Vouchers: I was wrong « Thoughts on Freedom

Vouchers: I was wrong

For over a decade I have supporter a voucher system as a way of reforming education, health and other government programs. Vouchers provided a way to increase the role of market discipline while maintaining a level of government subsidy, and are supported by many moderate libertarians as appropriate policy and by many libertarians as a step in the right direction.

The basic idea is to give each person an allowance that must be spent on a certain type of behaviour. For example, give each parent $10,000 that they must spend on any school for their child. Since the subsidy is now going to the consumer and not the producer (ie not the school) there is no need for government control or ownerhip of the school and we can have proper competition between schools, which should drive up the total quality and choice in education.

I still believe this is good reform… but I now think I was wrong about one element.

I have traditionally argued that everybody should get an equal voucher, and that the voucher should not be means-tested. I now believe that it would be appropriate to means-test vouchers.

My primary argument against a means-test was that by reducing the amount of the voucher for high-income earners this would increase the effective marginal tax rate (EMTR) faced by a person as they earn more income, and therefore contributes to the “poverty trap”. I still think this is true, but I now think it is outweighed by another issue.

Everybody in Australia is on welfare. There is no such thing as a “self-reliant” Australian and each of us is both taking from and giving to the nanny state. The government gives money to rich people to pay for their health, pay for their education and pay for their childcare costs… while also charging these same people excessively high income taxes as well as a range of other taxes, fees and charges. This has to change.

It is my opinion that we must create a path for people to get away from government support and once again become self-reliant. This is best achieved by offering tax cuts, which are paid for by removing government subsidisies to high-income families.

This should be a reform that gets appeal from across the political spectrum. Free-market advocates get tax cuts and lower government spending. Economists should celebrate lower levels of churning and bureaucratic waste. Social democrats will be happy to note that it involves no cut in support for low-income people.

The real benefit of this idea from my perspective is the long-term dynamic. In the current political environment it seems very unlikely that any politician will simply dismantle the welfare state. And if we continue with the current policies of universal tax and universal welfare (built by Whitlam & Howard) then it doesn’t seem likely that we will ever escape the welfare state.

But by targetting welfare only at low-income people we create a viable mechanism to shrink the welfare state over time. With continued economic growth, the number of low-income people (in an absolute sense) will decrease and more people will move steadily towards self-reliance. This may not please the hard-left who are committed to big government… but for social democrats who truely care about helping people this will be seen as a good thing.

This reform would require two important things. First, to address the issue of EMTRs, the subsidies (for health, education & childcare) should be matched with tax cuts and should only be removed slowly.

Second, to be able to remove the subsidy for high-income families it is necessary to know exactly the size of the subsidy. This actually increases the argument for introducing a voucher system in the first place, as vouchers make the size and direction of government subsidies more transparent. But even if we didn’t move towards a full voucher system, it would still be necesssary (and appropriate) for the government to accurately measure the real cost of their services. This wouldn’t impact on low-income people, but would allow the government to charge high-income people the correct price.

February 5, 2008 - Posted by Temujin | Economics | | 309 Comments

309 Comments »

Vouchers for education are a good idea, and have been used quite successfully in Sweden since the 1990’s.

But…

The universal sharing and pooling of wealth is the basis of the modern social democratic state, and applies to all successful peaceful prosperous nations in the world today.

Like democracy, it’s messy and inefficient.

Like democracy, it’s the worst system of government, except for all the other ones.

Can it be improved? Absolutely. Could it be replaced with something completely different, and clearly better? Perhaps eventually. But in our lifetimes? No chance.

I’m (sadly) increasingly of the opinion that the LDP isn’t really interested in aiming toward having a real say in how our country is run. If its purpose is to discuss libertarian ideals because it’s intellectually and philosophically interesting, then fine, but if you want to develop policy that actually has a chance of improving our nation, then there’s only compromise and more compromise.

The best policy in the world counts for nothing if people won’t vote for it.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
I’m not convinced. To avoid high EMTRs the phase out needs to be low. For a $5000 education voucher phasing out at a rate of 10 cents in the dollar starting from an income above $25k still means that only those above $75k are independent of welfare. However even a phase out of 10 cents in the dollar when added to income tax leaves steep EMTRs. Especially when you add on the phase outs for all the other handouts.

The key issues roughly in what I think is the order of concern are:-

EMTRs
Welfare dependence
Welfare objectivies
Churn

I think any reform should be judged on it’s merits not on some prescriptive rule that says means testing is automatically a good thing or universal welfare automatically bad. Generally I tend to think universal welfare without means testing is better so long as both welfare and tax is low and so long as welfare is taxed. However it depends so much on the specifics. Mark Hill is in my view close to a very workable reform formula with his idea to increase GST, abolish income tax and minimum wages and provide a universal basic income without means testing.

Means testing has not limited welfare. It has made it plausable and affordable to maintain and expand the offering. Remove income tax and prohibit means testing and welfare would necessarily remain modest.

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 5, 2008
LS — this isn’t the LDP. This is the official blog of the Australian Libertarian Society (ALS). Many people here are active in the LDP and we discuss it a bit… but not every point has to come back to the party. If you want to discuss party policy, perhaps you might want to contact some of the party members via e-mail.

Having said that, I have no idea why you think the above suggestions would be difficult to implement. The short version of above is simply: let’s give fewer handouts to rich people. If you think that’s too crazy-brave radical then I can’t imagine a reform small enough to meet your criteria.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
Terje — I think it would be easy to have link means-testing with tax cuts in a way that didn’t change EMTRs at all. Indeed, I explained how at your place a week ago.

Of course you wouldn’t phase out all the vouchers at the same time. And of course it would take a high income to escape the vouchers… but that’s better than never escaping them.

As for your weird comment about assuming “means testing is automatically a good thing”… I just finished explaining how I was opposed to it for the last 10 years. Of course it’s not automatically a good thing. Perhaps we could also discuss how water is wet and then debate whether the Pope is a Catholic.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
I have no doubt about it, but the design of the system becomes more important than in your lump sum, flat tax environment.

I would err on upper class churn but no poverty traps or similar problems. If you can show me a well designed plan with no problems and a sliding scale for vouchers, yipee.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
John, fine…my apologies. I had no good reason to assume this blog was primarily about discussing LDP policy.
I guess I’ve made my opinion on it clear enough!

I agree your proposal about is workable. Is it sellable to either of the major parties?

My biggest problem with voucher systems is that when implemented they have almost universally favoured religious schools. So they should ideally be combined with a reduction of other benefits to religious bodies.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
Have they? Sure the parents just haven’t spent their own money there? Where’s the evidence fella?

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
“My biggest problem with voucher systems is that when implemented they have almost universally favoured religious schools”

I don’t see this a problem in itself… if the parents want to send their kids to a school that includes religious instruction, then that’s up to them.

Comment by Fleeced | February 5, 2008
LS seems to be against a majority of people individually choosing a preference, but in other threads has favoured collective decision making over individuals…

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
But that’s ignoring that fact that religious bodies already get so much government favouritism, and its the same religious bodies that run those schools.

Further, libertarian ideals are surely antithetical and incompatible with religious dogma and superstitution.
Any policy that will potentially increase the power of religious bodies, directly or otherwise, is one I would have trouble with.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
How are libertarian ideas antithetical with religion?

The libertarian idea is that human interaction should be voluntary and peaceful as much as possible. If people want to get together and worship sky-fairies peacefully and voluntarily, then that is perfectly consistent with a libertarian system.

I agree that religious schools shouldn’t be given any special advantage over non-religious schools. But neither should the government discriminate against a school because it is owned or managed by a person who believes in sky-fairies.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that we should find a way to stop giving welfare to rich people, and instead let those same people simply keep more of their tax.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
The voucher system would replace the education funding scheme. The current scheme merely discriminates against parents unless they have sent their kids to the politically correct school.

Tolerance is a libertarian ideal. So is equality before the law. Students should be funded, not different ideologies (even liberatianism).

If people are free, they are free to worship and be religious. Do you have a problem with this as well?

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
Libertarianism is about promoting maximum liberty.
Religious dogma is mostly about the opposite.

There are no non-secular liberal societies that I know of.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
“But that’s ignoring that fact that religious bodies already get so much government favouritism…”

Yes, I agree that religions should receive favourable treatment (and for the record, I am an atheist). A voucher policy would not give favourable treatment to religious schools over non-religious.

At the moment, there are more religious than non-religious private schools - but this is because they have a greater incentive. I think this policy would see the percentage of secular private schools increase as a percentage of total private schools.

“Further, libertarian ideals are surely antithetical and incompatible with religious dogma and superstitution.”

I disagree - I don’t believe that religion and libertarianism are mutually exclusive at all. In fact, I think it is in their best interests to embrace libertarianism (a message I recently tried to convey to Christian lobby, though I think with little success).

“Any policy that will potentially increase the power of religious bodies, directly or otherwise, is one I would have trouble with.”

