Liberty Needs To Get a Little More Personal

Imagine you’re walking down the street. A man stands on the corner, screaming into a megaphone, passing out pamphlets. You’re not sure what he’s saying. Something about ‘workers of the world”, and “the 99%”. Discarded pamphlets litter the sidewalk. You pass by without a second glance.

The man on the corner put all his efforts into trying to talk to groups, to collectives. Maybe some who are already receptive to his ideas, or share his worldview, might stop and listen. But you, on the street, couldn’t care less. The man didn’t want to focus on the individuals walking down the street, but huge groups.

The man’s messaging problem wasn’t unique to anti-globalist protestors and wannabe socialists. Libertarians and classical liberals often make the same mistake. We need to focus more on individuals, and not broadly defined groups. Too often, the ideas of liberty are spread through measures too broad and unfocused to sway more than a handful, as though we’re shouting to a disinterested crowd on a street corner.

The Problem with Group Messaging

The problem with speaking to people as groups is that the individual tends to get lost in the process. Nobody reacts to an idea the same as somebody else. People tend to react to ideas based on their priors, and their past. For everyone reached by the man screaming in the street, another fifty ignore it entirely.

Calls to liberty sounded out to groups and collectives ignore reality. People don’t act collectively. Thought and action are only possible through the individual. Ludwig von Mises put the idea more succinctly in Human Action, saying “Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts”.

The solution to this problem can be found in the writings of another Austrian economist. F.A. Hayek once wrote in “Scientism and the Study of Society” that “every important advance in economic theory during the last hundred years was a further step in the consistent application of subjectivism.”

Focus on the Individual

Both individualism and subjectivism come together to form a new strategy for propagating liberty. Liberty needs to get a little more personal. Everyone looks at the world in a different way. Everyone has unique life experiences, thoughts, and ideas.

The best designed messages try to appeal to the most common ideas and worldviews, trying to reach as many minds as possible by painting with a broad brush. This is not enough.

The spread of ideas can only come through the minds of individuals. Society can only change and improve as individuals do. Leonard Read writes in Talking to Myself that “I prefer to live in an improving society, but this is impossible unless there are improving individuals”.

There is an intrinsic dignity in every human person, and in their thoughts and ideas. Those who wish to spread a message of liberty need to understand that many are not being reached.

A Personal Appeal

To be sure, the liberty movement has made much progress over the years. As recently as 2013, up to 22% of Americans either lean libertarian, or are consistent libertarians, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll conducted that year.

But this is not enough. Proselytizing freedom requires an individual and a personal appeal. It necessitates an understanding of another person’s thoughts, wants, and life experience.

It’s next to impossible for a think tank or a news website to make such a highly personal appeal. That has to fall to individuals. A personal appeal can only be made by those who understand the person they’re appealing to.

In the modern liberty movement, dozens of think tanks, staffed by an army of policy wonks and communications specialists, pop out cutting edge research and easy-to-read publications. It’s remarkably easy for libertarians to read these, plop them up on social media, and be done with it.

The converted see these pieces, nod in assent, and move on. The rest ignore it, and forget about it within the hour. Ideas aren’t spreading, but the liberty faithful are sated.

There is no master strategy. There’s no grand plan. Liberty can only grow when its proponents take the time to listen, and to understand the vast diversity in individual philosophies, worldviews, thoughts, feelings, and life experiences.

It doesn’t take a dozen think tanks, multiplied among every interest group and policy area, to make the case for liberty. It requires millions of individual minds, across a plethora of personal relationships and networks. It takes time, and it takes effort.

A philosophy of liberty can only make so much progress through impersonal means. To take it to the next level, libertarians and classical liberals need to make liberty a little more personal.

The Boardwalk of Huff Park

Recently, I moved to the northeast side of Grand Rapids, after having spent the past twenty years south of the city in Caledonia. With three weeks between the end of finals and my internship, I had a lot of time to kill.

To fill some of that time, I decided to walk around the streets and sidewalks to familiarize myself with this foreign land. Huff Park is within walking distance, so I started there. Yesterday, walking down a trail I hadn't seen before, I came across a sign hanging on a chain blocking the path.

