to talk about the marginal productivity theory of distribution. But no such valid entity exists.
I suppose one could read empirical
data
on the distribution of income and wealth and mobility as support for this, although others
might talk about monopsony and market power.
No natural rate of interest exists.
So some sort of market rate would not be an attractor, if it wasn't for the meddling of Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve.
As I understand it, this conclusion also has empirical support.
A whole host of examples
arises in modeling preferences. I do not think I have previously mentioned, for example, Sen's
demonstration of The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal.
One can point out sources of market failure from a mainstream perspective.
I think of issues arising from externalities, information asymmetries, principal
agent problems, and so on. As I understand it, John Quiggin is popularizing
such arguments in his upcoming
Economics in Two Lessons.
3.0 Arguments From Legitimate Authority
I like to cite literature propertarians claim as their own. One set of arguments
is of their experts advocating policies on the other side. For example, in
The Road to Serfdom, Hayek advocates a basic income and social security.
He says his disagreement with Keynes is a technical argument about whether
fiscal or monetary policy can stabilize the economy and prevent business cycles,
not a matter of the fundamental principles he is arguing about in the book.
Adam Smith argues for workers and against businessmen, projectors, and speculators.
He doesn't expect rational behavior, as economists define such. Among scholars,
those building on Marx could with more right wear Smith ties than Chicago-school economists.
A second set of arguments from authority provide a reductio ad absurdum.
One points out that propertarian authorities seem to end up praising authoritarians
and fascists or adopting racists as allies. I think of Von Mises praising
Mussolini, Friedman's advice
to Pinochet, and Hayek's support
for the same.
The entanglement
between propertarianism and racists in the USA has been self-evident at least
since Barry Goldwater's run for president. I might also mention Ron Paul's newsletters.
4.0 Hermeneutics of Suspicion
Instead of arguing about the validity of certain supposed propositions, one might argue about why
some come to hold them. Why do so many argue against their concrete material interests and for
the whims of malefactors of great wealth? In social psychology, one can point to
research
on the need for system justification and on the
just world fallacy.
Marxists can draw on Lukács' analysis of reification
or Gramsci's understanding
of civil society and hegemony.
I also like how doubt is cast on the doctrines just by noting their arguments are easily classified as falling
into a couple of categories. Propertarians can be seen as
hopping back and forth from, on one foot, justifying their ideas on consequential, utilitarian, or efficiency grounds
to, on the other foot, justifying it based on supposed deductions from first principles. So when
you attack one argument, they can revert to the other, without ever admitting defeat. (Am I stealing
from John Holbo here? From Cosma Shalizi?)
Albert Hirschman
classified arguments into three categories: perversity, futility, and jeopardy.
One could always say, "I agree with your noble goals", but:
- Your implementation will lead to the opposite.
- What you are attempting is to change something that is so fundamental (e.g., human nature) that it cannot succeed.
- Your attempt risks losing something else we value (e.g., self-reliance, innovation, liberty etc.)
If the arguments are always so simply classified, they cannot be about empirical reality, one might think.
5.0 Conclusion
None of the above addresses issues of political philosophy that propertarians may think central
to their views. I do not talk about what roles of the state are legitimate,
the source of authority
in law, the false dichotomy of
state versus markets,
negative liberties and positive liberties,
or the exertion of
private
power
by means of the ownership of property.
In short, this approach is probably irritating to propertarians. I'm good with that.
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