If it increases their power through increased protection, then I can see how. But if you increase freedom, and they benefit as a result - well… that’s the funny thing about freedom

Comment by Fleeced | February 5, 2008
Oops, that should have been:

es, I agree that religions should not receive favourable treatment

Comment by Fleeced | February 5, 2008
re 13 - look up The Action Institute.

Reducing churn is good.

John should show a worked example now…

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
Voucher policies might not favour religious schools in principle, but they do in practice.

Is there a voucher system in the world where the ratio of religious to non-religious schools has gone down?

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
re 17 - like I said before, who cares? If the parents want to send children there, it is their choice.

Why are you against a majority acting as indivudals and the majority thereof making the same individual choice, but for the majority deciding individual choice, not matter individual preferences?

What a bizzare belief set.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
Not sure…

Did you mean ss a percentage of total schools, or as a percentage of private?

If the former, then I suspect it would INCREASE - since religious parents who previously couldn’t afford to take their kids out of the public system would now be able to do so.

If the latter, then I suspect you’d see a rise in the number of secular private schools (some for profit, some not).

But I’ve no data to back either of these up.

“Voucher policies might not favour religious schools in principle, but they do in practice.”

Yes - but that’s the big difference… it’s not favouring the schools - but giving freedom to individuals who choose those schools. Preventing people from choosing their own religion is hardly a libertarian position!

Comment by Fleeced | February 5, 2008
John

How would you means test it?

Re religious schools - we obviously shouldn’t discriminate against parents who believe in the tooth fairy but there needs to be regulatory oversight in what is taught at school. Ofsted (the UK education regulator) has just decided not to impose the same regulatory standards on Muslim and Christian schools as secular schools). This is daft.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/31/nschools131.xml

Comment by pommygranate | February 5, 2008
LS — I’m going to repeat this point because it’s important. Libertarianism is simply about preferring that human interaction is peaceful and voluntary. It has nothing to do with convincing other people of your preferred metaphysics.

Under a libertarian system, religion is a personal decision. The government should not discriminate for or against. If people choose to send their children to a religious school, then that’s up to them.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
But they don’t favour religious schools because people freely choose MORE religion, they favour them because for historical reasons religions already own the private school sector, and are already heavily subsidised by the government.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
John, exactly. And by increasing the power to religious bodies, you are indirectly promoting less peaceful and less voluntary behaviour.

It’s irrelevant what the intent of the policy is. Unintended consequences and all that.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
I am a Libertarian AND a Christian. I do not find them incompatible, or mutually exclusive. The teachings of Jesus were about individuals making their own choices, not just blindly going along with the masses. Maybe some institutions have become rigid and doctrinaire, but the teachings of Jesus warn against that.
In fact, Christianity is one of the few religions which favours a separation of Church and State. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s”.
The Muslim ideal is of a Theocracy, since Mohammed was both Prophet and Leader.
Only if Church and State are separate is it allowable to criticise the state. This is why individualism developed in the West, but the Muslim world is still looking for one leader to tell them all what to do. Their Consciences are communal, not individual.

Comment by nicholas gray | February 5, 2008
Pommy — I would reduce the voucher at the same rate as a person is currently paying tax… and offset it exactly by removing the tax.

A (simplified) example — if you earn $6000 you would be paying zero tax and receive a (say) $5,000 health voucher. If you then earn $16,000 under the current system you pay $1500 tax (15% on $10,000). Under my suggested system you would pay no tax but only receive a $3500 health voucher. That is, instead of paying tax at 15% and getting it back as a voucher, you simply don’t pay the tax and have the voucher phased out at the same 15%.

Please note that this is a simplified example, just to show the concept.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
LS — the government subsidises all schools, and the subsidy is higher for non-religious schools.

I am arguing for a policy that doesn’t discriminate. If you disagree, then presumably you want a policy that does discriminate. You seem to be arguing that the government should discriminate against religions because you don’t like religion. That’s an extremely weak argument.

You seem to be upset that libertarians would allow the evil christians, jews & muslims to have freedom. Well. Yes. We would. If you think christians, jews & muslims shouldn’t have the same freedom as athiests, then you are an amazing control-freak and should change your name from “LibertarianSocialist” to “NationalSocialist”.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
John - I wasn’t attempting to be argumentative but for what it is worth I think water is wet and the pope is catholic. You indicated that you were once opposed to means testing and that you were wrong. If you really were prescriptive about it then perhaps you were wrong. My point is that means testing of welfare is neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong but needs to be judged in context. Without some broader context I’m not convinced that it is the way to go.

I’m not entirely sure if you have changed from being against means testing to in favour of it, or merely from being against it to being open to it. If the later then I have no disagreement with your new position. Although I’m surprised that you ever ruled it out.

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 5, 2008
Ok, let me restate - I support vouchers, provided it’s combined with removing the existing financial favouritism that religious bodies (churches etc.) get.

Who could argue with that?

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
Terje - according to my physics teacher, water is actually a poor wetting agent. but i do believe that His Fancily Dressed is Catholic and Yogi uses the woods.

Comment by pommygranate | February 5, 2008
Pommy,

I don’t think we need the state to determine school curriculum or standards, standards could be set by tertiary education institutions and curriculum could be set by the schools themselves. Parents would choose schools who self-regulate, rather than being forced to choose schools that adhere to the shifting standards of the state. Minimum standards would be set by the market.

At the end of the day people who can afford to choose their children’s school now do more on the basis of the school’s results, reputation, values and discipline than the fact that they meet some dumb government criteria spun to hide the failures of nationalised education. The International Baccalaurette is gaining popularity in the UK as an alternative university entrance course, and has the benefit of being international and multilingual.

The issue I’d like to see discussed is how government owned schools could be privatised under a voucher system. Sure, some state schools would be immediately attractive to private consortiums or charities, but some state schools are so abysmal you couldn’t give them away. How do you manage the transition period and ensure that there are enough private providers to provide schooling for every child?

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 5, 2008
Gift them in a trust to the local community. I say do it on local property owners, since they have an economic interest in keeping a fine quality school.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
Mark, some of these schools would be like gifting a white elephant or even Trojan Horse when you consider how ill disciplined the students are. You can’t force people to take responsibility for their local school. What to do with those schools in areas where community spirit has been killed by the nanny state?

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 5, 2008
Brendan

I don’t agree. If schools are left entirely to their own devices, then many Muslim schools would revert to the type offered in Islamic countries, which spend half the day rote learning the Koran and preaching hatred of Jews. I cannot think of a more divisive way to bring up young Muslims than to have this imposed upon them.

Comment by pommygranate | February 5, 2008
They can sell out if it is a basket case.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
pommy, I agree, and it’s an extreme case of the general concern I have about giving religious bodies more power.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 5, 2008
“Islamic” countries. I think that tells the story. There is quite a lot of state sponsoring of this awful indoctrination.

It would be illegal to incite relgious violence in Australia.

If students, not institutions were funded, how long would these last before they folded?

These people would have no useable skills and either cahnge for the better or would die out or immigrate in a generation.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
Err, emigrate.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 5, 2008
Pommy,

The number of fundamentalist Islamic madrassas set up would be minimal, but I see your point. Perhaps redemption of vouchers could be tied to being a member of a professional standards body like the IB. This wouldn’t be that different from requiring people to have insurance. The UK government doesn’t tell you which insurance company to use, or how much cover to have beyond third party. A lighter touch than some heavy handed state bureaucracy like ofsted.

There would be nothing to stop Muslims from setting up such schools independent of the voucher system though. If they want to preach hatred and jihad to their children, then there is little the state can do to prevent it except make the costs of such choices self-evident. Even under a 30-30 negative/flat tax scheme, the state would lose the ability to withdraw income support for radical illiberals of any belief system. I could imagine a bunch of Marxists living in a commune pooling their $9000 minimum incomes preaching socialist revolution.

My point is that state can not prevent free people preaching irrational beliefs to their children while maintaining liberty for the rest of us. Once those individuals cross the line from free speech to bombing trains, then the full weight of the law must apply. Until that point, we must make the cost of their free speech entirely apparent to them in a consistently liberal manner.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 5, 2008
Sorry, I should have said

… requiring people to have insurance to register their car.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 5, 2008
The number of fundamentalist Islamic madrassas in Malaysia and Indonesia are extremely few… who in their right mind thinks that Australia would be flooded by them? As they wouldn’t meet university enterence standards, I think it is extremely likely we would have zero. Further, banning schools won’t stop hatred from home & mosque/church. This is a very marginal problem, and a very poor excuse to hand over powers to the government.

I’m sure you all want to give the government powers with the best of intentions… but the reality is that you won’t run the government. Somebody like John Howard or Kevin Rudd will… and they’ll be influenced by people like Julia Gillard, Bob Brown, Fred Nile and Pauline Hanson. Are you sure that the strange fear of an unlikely Muslim school is worth giving these people power over education?