The original message of the sign was weathered and undecipherable. Someone had crudely scraped "STOP" on the sign. I stepped over the chain. A colorful sign informed me I was on the Huff Park Boardwalk. I didn't see any immediate danger, so I kept moving.

The boardwalk seemed fine. The sign had mentioned it was built with plastic boards, which seemed to be holding up. Soon, the reason behind the sign became clear. At intervals, the boardwalk had sunken into the wetlands, and water spilled over the boards. Some enterprising individual had procured more boards, and laid them over the water so walkers could pass. 

While the boardwalk wasn't in great shape, it was largely serviceable. Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, "an independent, citizen led, nonprofit enterprise" had replaced some of the broken boards on their own accord, as seen below.

Rather than petition the city government to use taxpayer funds to fix the decrepit boardwalk, the self described "friends" of the park did it on their own.

In 2013, passionate park enthusiasts urged voters to support a ballot proposal that would add a new city property tax to revitalize and repair city parks. The tax would yield about $4 million a year, with an average cost to the homeowner of around $45. The proposal passed with 60% support later that year.

Part of that money, around $900,000, goes towards replacing the boardwalk in Huff Park. Though the total cost to the project is $1.2 million, the remaining $300,000 comes from the state government, through the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund. Taxpayers from across the state, not just the city of Grand Rapids, are paying for the Huff Park boardwalk repair. 

Should the city government be responsible for these parks? A better question might be, should the taxpayers be?

Most would say yes. Park enthusiast Tommy Allen defended the proposal, writing passionately about the importance of parks (and new property taxes). On Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, Allen says "But these actions, while necessary and vital to shore up the losses, are unfortunately not going to be enough to bring about the solutions we need to advance in the years ahead after a decade of depreciation on our parks from use."

The Executive Director of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, Steve Faber, agrees, claiming "...there isn't much more that can be done to patch it up. What really needs to be done is to rebuild the boardwalk." 

Why can't individuals who want to fund the parks to do on their own? Is it right that a small numerical majority of voters can add to the tax burden of thousands of homeowners in the city? According to Election Magic, the proposal passed by a little over 3,000 votes. Turnout for the proposal was around 15,000 voters, total. Most wards had below 25% turnout.

The City of Grand Rapids has a population of around 200,000. With the passage of this ballot measure, a small number of voters (and taxpayers) forced a tax on a much, much larger body of taxpayers. This is a gross injustice.

Some may benefit a nicer boardwalk, and some may not. Some might think the increased tax burden is worth it, and some might not. Either way, they're paying. 

Local Government, "Blight", and Legal Plunder

In The Law, Frédéric Bastiat writes on the dangerous idea of "legal plunder", saying...

"Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few — whether farmers, manufacturers, ship owners, artists, or comedians."

This definition of "legal plunder", taking property from one to give to another, encompasses all sorts of government activity. At a local level, it's easy for a municipal government to wave its hands and claim that policies of legal plunder - where property and wealth is taken from one group of individuals and given to another - is really in the common interest of all. 

One example is the idea of urban "blight". Originally a biological term referring to dying plants, the term has been appropriated by governments to mean some sort of decrepit or decaying building. To combat this blight, local governments seek to demolish or other renovate these buildings (often with taxpayer funds). Justifications for this include: higher property values (and thus, higher tax revenues for the municipality), public safety concerns, and economic development. 

Pictured: Blight (?)

To use a local example, the city of Hillsdale recently voted to demolish three structures deemed "blighted". One such structure, the remains of a burned-down house, was on the property of a local woman. She protested the move heavily, but the city council voted to demolish it all the same.

The councilors had a host of justifications for their vote, including the public safety risk that a child might fall into a basement and be injured. Mind you, this has yet to happen, but we must be vigilant all the same!

The cash-strapped city government may have been partially motivated by the promise of a $24,275 grant from the state of Michigan, meant to cover the costs of demolishing blighted property. Who benefits in this scenario? Certainly not the taxpayers as a whole. Taxpayers in the city of Hillsdale pay state taxes, which the state then sends back to the city of Hillsdale to tear down houses. The rise in the value of their property from less nearby blight is likely to be negligible, and probably not even cover the taxes they had to pay for the pleasure. 

Some property owners may benefit, if they were planning on demolishing the property regardless (as is often the case). Only now, the taxpayers are footing the bill. The city is happy if the move generates slightly more tax revenue, years down the line, due to marginal increases in property value.

Would the city of Hillsdale be a little bit nicer if these plans go through? Probably. Is it worth perpetuating a system of legal plunder that transfers wealth from many taxpayers to a few beneficiaries? Probably not. 

Hillsdale students should oppose local corporate welfare

[This piece first appeared in the Hillsdale Collegian (3.31.2016)]

Cor­porate welfare is alive and well, even here in Hillsdale.

The Michigan Economic Devel­opment Cor­po­ration is the insti­tution responsible for orga­nizing and directing cor­porate welfare in the state of Michigan. According to their website, the MEDC offers “business assistance services and capital programs for business attraction and accel­eration.” In practice, this amounts to allo­cating tax dollars as direct sub­sidies to busi­nesses, often coupled with special tax breaks.

The MEDC recently funded two projects in Hillsdale. The first was an $82,865 subsidy to Mar-Vo Mineral Company to purchase the old FW Stock and Sons Mill (“Mar-Vo moves in, ‘breathes life’ into abandoned mill,” Sep­tember 17, 2015). The second was the heftier $785,000 “com­munity devel­opment block grant” for the purposes of ren­o­vating an old factory into apartments (“Former fur factory fitted for flats,” March 17, 2016).

Pro­ponents trotted out familiar arguments to justify the taxpayer subsidy of private enterprise, noting that the projects would revi­talize downtown Hillsdale, as well as create jobs and housing. While these are cer­tainly benefits, the arguments ignore the costs. For one, similar arguments are made across the state to justify cor­porate welfare, resulting in almost $600 million doled out in “grants, programs, and projects” in 2015.

Orga­ni­zations like the MEDC are an affront to the free market, and little more than a vehicle for crony cap­i­talism. Unlike a private investor, the MEDC can only get funds through taxation. So tax­payers from across the state of Michigan, from Houghton to Detroit, are obligated to sub­sidize busi­nesses to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Despite the gross injustice of being forced to sub­sidize projects that most receive no benefits from, cor­porate welfare persists. Why?

The answer is simple. Busi­nesses and private indi­viduals realize that, rather than trying to succeed or fail in the market, it is easier to get help from the state. Under the guise of “economic devel­opment,” or “jobs,” or “revi­tal­ization,” they can earn sub­sidies from the MEDC, and stick Michigan tax­payers with the bill. The benefits are con­cen­trated to busi­nesses and politically-connected indi­viduals, while the costs are dis­persed over millions of Michiganders.

Frederic Bastiat, a 19th-century French political economist, noted that eco­nomics involves looking at the seen and the unseen. In terms of cor­porate welfare, the seen effects are the projects they fund. New apartment buildings, bustling fac­tories, and so on. The unseen is more complicated.

Think of what $600 million could have done in the hands of Michigan res­idents, rather than in the hands of gov­ernment bureaucrats fun­neling the money to special interests. Private indi­viduals, working in the free market, fund projects they think will be prof­itable, and decline those which seem likely to fail. In this system, busi­nesses only profit by pro­viding what the con­sumers want, and not by lobbying the gov­ernment for subsidy. All of these potential oppor­tu­nities are nec­es­sarily unseen, because they never came to be. Instead, tax­payers are stuck with a bill of almost a million dollars to build apartments in a small, out-of-the-way city in southern Michigan.

Students of Hillsdale College, an insti­tution that stands for defending liberty, should oppose this great injustice. The MEDC is nothing more than dressed-up cor­porate welfare, existing to benefit special interests at the expense of the state as a whole, and the tax­payers that have to foot the bill.

A Bug's Life: Family-Friendly Libertarianism

A Bug's Life, Pixar's second studio film, was one of my favorites as a child. While scrolling through the channels today, I saw it was on, and decided to watch. The computer animation (state of the art in 1998) hasn't aged well, but the voice work remains phenomenal.