Giving the government powers because of life-boat examples is a sure way to give the government lots of powers. And it shows that once again the best friend of government is irrational fear.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
Sorry. I am totally against means testing. Means testing and higher rates of income tax are the same thing in effect, but it just adds to bureacratic maze. If you start with a flat rate of 30% tax (e.g. the LDP’s 30/30) what sort of taper rate are you suggesting? To prevent effective tax rate going higher than 40%, the taper rate would be 10%, so, that would mean a 40% tax rate up to $200,000 (assuming two kids per family) and 30% thereafter.

Comment by Mark Wadsworth | February 5, 2008
This is a bit off thread but I thought I would toss in something I found from Wayne Allyn Root: -

Then there’s education- perhaps the biggest problem in every country. It seems the problem is always the same: many of the children in government-run public schools are failing. And no amount of government intervention or spending solves the problem. Why is that? Because it’s not the money, stupid (as James Carville might say). It’s not the teachers. It’s not the system. It’s the parents. Parents need to be involved in their children’s lives. Children need love and discipline from their parents. Without parental involvement (and more importantly- parental choice), kids are destined to fail- no matter how much money we throw at the problem. Parents must take a central role in the process and must have freedom of choice- to send their kids to private school, religious school, magnet schools or to choose home-schooling. Government cannot solve the problem. As all Libertarians know, the solution starts and ends with the individual, not Big Brother.

Comment by Jim Fryar | February 5, 2008
The purpose of government-funded education vouchers is to facilitate provider choice while ensuring children receive an education.

It is not at all libertarian for the government to fund education, or to make education mandatory. But most libertarians accept that some level of government funding is warranted on the grounds that children deserve an education irrespective of the means or motivations of their parents. They similarly accept compulsory education.

In other words, this entire area is a trade off between liberty and compulsion for the purpose of ensuring children get a certain start in life. The objective is education, not freedom of choice for parents.

Given that, I think it is legitimate for the state to prescribe minimum teaching/curriculum standards in order to be eligible to accept the voucher. The state has a responsibility to ensure its money is properly used and its objectives achieved. Vouchers will increase efficiency but wouldn’t change that.

If complete free choice for parents was that important, they could still be at liberty to put their kids in non-voucher schools.

Comment by DavidLeyonhjelm | February 5, 2008
Brendan

Tying vouchers to an accreditation facility such as the IB is not a bad idea. Schools that fail to get accredited could still be open but would just not receive state funding for parents. I like the idea.

The problem Europe has is the excessively generous nature of its welfare system. There simply are no consequences of sending your kids to a school that will rote learn the Koran from dawn til dusk. Once you finish school, you simply go onto welfare and then work in the black economy. The two combined produce a decent living.

If welfare could be seriously hacked back so that it was only a safety net and no more, then i would have no problem with unregulated schools.

Comment by pommygranate | February 5, 2008
I agree total with David’s comments above. If the government is funding certain programs then it should be able to make the funding conditional.

John- you said “but the reality is that you won’t run the government” in regards to having control of education. Well, if vouchers are ever implemented it probably means we are running the government.

I don’t agree with LS that religious schools should be disadvantaged, but I do understand the argument. Religions already control society- if we have a libertarian free for all, what does that mean? Well it means it’s only a matter of time before conservative Christian socialist dogma takes over again.

I really feel lost sometimes. You give people freedom and they just submit to someone else with even worse motives than you… At times I feel like I’d rather be the one in control. I don’t mind giving people the freedom to make bad decisions- but when that bad decision is taking my freedom sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have in the first place!

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 5, 2008
Following on from that train of thought, what makes society anything but libertarian for most people that agree with the decisions the government makes? If their lives aren’t being restricted and they voluntarily submit to democratic judgement, then it’s only us “rebels” that really aren’t free. Most people are, because they voluntarily submit to the limitations placed on them.

I’m a cynic tonight.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 5, 2008
Most people are, because they voluntarily submit to the limitations placed on them.

Interesting thought, unfortunately their ‘freedom’ insists on conformity by all others to their concept of allowable freedom, also it exists in their minds only until they wish to do something different. I prefer a freedom that allows others to do what I have no wish to do.

Comment by Jim Fryar | February 5, 2008
I prefer a freedom that allows others to do what I have no wish to do.

Yes, unfortunately the paradox is that very definition of freedom allows them to enforce their morals onto you. It’s something you have no wish to do, but it doesn’t stop them…

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 5, 2008
I think I’m especially cynical because I recently finished reading 1984.

Doublethink and thought control are quite the reality. The past is written by the current government- if someone aligned with Liberal sees tax cuts out of the Libs it’s because they are good with the economy, if the same out of Labor it’s because Labor are trying to by votes. And vice-versa.

The second something becomes illegal it is automatically an immoral act my most people’s standards. Protesting internet filtering means you are a predator wanting to track down kids using the internet.

A Current Affair and Today Tonight are factual accounts of reality. Anyone denying that must surely be criminal.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 5, 2008
Mark — I understand your rationale, but consider these points:

1) paying tax is not the same thing as losing welfare; and

2) if you oppose means-testing then you support having a massive welfare state that applies to everybody, and you can never escape from it

I explained above how you could introduce means-testing without increasing EMTRS by offering matching tax cuts… but even if they did increase marginally while people were being weened off welfare, I think that’s an appropriate price to pay for re-introducing the concept of “self-reliance” and “independence” back into the political lexicon.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 5, 2008
John, sorry to harp on, but from a mathematical and behavioural point of view, means-testing and taxation is EXACTLY the same thing. Politicians try to make out that they are different, perhaps they are even dumb enough to believe their own propaganga, but they are not.

In the UK, basic rate tax plus national insurance is 33%, not so bad, eh? But people on welfare lose around 80 pence in benefits for every £ they earn, as well as paying 33p in tax/NI. Result? They don’t go back to work - they’d end up worse off.

You cannot get round this by offering ‘matching tax cuts’ - parents would still have a higher EMTR than non-parents. Or would you have a scheme where parents pay 20% tax and have a 10% taper rate, but non-parents pay 30% tax?

Please get out a piece of paper and a sharp pencil and do the workings. I’d be very interested to see what you come up with.

It’s not a question of “breaking free of welfare”. Why do you consider education vouchers to be welfare, but you don’t seem to consider the right to a ‘free’ state education as welfare? Either both are or neither is.

Comment by Mark Wadsworth | February 6, 2008
Vouchers represented a great rhetorical idea for Milton Friedman to persuade people about one or two things in a climate when the mere idea of free enterprise had been successfully equated with facism. It was an OK thing to talk about that no reasonable man to the left of him could, in good faith, disagree with. The leftists mostly did disagree but none of them in good faith.

But we should move on from that. There is no need for vouchers. Or at least we can provide a whole string of tax breaks prior to re-surveying the situation to see if we need a sort of interim top-up in the form of these vouchers.

Birds law of political strategy is never to knowingly promote a second-best option since you are then really barracking for a fourth best sellout option.

If we go for totally private schooling with all due tax advantages for the working poor, than we might wind up being forced to accept the second-best option of vouchers for awhile. But if we promote vouchers we are saying that liberty isn’t good enough and we won’t even get as far as vouchers.

Comment by graemebird | February 6, 2008
Shem, I didn’t say religious schools should be deliberately disadvantaged by any voucher policy. Just that a voucher policy needs to go hand in hand with a policy to remove the tax breaks and other favouritism that churches get.
And further, in order to qualify for vouchers, the curriculum must be free of obvious attempts at religious indoctrination.

I fully agree with your concerns about granting people too much liberty, because it can often lead to a situation where you lose some of your own. That is exactly why I’m a consequentialist libertarian, and not a deontological libertarian. It’s *fortunate* that there is one relatively simple fix: a good, compulsory, liberal education. Many religious schools actually are generally pretty good at providing that - despite the fact that it’s very slowly leading to the demise of religion. But many are not, and giving more power to the even the ones that are is a dangerous strategy.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
Mark W, I’m curious how a scheme that treats all parents the same, no matter how many kids they have, could possibly work. Is that what you’re implying?

I think means testing for education vouchers is fine, as long as its based on the students’ income, not that of the parents.
That obviously means that nearly all children under 18 will be eligible for a voucher, as they have no (or very little) income.

For adults later in life wanting further education, some amount of means testing seems reasonable.

BTW, one further thought - single parents that choose to devote their lives to raising their kids ARE being productive citizens, and contributing towards the economy. I see no problem with them opting to not seek privately-paid employment. But it should be done freely, and not because an ill-structured taxation scheme puts their EMTR so high that they see no point in working.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
Mark — from a maths point of view it’s the same. But from a political & moral point of view there is a big difference between somebody robbing you… and you being told that you’re have to stop robbing somebody else.

I agree that “free” education is welfare. But it wouldnt exist under a voucher system. Govt schools would be priced properly (just like private schools) and would be funded through vouchers.

A paper on this topic is being drafted now for publication with the CIS.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
Means testing, like income tax, necessitates the government invading your privacy in quite extreme ways. I’d really like to get away from this invasive mentality. Whether I am rich or poor, on a high or low income really ought to be none of the governments business.