The plot is simple enough. A colony of ants collects a yearly offering of food for roving grasshoppers, under the threat of violence should the offering stop. An oddball ant, Flik, accidentally knocks the offering over, but is later ultimately successful in stopping the grasshopper oppression.

 According to Franz Oppenheimer (echoing Bastiat) in The State, there are two fundamental ways for man to meet his ends. The choice is between work, and robbery. Early human history was marked by two distinct types of societies: sedentary farmers, and roving herdsmen. The state originates when the herdsmen, realizing their superior military prowess, extort the farmers for food and tribute rather than working for it.

This conception has parallels to A Bug's Life. The peaceful ants are sedentary farmers, and harvest the fruit and grain on their island, as they have since the formation of their colony. At some point, the grasshoppers (herdsmen) instituted the annual offering, opting to extort food rather than work for it. The ants, for the most part, have grown to accept their lot in life as the nature of the world.

Oppenheimer's portrayal of history can easily be extended to modern times. The state uses taxation (under the constant threat of violence) to fund its projects, while the taxpayers, who have no monopoly on legal force, work to meet their ends. 

The protagonist of A Bug's Life, Flik, is an oddball and something of an outcast. Early on, he is mocked and discouraged from using his new inventions to harvest the grain on the island, rather than doing it by hand. After inadvertently ruining the offering, he sets out on a quest to find "warrior bugs" to fight off the grasshoppers when they return.

Sedentary farmers will try to fight back, using their own armies, but are generally less adept at the harshness of war than the herdsmen. Recruiting mercenaries to fight on their behalf seems a logical step, but it invites the risk that they will simply do the same as the marauders. 

Ultimately, Flik (and the circus troupe he recruited in lieu of "warrior bugs") convinces the colony to fight back through deceit, rather than outright war. Constructing a fake bird, the bane of all bugs, they plan to scare off the grasshoppers when they return. Though this plan is ultimately unsuccessful, the ants eventually unite to drive off the invaders forever.

The movie also addresses the importance of individualism, though seemingly glorifying the collective of the colony. Ultimately, the ants never would have driven off the grasshoppers without the leadership of Flik. Daring to stand up to the grasshoppers (even if he's alone), he inspires other individual ants to rise up and join him.

Hopper, the leader of the grasshoppers, argues that as soon as one ant stands up to their violent system, they all might. Though A Bug's Life has some praise for the collective (all the ants in the colony standing together to fight off the grasshoppers), Hopper recognizes they would do so if one individual ant chose to act.

Additionally, Flik's harvester invention represents technological innovation and capital investment, which ultimately makes the ant colony better off. By the end of the film, the ants have adopted his harvesting machine, which leads to specialization of labor and ultimately makes the colony more prosperous.

A Bug's Life addresses several crucial political and economic concepts, such as the origin of the state, individualism, the inherent theft in taxation, and more. There are few films, let alone ones aimed at children, that so clearly and concisely illustrate these ideas.

The Economics of Politics in Star Wars - Return of the Jedi

The final film of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, concludes in the downfall of Emperor Palpatine. Until now, the entire Star Wars saga detailed Palpatine's rise to power, from political manipulation to engineering a galactic war, and his gradual expansion of that power through military might.

After spending forty years tightening his grip over thousands of systems across an entire galaxy, Palpatine faces the threat of defeat from the increasingly powerful Rebel Alliance.

Desperate to keep a firm grip on any wavering planets, Palpatine orders the construction of a second Death Star, more powerful than the first. The Rebel Alliance plans to strike a shield generator on the forest moon of Endor, in order to weaken the defenses of the Death Star enough to attack the core. Though the strike team (led by Leia and Han) is ultimately successful, the Alliance is forced into a pitched battle above Endor.

Rebel intelligence suggested the second Death Star was lightly guarded  and inoperative, both leis deliberately planted by Imperial intelligence officers. Here, one can again the importance of the control of information in maintaining control of empire.