Having no means testing does not necessitate a massive level of welfare spending just as including means testing won’t guarantee that welfare spending declines. The only thing that will reduce welfare spending is political will coupled with democratic support.

A basic income paid by the government to every citizen (or the citizens guardian) coupled with a flat tax such as GST would entail very little government involvement in your financial affairs. All they need to know is your name, that you are a citizen and your bank account number. Perhaps they would need your age if you they wanted to pay less to those below 18. It would probably entail higher churn but it would probably also entail lower EMTRs.

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 6, 2008
Why not extent the “basic income” concept to children? The moment you’re born, you start getting paid a basic income that is sufficient to start paying for your education by the time you need it?

That is, leave the whole parent-children relationship out of it. Obviously parents can choose to pay for more expensive education, but all children get at least good quality education.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
I think the internet will resolve all these disputes. People could learn at their own pace from home, with their parents guiding their choices. All schooling could be home schooling, if so desired. Or, the local government, as part of the Library service, could provide internet access, and kids could be assigned to a station. They would learn from the interactive programs, not from one teacher. We already have a School of the Air, for outback kidlings, so this would just be an extension of existing facilities.

Comment by nicholas gray | February 6, 2008
Ah the internet - curious, can someone propose to me a likely scenario in a “pure” libertarian society that would have led to the development of the internet? Its development owes fairly little to market-based private enterprise, after all.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
So the private sector can build mobile phone networks, pay TV (also satellite internet - both dish and remote receiver) but it couldn’t have built dial up internet without DARPA and Al Gore?

That’s just not believeable.

Commerce would have seen “the” internet develop. Businesses have had EFTPOS and computerised sales for ages. You were able to communicate with other computers on ARIEL well before the net (think banks, brokers and libraries).

Until the mid 1990s, it was illegal to use the internet as it existed for commercial purposes. The only people making money from the internet then were the earliest ISPs.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 6, 2008
Re: Internet.
Military/defense is a valid government function necessary in today’s world. Also, collaborations are common with private sector.
Computers and software as we know them are due to the private sector. Most of what we think of when we surf the net was due to private sector and innovation from individuals not associated with government.

The innovation seen in the IT field over the last 30 years correlates well with what was a largely unregulated industry.
Bright minds move into areas where they can use those minds ie: in areas of least government regulation. Silicon valley has a reputation for having a higher than average amount of libertarians.

Comment by Tim R | February 6, 2008
I agree that “free” education is welfare. But it wouldnt exist under a voucher system. Govt schools would be priced properly (just like private schools) and would be funded through vouchers.

Am I missing something here? I accept government schools would be priced properly using vouchers, but the vouchers would still be provided by the government. To the extent that the value of the voucher covers the cost of education, that still makes it free.

I see vouchers as simply a means of creating efficiency among educational providers. It’s like privatising the Commonwealth Bank - it doesn’t mean the government can’t subsidise first home loan buyers.

Comment by DavidLeyonhjelm | February 6, 2008
TimR — you should say that you think that government military spending is a good idea. There is no god given rule that says the government should do anything.

Terje — means-testing isn’t invasive if you choose not to take the welfare. And if you chose to take the welfare, then it’s fair for the welfare giver to attach conditions. You don’t have a god-given right to welfare.

And I would suggest that providing universal welfare (as you support) does indeed mean an inevitable continuation of large welfare.

You can say “please please please” as much as you like… but what I’m suggesting is a guaranteed way to ween everybody (including you, Kerry Packer & Malcolm Turnbull) off welfare… and what you’re promoting is a guaranteed contiuation of welfare forever.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
Mark, you do love to make assumptions. I never said it couldn’t happen. I agree with Tim that as long as there is taxpayer-funded military spending (I would also add spending for scientific research - arguably the most critical development after that at DARPA occured at CERN), the Internet or something like it would have developed eventually. I’m less confident it would have done so with no such fostering environment.

I also agree that the IT industry has benefitted from only light regulation and a fair-bit of self-regulation (defining standards etc.). One of the reasons I enjoy working it.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
DavidL — the public education wouldn’t be free, but poor people would have a voucher to cover the costs. With a means-tested voucher, rich people wouldn’t get a voucher and would consequently pay the full fees at the public school.

Check the context. Mark asked about the difference between “free” education and a voucher system.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
LS,

You asked if the internet could have emerged without the Government.

I pointed out that the private sector had its own global networking systems BEFORE “the” internet was released to the public, built more advanced telephony and other communications technology than what the internet was when it was released to the public and that the silly ban on commercial use of the internet probably slowed down it’s development.

I didn’t make any assumptions there. I just listed events and developments which show that the Government wasn’t required. It should be clear to you the internet would have existed without “Al Gore and DARPA”.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 6, 2008
It’s not clear to me at all. What successful large-scale networking systems have had no government involvement at all?

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
Banks, libraries and brokerage houses.

The fact that the Government uses or funds these facilities doesn’t necessitate Government involvement in the development of the network.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 6, 2008
JH, I said, the military is a valid government function. Didn’t mention spending. My statment naturally implies that I think some level of military spending is necessary, but it doesn’t imply that I think spending should increase from its current level.
It simply means that the US military (that developed internet communication to put my comment in context) should rightfully exist.

The reason a military should exist is for governments to perform their correct duty - To protect the rights of people to their lives.

You say, “there is no God given rule that the government should do anything”. I think there is a “rule” or principle of government - that the government should function as a rights protector. ie: police, courts, military as primary functions. I don’t think it comes from God, I think it comes from reality. ie: Humans are unique and have volition, they need to use their brains to survive, which implies they need to act on their descisions which in turn implies they should be allowed to act without coercion/force applied to them.

PS. I actually think military spending is excessive and misdirected in some instances.

Comment by Tim R | February 6, 2008
No, that government almost always funds and coordinates the development of wide-area networking systems doesn’t prove that its necessary, but does tend to suggest that its an effective strategy.

The advantage of a system such as the Internet and World Wide Web to researchers trying to voluntarily share as much information as possible is clear enough. The advantage to a bunch of disparate private enterprises often trying to hide information from each other is not necessarily so clear.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
TimR — I think we should have a strong military.

I just don’t like it when people try to treat it as somehow inherent in society that the government has a military. It’s not inherent at all. It’s just a preference that most people have.

You say you think there is a general rule that the government should provide us security. That is no more a rule than the government should provide us with any other goods or services. The argument for government providing some security is quite a good one — perhaps one of the best arguments for government. But it is wrong (and unfortunately far too common) for people to simply assume they should provide that service. It is at least theoretically possible to have non-government provision of security.

Though, as I said, I don’t personally have a problem with some government involvement in the security business.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
So much for your libertarian purity!

There’s no general “rule” we should have a government at all, of course. We spent first ~200,000 years of our existence as Homo Sapiens without one. But that probably gives you a not unreasonable idea of what the next 200,000 years of our existence might be like if all govermnents were dissolved tomorrow.

Indeed, aren’t many hunterer-gatherer tribes pretty close to the libertarian ideal?

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
LS,

Hunter-gatherers have little concept of property or property rights. If anything they are more representative of primitive socialism than libertarianism.

What is the history of state funded education? When did Australia switch from private and charity run schools to government schooling?

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 6, 2008
LS — you are the only person here going on about libertarian purity. Get over it.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
John, no need to get over something I don’t take the least bit seriously.

Right, Brendan, so all hunter gatherer societies need are property rights, and they’d be living in first world luxury?

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
LS, hunter gatherers had property rights and they traded (in between slughtering each other, of course) even hundreds of thousands of years ago. I saw a programme on it.

Comment by Mark Wadsworth | February 6, 2008
So then that confirms my suspicion - that the best example of libertarian ideals in practice is a hunter gatherer society. And the reason it worked well is because there was no possibility of significant disparities in wealth and power.

A small part of me sees a definite attraction in returning to such an existence. But I’ve been far too molly-coddled by modern technology and a comfortable existence to voluntarily choose it.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 6, 2008
LS - that is the biggest twoddle I have ever heard.

Hunter-gatherer societies are marked by authoritarian oligarchic leadership hierarchies, an absence of equal rights for women, communal ownership, nomadic existence, mysticism, extreme hostility to outsiders and subsistence. What part of that makes hunter-gatherers the perfect libertarians?

An absence of government does not mean an absence of voluntary institutions that uphold civilisation, maintain order, enforce contracts and promote liberty and prosperity.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 6, 2008
That’s the biggest twoddle? Evidently, you have never listened to GMB or his twin Lambert.

David Friedman makes an important distinction between anarchy and libertarianism. Anarchy is the absense of government, but there will still be “private violence” (ie criminals). Libertarianism wants to minimise violence/coercion (ie behaviour being voluntary & peaceful).

Anarchists argue that the private sector will sufficiently control “private violence”. In contrast, minarchists argue that you need the government to provide security and that the violence of government is less than the violence they prevent.

It is possible that some hunter-gather societies approximated anarchy, but failed to be libertarian because of the excessive amounts of violence. It certainly seems that their “primative anarchy” was fairly unstable, and such groups quickly were killed to developed some sort of authoritarian government.

Some people have used this as an argument against the viability of anarchy, and it’s a reasonable argument. In resoponse, I argue that modern society makes anarchy potentially more viable because (1) the rewards from peaceful interaction are larger; and (2) the revealed value of life is now higher. But that’s a different debate for a different day.

Either way — primative hunter-gather societies are not good examples of libertarian society because they tended not to be organised around peaceful and voluntary behaviour.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
I dunno, John, it’s not as if there was a police force of anyway of enforcing tribal customs. If there is no law-enforcer then I’d have to say it was pretty voluntary.

In Japan there is a social taboo about eating on trains. There aren’t any fines, but Japanese people just don’t do it. Is someone in Japanese society “free” to eat on trains? Well, a social stigma isn’t violent or coercive, but it’s definitely something most would rather avoid…

I actually find it quite interesting, and arbitrary the priority libertarian philosophy puts on physical action. There’s a lot of pressures you can put on someone without ever touching them. I guess death is pretty much the worst of it, though. But isn’t talking someone into suicide the moral equivalent of murder?

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 6, 2008
Shem,

Japan is not a tribal hunter-gatherer society. I’m not sure what your point is. If you did not comply with tribal customs you had the bone pointed at you and you became a ghost to your kith and kin. Exclusion would eventually mean death.

Today, if you want to non-violently ignore social custom, you sit at home posting on blogs, ordering pizza online. I think the chances of a libertarian society developing in a economically sophisticated and advanced society are much stronger than in a subsistence hunter-gatherer one.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 6, 2008
Shem — which societies are you talking about? Most African hunter-gatherer societies had a chief. The chief decided what you could and couldn’t do… and if you disobeyed the chief you were punished. Just because the “police force” were part-time and didn’t wear badges doesn’t mean their society was voluntary and peaceful.

Social stigmas are a separate issue.

No — talking to somebody is not the moral equivalent of shooting them in the head. There is a world of difference between violence/coerion and influence and it’s best explained like this:

Violence/coercion — “do what I say or I’ll take away something that is yours or hit you”

Influence — “do what I say and I’ll give you something that’s mine… please please please”

This isn’t to say that influence is always morally good or that it’s nice or that it’s not important. But there is a very important and very obvious moral distinction between influence (ie free speech) and violence.

I also note that if you want to stop influence you only have two options — use peaceful & voluntary influence (ie talk to them), or use violence.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
Exclusion would eventually mean death.

The tribes are just enforcing their own laws on their own property. You had the freedom to leave at any stage, to hunt on your own, to form your own tribe. As long as you weren’t on the other tribe’s property.

The police force in a libertarian society will point guns at you if you murder someone and refuse to go to jail. I don’t see how that’s any different.

There is ALWAYS a need for violence and coercion in society, even in a libertarian society. In a libertarian society violence and coercion are only ever used by those in power if you are violent or coercive towards another.

But in that sense most tribal codes only outlawed theft, murder, rape and things that would be illegal in a libertarian society anyway. The only exception I can think of is that women were sometimes considered “property” so adultery was punishable, even though that’s a voluntary association.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 6, 2008
I can’t see why exclusion would mean death. Indeed, I imagine many people wandered off away from their tribe to explore the world.

Shem… the fact that the police in a libertarian world point guns is entirely irrelevant. The point was that that the chief controlled the police and used them to maintain power, and therefore he was the government. If there is a government then it’s absurd to call it an anarchy.

Some of those tribes would have experimented with libertarian rules, but unfortunately it was the militaristic authoritarians that seemed to dominate in most parts of the world. The concurrent development of Athens (liberal democracy) and Sparta (national socialism) give an interesting example of early development… though even there Athens had 50% slaves.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
No — talking to somebody is not the moral equivalent of shooting them in the head.

In terms of morality I believe two things matter-

The intention
The result

If I intend for someone to die, and they die does it matter if they die by my hand or their own?

Now, someone saying “I wish you were dead, fag” probably isn’t directly saying that so the person kills themselves. But a lack of remorse after the fact generally means they should at least be held accountable for both their actions and the results of their actions.

Compare it to someone who punches another person in the head intending to hurt them, not kill them, but killing them by mistake and not regretting it. In this case the person will be likely convicted for manslaughter.

In my mind, the intention and the result are what defines the morality or immorality of an action. In both cases harm was intended. In both cases someone died as a direct result of harm caused (in one case physical harm, in one case mental harm). The intent and the result are the same- so the actions are morally equivalent.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 6, 2008
Shem… the fact that the police in a libertarian world point guns is entirely irrelevant. The point was that that the chief controlled the police and used them to maintain power, and therefore he was the government. If there is a government then it’s absurd to call it an anarchy.

Who said anarchy?

Either way — primative hunter-gather societies are not good examples of libertarian society because they tended not to be organised around peaceful and voluntary behaviour.

That was your claim. LS said that tribes were the closest thing to a libertarian society that has existed. I agreed. Note the word here is “libertarian” not “anarchist”. A libertarian society has a government to ensure the defence of the life, property and liberty of its citizens. In that sense if a tribe only had laws against murder, theft, rape and enslaving others then it is pretty libertarian! The only time you’d have spears pointed at you is if you were in violation of someone else’s liberty.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 6, 2008
I absolutely agree that non-violent behaviour can be morally worse than violent behaviour.

But I absolutely disagree that people should be held responsible for other people’s behaviour… or that there should be laws against free speech. The “immorality” you do peacefully & voluntarily should be legal.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 6, 2008
John, exclusion from participating in hunting and gathering parties, exclusion from sharing the produce, would mean a very meager existence, with the individual much more likely to fall victim to the vagaries of subsistence life. Disease and accidents would lead to starvation. There is a reason people grouped together in tribes, it was survival in a hostile world. Perhaps some individuals had the talent and skill to survive alone, but as a general rule tribal justice wasn’t designed to benignly release individuals from being bound to the tribe.

How does a pregnant women deal with complications of child birth alone? How does a hunter injured in pursuit of his prey cope alone? How does an individual find water in a harsh environment without the collective knowledge of the tribe?

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 7, 2008
In general I agree John.

Legislating against non-violent behaviour is too difficult a task for me to trust government with. It is murky and grey enough for lawyers and judges now with violent crime.

This being the ALS blog, I thought it appropriate to talk about the morality of the libertarian philosophy. Morally I don’t think libertarianism is always right.

Freedom is flawed- but it is less flawed than violence. I’m a utilitarian so I like the solution to problems that is less broken and causes less problems. In SOME cases, I believe a non-libertarian solution MAY have a better net outcome than the libertarian solution. In such cases (and the burden of proof lies with those restricting freedom) personally I would prefer the non-libertarian solution.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 7, 2008
Brendan- surely that is then an argument in favour of collectivism? People that don’t work need welfare because otherwise they die. Even if it is their choice not to work, they should be excused from the consequences of their choices if it stops them from dying…

Now that might be a sound argument, but it’s not libertarian

Tribes were more libertarian. They allowed people to suffer the consequences of their own voluntary decisions, even when that led to their deaths.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 7, 2008
Shem,

It is not an argument in favour of collectivism, it is an argument in favour of modern civilisation with sophisticated markets and advanced technology operating along libertarian lines of voluntary cooperation.

In a hunter-gatherer society, disabled individuals would be abandoned out of necessity of survival. Disabled newborns would be abandoned. Tribal welfare would’ve only extended to those for whom had a reasonable likelihood of contributing in the future and it was convenient to do so.

Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes were not more libertarian. They used violence to intimidate tribal members and violence to steal from rival tribes. Property rights of other tribes were not recognised. If your tribe’s lands were suffering drought, you’d simply invade another tribe’s lands and hope that your tribe was strong enough to defeat them. Corporal punishment was common, tribal punishment barbaric. Women were considered possessions. Membership was not voluntary, you simply could not get up and invite yourself to join another tribe.

You say that allowing people to suffer the consequences of their own actions is libertarian. But if survival is linked to non-voluntary behaviour, how is that libertarian? If you insult the tribe’s deity and they stone you to death, how does that wash with free speech?

Facing the consequences is not libertarian when those consequences are not voluntary. Insulting someone’s customs and being socially and economically excluded from intereaction with them is acceptable, but not when they are the only show in town and they practically control all of the resources simply because individual survival is linked to being a member of a group.

I really don’t undestand this desire to equate hunting-gathering societies with individual freedom and voluntary cooperation. Presuming you want to live, then without alternative, membership of the tribe is non-voluntary. It is not the fault of the hunter-gatherer that he doesn’t live in a libertarian society, he and his people haven’t developed institutions that enable freedom. Equating hunter-gatherer society with libertarianism is like equating the current situation in Iraq with liberty.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 7, 2008
Look we cannot promote this idea. We’ve got to promote the idea of doing everything to help the working poor that we can possibly do that doesn’t involve stealing.