During the battle, Luke Skywalker fights against Darth Vader (his father, the former Anakin Skywalker) on board the Death Star. Palpatine, hoping to repeat the downfall of Anakin as seen in Revenge of the Sith, tries to sway Luke with promises of ultimate power. When he refuses the give in, the Emperor moves to kill him. Darth Vader, when faced with the chance to save his son or let him die, opts to betray the Emperor and throw him deep into core of the Death Star.

Though the Imperial military would survive for another year (before their defeat at the Battle of Jakku), the apparatus of empire has been permanently damaged. The logical successor to the Emperor, his apprentice Darth Vader, was his killer, and soon dies from injuries regardless. Part of the trouble of concentrating supreme power into one individual (or one office) is the chaos that can result on the death of that person. The Empire post-Palpatine was the collapse of his bureaucratic system of government. With no clear strongman holding the disparate Empire together, it began to fracture, and fall apart.

Ultimately, the Emperor failed due to his own hubris. Upon hearing that Anakin Skywalker was the alleged Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force, Palpatine set about grooming the young and powerful Jedi for his eventual fall to the dark side, if only to spite the Jedi Order by corrupting the supposed Chosen One. Vader's eventual rejection of Palpatine, and the dark side, led directly to Palpatine's downfall, fulfilling his alleged prophecy.

All that said, the Rebel Alliance was still successful in their attack on the Death Star. For all of Palpatine's political genius, he was unable to detect the hints of Rebellion already stirring in the first days of Empire. The courageous few Senators dedicated to restoring the Republic, including Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and Garm Bel Iblis, secretly funded and began the Rebel Alliance, all while publicly supporting Empire.

Palpatine was always convinced of his ultimate power, especially after the fall of the Republic. Though he had indeed amassed massive control over the galaxy, he was unable to fully control everything. The Rebellion grew in the shadows, remnants of the Jedi Order (like Obi-Wan Kenobi) survived in seclusion, and his death came at the hands of his most trusted subordinate. Empire cannot last in perpetuity, and the power of any individual can never be ultimate.

Bernie Sanders versus Interest Rates

The amount of sheer economic ignorance coming from Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail is staggering. In a blind seething rage against business, big business, oil, Wall Street, banks, and corporations, Sanders fails to demonstrate even a tenuous grasp on basic economics. Recently, he (or whichever staffer runs his Twitter) spoke out against high interest rates, calling them "usury".

Usury was once defined to be loans with any level of interest, and was nearly universally condemned for much of human history. Today, most accept the necessity of interest, and understand its benefits. Some, like Bernie Sanders, still condemn a modern usury, any loan with an arbitrarily "excessive" rate of interest.

The economic reasons for lending at interest are simple. In the market for loanable funds, there are two key groups. The first group, savers, are those who willingly forgo immediate consumption in order to save for the future. From the largest venture capitalists to a student with a savings account, these are all savers. From their perspective, the interest rate is the reward they get by delaying consumption.

The second group, borrowers, want to access these savings for a variety of purposes, usually investment. Sanders is specifically referring to consumer loans rather than investment. A consumer loan is one made to a consumer for immediate consumption spending. "Payday lenders" offer short-term loans to consumers. From the perspective of borrowers, the interest rate is the cost of immediate consumption versus waiting.

The interest rate varies depending on many factors, one of which is risk. For short-term consumer loans, there is sometimes a high degree of risk. Namely, the risk that the consumer will be unable to pay back the loan (and default). Since payday loans, and other consumer loans, have a substantially higher risk than other loans, it makes sense for there to be a higher interest rate.

Sanders is clearly trying to tap into a populist,  anti-business, and anti-bank sentiment in order to drum up more support. Were he to succeed, and interest rates were capped at 15%, those he's trying to protect would lose out. People take payday loans, at the "usury" rates, because they see it was the best option available to them. When the alternative is losing your car or your house, some are willing to take out a payday loan. The highest interest rates are to consumers with the highest risk, either because of previous default or a particularly desperate situation.

If interest rates on consumer loans were capped, many of these lenders would no longer find it viable to lend to those who most desperately need it. The risk would be too high without a higher interest rate. Bernie Sanders, in his crusade against banks and business, is actually harming the people he's trying to help.