There are plenty of things we can do to help a person working for $10 an hour with a sick wife and four kids, get his kids a decent education, without resorting to stealing.

Once you bring in a voucher you’ve buggered the industry entire. You’ve destroyed its ability to innovate at anything like the rate that would be otherwise possible.

Such a voucher means accreditation. It means accepting the idea of the traditional school system.

It means accepting that school starts at 8.30am and finishes at 3.00pm which hobbles the options of the poor family right there. Its just a pox.

I wouldn’t mind so much if it were a scheme where the vouchers were weekly and reducing by 5% each week.

No its just ugly ugly ugly. And we don’t need it if we are focusing on the working poor from the getgo. Its just another inherently small-business opportunity closed off by the need for accrediation. Its as though all the businesses imagineable that lend themselves to small startups at low startup cost have been taken by the thieves and busybodies.

Just to bring in some perspective here. Footwear is pretty important isn’t it? And in many countries people lack adequate footwear don’t they?

And in the Dutch and British heritage there was once a time when folks went around without adequate footwear wasn’t there?

Well lets take it right back to the 13th century right?

A lot of people in places like England and Holland got about without adequate footwear in the 13th century right?

What if we’d put in a footwear voucher then?

Don’t you think it would have stifled the industry? To have accreditation of footwear providers? To have taxeaters getting about producing immense statist propaganda to justify their position of footwear provider accreditor?

Actually my example is a bad one that doesn’t do justice to the disaster we are promoting here.

JUST SAY NO.

This is just so important. We cannot be doing this.

Comment by graemebird | February 7, 2008
Brendan - spot on.

Shem - Judging “intentions” and “results” is fine but the “method” matters also.

John - My concern regarding means testing remains. If you have an innovative way to intigrate means testing with the tax system that keeps EMTRs low then I think you need to present it with some more detail. The appeal of 30/30 was that it removed a lot of high EMTRs and did away with the minimum wage. Overlaying means tested vouchers brings back high EMTRs unless you advocate some integration mechanism that has not yet been made fully clear.

Usually when there is an idea buzzing around in your head it is interesting and has some merit. At the moment it hasn’t made the leap over to my neural network. Something is still jamming the communication channel. Maybe if you throw around some more detail in terms of hypothetical numbers and examples to show how it would all come together then us slow pokes might cotton on to where you are at. If you need time to further incubate all of those bits and pieces then thats okay. But for now I’m not yet on the same page.

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 7, 2008
Shem. I’m NOT a utilitarian since this is a nihilistic phony position to take.

But national defense aside. Where do yo see a utilitarian argument in vouchers? Its a utilitarian disaster because it is destructive of one of our most important industries.

Utilitarianism is a relentless attack on property rights. It prices the value of liberty as precisely ZERO. And on;y appreciates liberty for the consumer goods that liberty provides.

Comment by graemebird | February 7, 2008
Graeme - You just said that liberty has no utility. Are you sure that is what you meant?

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 7, 2008
Shem, in Aboriginal societies, exclusion from the tribe usually meant death, because tribes had carved up all the food regions for their tribes. Outsiders were not allowed in for ANY reason, because the tribes said that they needed ALL the food. As well, other tribes tended to kill single intruders on sight, because they feared they were spies from other tribes. Solitary women were often kidnapped and given to a warrior as a wife, often on the Finders-Keepers principle. Exclusion was bad alround.

Comment by nicholas gray | February 7, 2008
Brendan, I think you’re getting confused about the meaning of voluntary. If you would starve without the help of people, and they don’t give you help, then that is not violence. It might be nasty and immoral, but it’s not violence. As you starve to death, all behaviour has still been peaceful and voluntary. Check the definitions I gave to Shem earlier in this thread.

I agree that getting together in a tribe would have had benefits. But you don’t have a god-given right to those benefits.

I also agree that many hunter-gather societies weren’t libertarian… but I don’t understand why you’re so insistent that none of them were. It is almost inevitable that some tribes experimented with a libertarian-like structure. While not hunter-gatherer, ancient Athens and Iceland followed a fairly libertarian approach.

Libertarian doesn’t mean having roads and buildings and McDonalds and credit cards. It means having behaviour coordinated in a peaceful & voluntary way. Libertarianism is not the same thing as development. I think both are good things, and freedom generally leads to development… but they are not the same thing.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
nicholas — just because exlusion is bad doesn’t make it violent.

Do you (& Brendan & Terje) think it’s the role of government to force people to associate with each other against their will? Do you think an aboriginal person should be allowed to create a club and exclude somebody membership of that club?

It is certainly true that hunter-gatherer societies often saw a lot of war, and that crime was committed. But that doesn’t prove they weren’t libertarian.

I think it almost certain that the thousands of different tribes experimented with a huge range of different political/economic structures. Unfortunately, given the high incidence of war, the initial advantage probably went to the militaristic tribes, not the libertarian tribes.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
No Terge what I’m saying is that utilitarianism as a philosophy is nihilistic since it prices liberty at a zero price. Its an explicit advocacy of tossing in liberty on the basis of a few consumer goods. Utilitarianism is therefore a nihilistic philosophy.

Utilitarian arguments however are valid. Just not the idea of making utilitarianism central to ones thinking.

One ought not appraise matters in relation to what their advocates SAY about them.

Comment by graemebird | February 7, 2008
I doubt that any of you utiliatarians are going to make a case for vouchers on utilitarian grounds.

Utilitarianism quickly becomes a rabid attack on property rights FOR ITS OWN SAKES.

Comment by graemebird | February 7, 2008
John - your points in comment #97 and #98 are fair enough but you seem to miss the context of what Brendan said. The point of Brendans to which I said “spot on” was the one where he said “Facing the consequences is not libertarian when the consequences are non-voluntary”.

Wondering into the wilderness and starving involves consequences and I’d agree that it is probably a non-voluntary consequence and that it does not violate libertarianism. However neither does it define the essence of libertarianism as Shem seemed to suggest. Brendan qualified his statement with an example that entailed being stoned for not following the tribes religion. As such he is right that libertarianism is not merely about facing consequences for personal actions. There is nothing libertarian about being stoned for rejecting religion or for embracing religion to avoid being stoned even though both entail an individual facing consequences for an action.

Brendan was rejecting Shems assertion by showing a counter example. The fact that you can come up with a counter example that does not effect Shems assertion is beside the point.

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 7, 2008
Terje — in your 2nd para do you mean “non-voluntary” or “non-violent”?

I agree that many hunter-gatherer societies weren’t libertarian. But Brendan seems to be dismissing all hunter-gatherer societies out of hand as necessarily un-libertarian. Shem is trying to show that there were libertarian elements to the hunter-gatherer society… and one of them is that they sometimes punished people by simply refusing to associate with them.

Brendan seemed to be saying that “refusing to associate” was somehow violent and un-libertarian. And this is where I disagree with him.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
In the past, the way the world was when the internet was initially being developed by US military, it’s fair enough to say that the US government was right to have a military.

In a hypothetical future, maybe a great deal of military, police, and court functions could be privatised or scrapped altogether?

Protection of rights - Is it a service like any other?
Yes I’d agree to a point, (eg/ security companies) but when you have an escalating dispute you ultimately need both parties to adhere to one decision maker - if not, then you’ll get two decision makers fighting it out.
So currently I’m tending away from my anarcho-capitalist roots and think the government should function as having a monopoly on the police, courts and military.

In a world where people understand and accept the right to property and the principle of non-initiation of force, crime would dramatically reduce.
However, there will always be disagreements (eg/ over the meaning of contracts) and always need for conflict resolution.

Most primitive societies were far more libertarian than today’s world, and functioned quite peacefully. However, they always had an authority on conflict resolution. If you disagreed, you either left the tribe (unlikely) or grudgingly abided by the decision.

LS, I’m not sure if comment 70 is directed at me, but if so, I don’t know what you’re on about.

Comment by Tim R | February 7, 2008
TimR — you make a good point about the need for despute resolution. That too is a service, and can be provided privately.

If you think that private security and despute-resolution services will lead to bad outcomes then it is fair to consequently prefer a government system. My point is simplpy that it doesn’t go without saying.

I’m not sure why you don’t trust private despute-resolution. It already exists in many parts of society today and seems to work fairly effectively. Some would argue that it works better than government courts. And there is certainly a strong incentive for security providers to use despute-resolvers (ie private courts) instead of going to war. After all — they are profit maximisers and wars are expensive.

In contrast, the government isn’t a profit maximiser and when they go to war they use other people’s money and other people’s lives. It seems fair to conclude that the private incentive to war is less than the government incentive to war.

But having said that — there ae other complexities in the anarchist story and it’s perfectly reasonable to prefer government involvement if you have a good reason. Once again, my point was simply that government intervention never “goes without saying”. It always needs to be defended on the basis of some benefit.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
Tim, I was replying to Mark.

My position is pretty simple: yes, there are inevitable downsides to taxpayer funding of military and scientific research. But given what has come out of it (including the Internet and WWW), I don’t see a good cause for abandoning it just yet. Indeed, we may well need significant increases in government spending on scientific research before we’re in a position to start effectively factoring it out to non-government organisations, simply because we have an urgent need for some important scientific breakthroughs (especially in the area of new energy sources), but insufficient appreciation of the long-term benefits of scientific research among individuals and businesses for them to voluntarily put sufficient funds towards research that often won’t pay off until several decades into the future, and often in a manner where almost everybody gets equal benefit, regardless of how much money they put towards it.

However, having said that, I see little need for scientific research institutions to be run directly by the government.
The CSIRO, for instance, could surely operate as a non-for-profit organisation funded partly by taxpayer dollars, with the freedom to largely do what it likes (including to split into smaller organisation), so long as it is clearly conducting scientific research.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 7, 2008
I agree that “refusing to associate” is not violent and as such it is not un-libertarian. I did not interpret Brendan to be saying otherwise. Although words could perhaps have been picked more carefully.

Shem seemed to me to be making the point that if a tribe owns land it can treat people within the tribe how it wishes because it owns the land. In terms of power this is probably true. However to assert that this is an example of libertarian society is wrong. A society in which land is owned communially and where such communal ownership precludes the notion of private land ownership is not a libertarian society.

I have no trouble accepting that some tribal societies may have been libertarian with systems of respect for private land ownership and the like. However tribal society as typified by contemporary popular perception more generally fits a socialist criteria than a libertarian one. The fact that the circumstances of the world may allow you to wonder off from such a society and stake your claim elsewhere does not make that society suddenly recognise private property or change the nature of the society you left.

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 7, 2008
BTW, thought experiment.
1 million libertarians decide to start their own society.

They are granted sovereignty over some piece of land suitably large and well-resourced enough by agreement with existing nation-states.

Would you a) assume some method is agreed upon by which the land can be divided up into 1 million more-or-less equally-useful pieces and allocate by drawing straws? They are then free to divide up their allotments and exchange with others as they see fit.

or
b) apply a first-come first-served rule, where each individual stakes out their own claim?

If b) how do you settle the inevitable “I was here first” disputes? What do you do with inevitable bits of land that nobody stakes out?

If there is no government at all, who is responsible for keeping records determining what the borders of each block are?

(BTW, it must be said, if I didn’t have a wife & kid, I’d happily join such an experiment, even if it had to be in Antarctica. Even if it ultimately failed, it would be highly informative. I find it odd that no real attempts have been undertaken. Maybe once we start colonising other planets and moons it will.)

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 7, 2008
Shem, you further claimed that tribes did not have police forces, but the book by Ion Idress, “Red Kangaroo”, shows that the medicine-man would also have been the tribal executioner.

Comment by nicholas gray | February 7, 2008
JH, I agree government is not a given. It’s a means to an end.
However I currently don’t see a way of avoiding a monopoly provider as rights enforcer - for appeals and tough decisions.

Comment by Tim R | February 7, 2008
Nicholas, saying tribes didn’t have “police forces” was perhaps wrong. What I more meant to say is that if you left the tribe, usually you went without punishment. Unlike today, where if you violate a law, there’s nowhere to run to.

I’m not saying EVERY tribe was libertarian, by the way. I was just saying a lot of tribes were more libertarian than society today. As LS said originally “hunter-gatherer tribes are the best example of libertarianism” the best example doesn’t mean a perfect example.

In general, due to the limited number of laws tribes were quite libertarian. It is easy to organise small groups in a libertarian manner, especially when resources are more abundant and there’s no sense of property rights.

I do believe that most tribes were more libertarian than society today. Most tribes had laws against stealing, rape, murder and slavery of others from the same tribe- they are libertarian laws even if punishment by death isn’t as libertarian. Those attitudes may not have applied to outside tribes but in crude terms the simplest tribes are the most libertarian. Once religion gets involved it goes south, or once a greedy chief decides anything produced by the tribe is his property you start to get a monarchy/ dictatorship. But some tribal structures are quite libertarian.

Incidentally you are right that there was a communal ownership attitude towards property in a lot of tribes, Terje. But that is communism, not socialism. And communism, provided it is voluntary, is never in violation of libertarianism. Private property rights were defended and borders protected by tribes. Within the tribes ownership was often shared- that isn’t proof that the tribes are more, or less, libertarian.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 7, 2008
Where do yo see a utilitarian argument in vouchers? Its a utilitarian disaster because it is destructive of one of our most important industries.

It is more utilitarian than the current system.

More kids get better educational outcomes as curriculum and teachers can be more individualised. More parents get more choice.

I agree that it isn’t a perfect outcome, or even a utility maximising outcome.

But a totally deregulated education industry while providing more utility probably wouldn’t provide the maximum utility either. Not to mention the fact that in a democracy people need to voluntarily choose such a system.

There’s no point in offering a utility maximising policy if it’s only ever going to exist in your head.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 7, 2008
LS,

See this and it wil explore some of those issues:

http://www.mises.org/story/1865

Pennsylvania’s Anarchist Experiment: 1681-1690

Comment by Mark Hill | February 7, 2008
TimR — for appeals and tough decisions you can go to a private despite resultion business. People would have an incentive to go there, and the despite-resolvers would have an incentive to give rulings that were considered fair, so that they got more business.

Shem — I don’t believe hunter-gatherers necessarily had communal ownership. They did not each have “shares” in the assets of the community that they could sell or control. I imagine there would have been private property rights over the assets they used — their spears & boomorangs & didgaridoos etc. Ownership of land didn’t become an issue because it was effectively not scarce (ie there was more land that uses for the land, so little conflict about it’s use). And some assets were probably controlled by the elders, who might also have held the power to coerce (ie a mini-government).

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
Property rights emerge voluntarily as an efficient, convenient social convention, even without a central legal system. It is a surprising finding.

See,

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0507(198206)42%3A2%3C470%3AATOPRW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

A Theory of Property Rights with Application to the California Gold Rush by John R. Umbeck

Comment by Mark Hill | February 7, 2008
Comment #111 sparks a thought. Given that ownership of land is not relevant until it becomes scarce relative to land use opportunities then historically speaking should we expect to see land ownership emerge sooner in small island states where the supply of new land is constrained by geography?

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 7, 2008
Not sure, Terje.

Land has no value until people actually need to use it. What matters is resources.

To a primitive community 1 acre of land with fruit and animals on it would be far more useful than 100 acres of barren land.

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 7, 2008
Terje — interesting question. I imagine the more important issue is population density and how useful the land was.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
So you are an anarcho-capitalist JH (in terms of your ideal future society)?

I’d be interested to know how many people on this discussion board think that a majority of people in society will adopt libertarian principles in their lifetime.

eg/ Do you guys think a society will exist in your lifetime where citizens have full property rights, where there is 0 income tax, where there is 0 regulation, massive government privitisation, no vitimless crime laws etc?
It seems like a long way off to me.

Those associated with the LDP obviously believe in getting to the end game step by step, and so do I. But we’d all agree that the quicker the better and although I don’t think it’s worth dwelling on the hypothetical too much, I was wondering if anyone had opinions on timeframes to reaching their utopian society.

Comment by Tim R | February 7, 2008
Tim, only if a bunch of true-believers went off to create such a society. Or exploration of the solar system takes off much sooner than one might currently expect - though even there, it seems highly unlikely that an “ideal” libertarian society would be pursued. Then again, at least you wouldn’t have to worry too much about pollution.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 7, 2008
I don’t know if I’m an anarchist. I like the idea, but I’m not sure that it’s the best system or if it’s ever going to be possible. The only things I’m sure of is that freedom generally works better than government. The details of utopia escape me.

I agree we’re a long way from a libertarian world, and on our current path it doesn’t look like we’ll get there. But who knows what the future holds…

Anyway, it’s worth remembering that our current system of social democracy isn’t too bad, and you can always escape to a 3rd world country and simply ignore all the laws.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
JH, social democracy is more than just “not too bad”, it’s the most successful system ever acheived.

I think it will be continuously and gradually improved by further process of liberalisation, but I highly doubt a genuine libertarian society would function today given the social attitudes and general ignorance that still exist in the world.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 7, 2008
I think zero income tax is reasonably achievable. There are other nations with no income tax. I’m less optimistic about monetary reform but not a lot. The libertarian genie is still getting out of the bottle. However it is a long term project.

The difference between an economical liberal small government social democracy and a libertarian liberal democracy is probably indistinguishable. However I don’t know why you would call it social democracy.

Comment by Terje (say tay-a) | February 7, 2008
lol — I don’t think there is such a thing as an economically liberal small government social demoracy. Sounds as absurd as a libertarian socialist, or a fascist pacifist…

LS — I think that liberal democracy, as experienced in much of the anglosphere during the 19th century, was a better system which provided much more radical successes, though admitedly there were illiberal elements of that society.

It is unreasonable (and arrogant) to wait until the world thinks like you before you allow people to be free. We could very easily cope with freedom, just as people have done before and as some people do now.

Comment by John Humphreys | February 7, 2008
John, so why did liberal democracies all universally see the introduction of welfare nets, public education etc. etc.?

BTW, you do get some interesting results googling “pacifist fascist” and the reverse. Given “fascist” is often used to just mean “authoritarian”, that doesn’t really surprise me.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 7, 2008
I think liberal democracies would have strengths and flaws, but in general people would cope decently.

Much like any other political structure, really. Even under communism people still managed to survive.

To say a liberal democracy wouldn’t “function” is putting a very tight definition on the word “function”. Most societies have functioned…. Even the really nasty ones…

Comment by Shem Bennett | February 7, 2008
A liberal democracy would function fine - indeed I think what we have now is actually closer to the sort of liberalism that J.S.Mill etc. promoted than the realities of his age.

Comment by wizofaus | February 7, 2008
Terje - There are other nations with no income tax.

Are there? who?

Comment by pommygranate | February 7, 2008
LS - the end of classical liberal society came with the emergence of Prussian statism. As the Prussians brought their militaristic authoritarian statism to a united Germany, Britain started ramping up her statist institutions, partially in admiration for all things German (after all their Royal family were German), partially out of fear of German strength.

The militarisation of British society during WWI opened the way for the new statesmen of the 20th Century, further enforced by WWII. Total war meant the total state. Once the people had got used to the state employing them in military industries, used to them owning transportation, all in the name of defending their liberty and way of life, letting the state into the education, health and welfare in a cradle to grave state was a logical next step.

What Marx failed to see was the ability of social democracy to wrap the proletariat in cottonwool, the transformation of economies from industrial to service and he underestimated the sheer wealth creation capability of capitalism with one hand tied behind its back.

Damn those Prussians.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 7, 2008
Brendan

I’m not sure i agree with your theory. Classical liberalism was dealt two mighty blows by each World War. As a result of their contribution during WWI, women in the UK got the vote. Women tend instinctively to be more social democratic than classically liberal (obviously a generalisation but on average is the case). Female libertarian bloggers and commenters are rarer than a Bush spending cut.
And following WWII, there was an overwhelming sense of a need to help one’s neighbour and that a large safety net should be erected, hence the NHS.

Comment by pommygranate | February 7, 2008
John,

Fair enough, I’ll concede. Exclusion from the tribe is non-violent and being a member of the tribe is still voluntary, even though exclusion and almost certain death is the only alternative. But saying, as LS and Shem seem to be, that hunter-gatherers are more free for their lack of government is denying the fact that even a welfare recipient in state housing in Sydney’s western suburbs probably hold up their life as being more free and prosperous than a single Aboriginal in the most successful tribe in the whole of the Australian continent at the time of settlement.

Lack of government is not freedom if with it doesn’t also come with ability to defend that freedom and pursue your own ambitions. Hunter-gatherers could not defend their individual freedom and they could not pursue their individual ambitions. Their economic freedom was minimal, simply because they lived in an environment that did not support complex economic relationships. The Dutch used to say that city air made a man free, but compared to Aboriginals, rural agrarian air made a man freer than hunting and gathering.

Hunter-gatherer societies may have even followed basic libertarian principles, but that fact alone did not make their members more free.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 7, 2008
Brendan, I agree that even welfare recipients today are in many ways more free than those who lived in hunter-gatherer societies, even though there are many more centrally-imposed restrictions on liberties.
I think that’s a fundamental paradox at the heart of deontological libertarianism that you can never quite escape.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 7, 2008
Pommy,

I don’t think you’ll get very far blaming universal sufferage for the downfall of liberal democracy. Perhaps the limitations of democracy perhaps, but not in stereotypical representation of women’s voting patterns.

The whole need to go to war was down to Prussian nationalism in WWI and German national socialism in WWII. I’m not really sure how what I said is all that different to what you said (besides blaming women for social democracy).

I’d be interested in seeing the historical voting turn out of women and men in the UK since universal sufferage, their voting patterns, and an analysis of how much patriarchal influence on wives and daughters affected their voting. I’d also ponder of whether the return of thousands of servicemen to civil society who had grown used to an all encompassing military environment influenced the greater social programmes.

It was natural for government to get into health care to tend to casualties of war, in fact war enabled many medical advances. Hospitals became part of the military, extending the expertise gained in military hospitals to provide for civilian health care was natural.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 7, 2008
What “downfall” of liberal democracy are we talking about?
By any reasonable measure we still live in a liberal democracy. It’s as socially liberal as it has ever been (though there’s a lot of room for improvement), and from a functional point of view, as economically liberal as it has ever been (the average citizen has more financial freedom than they did 100 years ago), though again, there’s still much room for improvement.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 7, 2008
Pommy,

Take a look at the following:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax#Countries_with_no_personal_income_tax

Comment by Terje Petersen | February 7, 2008
Brendan

‘downfall of liberal democracy’ is a bit dramatic. i’m merely making the observation that women are more likely to vote for centrist parties than arch-capitalist, libertarian ones.

Comment by pommygranate | February 7, 2008
fascinating article on hunter gatherer society here
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278703

Comment by Jason Soon | February 7, 2008
#134 - alas these countries are either cultural wastelands/dumps you couldn’t pay me enough to live in or Islamic kingdoms living off oil (which comes to almost the same thing)

Comment by Jason Soon | February 7, 2008
Come on Jason the Bahamas seems like a lovely place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bahamas#Economy

Comment by Terje Petersen | February 7, 2008
That was a good article Jason, thanks.

Comment by Brendan Halfweeg | February 7, 2008
Yes it is. Funny in parts also.

Comment by Terje Petersen | February 7, 2008
pommy, I think you need to be a bit stronger than “women are more likely to vote for centrist than libertarian parties”. After all, substitute “women” with virtually any category (other than “libertarians” and the same holds true. Even “experienced economists” or “dope heads”

Women generally prefer political philosophies of the “nuturing parent” type, rather than the “strict father” type, and their close associationg with child-rearing virtually rules out any thought of supporting the “do whatever you like” type. Indeed, because it’s unfortunately still the case that many adults never really truly grow up entirely from being children dependent on figures of authority, I wouldn’t want a “do whatever you like” government in power either. It’s time may come, but not in my lifetime.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 8, 2008
Your last sentence LS - make up your mind. Sounds like you are saying your a “born again” “virgin”.

“I want X, but not in my lifetime”…

The mind boggles and pleas for a good Shiraz.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 8, 2008
Not at all. Just because I want and support something doesn’t mean I realistically think its time has come.

What we need now is a gradual and workable path towards a more libertarian society.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 8, 2008
“Republicans for a Gay President in 2084″

“We’re realistic”

What is the point?

How would you create a gradual and workable path to a more libertarian society? I’m all ears.

Comment by Mark Hill | February 8, 2008
By pushing for liberal policies that are likely to have reasonable popular support, and continuing to make the case for those that don’t. Euthanasia being a good example.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 8, 2008
134
Terje - not a great advert for zero income tax is it?

Comment by pommygranate | February 8, 2008
LS, the states are named in the Constitution, but WA was allowed to join last, and the definition of WA was left vague. If, for example, Perth allowed the Kimberleys to secede, I don’t think it would be against the constitution. And that society might choose to be a separate nation, not a state of Aus. So a Libertarian nation is feasible.
As for your comment (107) about land, perhaps the ALS should buy the Kimberleys from WA, and then give every member an equal area of Freetopia, to subdivide as they choose.
Wanna join?

Comment by nicholas gray | February 8, 2008
I do…but my wife wouldn’t let me, and it would need some time before it would be a better place for raising kids than the rest of Australia.

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 8, 2008
Freedom goes hand in hand with individualism.
And individualism suffered a heavy blow throughout the 20th century due to the ideas of Kant, Marx, the emergence of socialism and facism.
The Renaissance and Industrial revolutions were amazing breaks from the Dark Ages but individualism has never totally taken hold even though its legacy lives on in the western world.
I would say individualism is gradually declining and this could continue with threats from fundamentalist religion (Islam in particular) and the anti-capitalist mind set of most people in the world.
I think the potential of a libertarian type society is more than most people can imagine. After the 20th century, we are now used to massive wars, genocides etc. We don’t feel goodwill to strangers and think progress is evil, there’s a lot of doom and gloom going around. Basically I think the world badly needs libertarian principles.

Also, that article at #136 was very good.
Agriculture was the beginning of civilization, but a diet on nothing but grains! Ughhh, give me a nice steak any day.

Comment by Tim R | February 8, 2008
Also, presumably we’d need to import labour, unless the ALS (and other Libertarian groups) really has enough members willing to do the back-breaking labour necessary to get such a society off the ground.

Whichever way you look at it, we’d need to raise a lot of dough first. Such a project would separate the true libertarians from those that adopt libertarian principles when it suits them to maintain their existing positions of wealth and privilege (far too many of those unfortunately).

Comment by LibertarianSocialist | February 8, 2008

Thoughts on Freedom

Australian Libertarian Society Blog

Vouchers: I was wrong

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