Tag: Human Rights

The high road to coercion: public goods and forced unionism

There is a striking parallel between the argument in favor of forcing people to contribute to public goods and forced unionism. In both cases, it is argued that only forced contributions will ensure that people who benefit from public goods and collective bargaining pay their “fair share.” Of course, this argument simply assumes that all people who are forced to contribute to the government and labor unions want and appreciate those benefits – which is simply incorrect.

Since it is perceived too costly and impractical to distinguish between sincere opponents and free riders, this distinction is lost in practical politics and labor disputes. In reality, tax payers and employees of unionized organizations are simply treated as “blocks of people” where objections of individuals do not really matter. To sweep individual consent so easily under the carpet is one of the defining characteristics of governments and labor unions.

In his seminal work on private provision of public goods, Social Contract, Free Ride, Anthony de Jasay writes:

“The high road to coercion is the contractarian pretension that acceptance by a person of a share in a benefit he did not solicit is tantamount to his tacit acceptance of an obligation to provide a share of the corresponding contribution in the same way as those who did solicit the benefit.”

In this book Jasay also argues quite persuasively that the prohibition on free riding that is sought in collective good arguments will be undermined by the fact that governments  in turn generate the most formidable opportunities for free riding and parasitism by allowing voters to enrich themselves at the expense of (other) taxpayers.

Advocates of collective bargaining for public sector unions claim that collective bargaining is a “right” or “human right.” It is not clear what is being meant by “right” in this context because one cannot claim a right of this nature without assuming a corresponding obligation of others (companies, governments) to negotiate with you. In the case of public sector labor unions the nature of this presumed right is even more contestable because government employees are not bargaining for a share of the profits of a private company but for taxpayer money. Public sector union members  basically expect taxpayers to refrain from efforts to protect their own money and freedom of choice so that government employees can enjoy more generous compensation and benefits.

There is an ongoing debate about the question of whether public employees are overpaid or underpaid. Compensation in the private sector is, absent government intervention, governed by supply and demand. Compensation in the public sector is governed by supply and demand and majority rule. The role of coercion in paying government employees simply excludes a rigorous test of what these employees are worth to the taxpayer. Education is also a poor proxy for compensation of public employees because, as the growing education bubble makes clear, companies that are operating in a competitive environment are not going to pay an employee for their educational degrees as such. That governments do often pay high salaries to people with degrees that are not held in high esteem in the private sector reinforces the unhealthy relationship between publicly-funded education and government.

Rights: nonsensical, empirical and hypothetical

If there is one thing that characterizes contemporary political discourse, and contemporary political liberalism in particular, it is the obsession with “rights.” Individual rights are absolute, or “trumps,” that do not permit to be overridden by collective goals, and can only be defeated by another trump. But since every right implies a corresponding obligation (a cost), increasing the number of rights we have also increases the number of obligations. If many of these rights are perceived to be equally important, or to be weighed differently in different circumstances, the scope and depth of collective choice will expand and creation and enforcement of rights will come to reflect the moral and political fashions of the day. Of course, this will largely defeat the trump-like nature that rights were supposed to have in the first place.

The fundamental question is where these “rights” come from in the first place. Rights are supposed to be “self-evident,” can be deduced from God’s will, the logic of reason, or the nature of man, etc. Unfortunately, attempts to find a solid foundation for rights have not been very fruitful, and even philosophers that agree on the same foundation for rights have often derived wildly different conclusions about the nature of those rights. But despite the failure to find objective evidence (either empirical or logical) for the existence of rights, “rights-talk” increasingly dominates public discourse. This is not just confined to modern “egalitarian” liberalism but has been a dominant feature of libertarianism as well, as evidenced by the writings of Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard, and the early Robert Nozick.

How do we reconcile the popularity of “rights-talk” with the lack of evidence for the existence of rights? The most obvious explanation is that by presenting an individual preference in the form of a “right” we depersonalize the nature of the claim. The “right” element confers credibility because it evokes truth, not individual preference. This effect is further enhanced by the fact that historically a lot of rights were assumed to be “self-evident” or derived from God’s will. The liberal philosopher Anthony de Jasay notes that the popularity of rights may be explained by its feature of hiding its redistributive nature and costs:

“‘Rights’ survive and crowd ‘goals’ out of circulation even if both convey the same substantive message, because rights-talk cheers and gratifies all who are accorded rights by it, and threatens no one overtly. Goals, on the other hand, unless they are innocuous, usually suggest not only the promise of something beneficial, but also the cost of attaining it, the effort it takes, and sometimes (in the case of visibly redistributive goals) an implication that if some gain by it, others must lose. Rights-as-goals are presumably easier to propagate and fitter to survive in the public consciousness than goals tout court.” (Anothony de Jasay, Choice, Contract, Consent: A Restatement of Liberalism)

Right can exist in an empirical sense when they reflect a contract between individuals to perform or refrain from certain actions. But in this case rights follow from actual agreement. The evidence that such rights exist can be found in a (written) agreement. And the existence of such rights is usually confirmed by both parties because it is advantageous for them to accept the benefits and obligations of the agreement. The situation is different in the case of rights that do not reflect (implicit) agreement by the individuals who have to incur obligations and costs. Anthony de Jasay notes that “a ‘rights-based’ political theory in general, and rights-liberalism in particular, is losing determinacy and self-restraint when it loses sight of where the burden of proof lies.”

The existence of specific rights and obligations are often defended with the argument that they reflect a “social contract,” similar to a contract between two individuals. A major weakness of this line of thinking is, of course, that such a contract has never been agreed to in reality. This would not necessarily present a major obstacle in case the rights involved would be minimal and non-distributive, but most modern rights do not have this characteristic. For example, an agreement to abstain from harming someone can be complied with by doing nothing, but an agreement that says that “every person has a right to food and shelter” comes with far reaching obligations that will not likely generate universal agreement.

Some modern liberal philosophers (such as John Rawls) do not prefer a social contract so “trivial” and claim that more extensive rights can be justified by means of an hypothetical contract in which rights are derived behind a “veil of ignorance” in which individuals are deprived of information about the individuating characteristics of the citizens they represent. This raises the question of what the relationship is (or should be) between such agreements and what actual individuals would agree to in real life. The reason why such hypothetical agreements should create moral (and legal) obligations in real life is that they correspond (or should correspond) to our conception of justice. Unfortunately, such a justification runs into the same problems as the more straightforward derivation of rights earlier; it lacks objective empirical or logical content. So far the only credible attempt to derive rights (or explain their existence) from non-moral premises is found in Hobbesian contractarianism as represented by Thomas Hobbes, David Gauthier and Jan Narveson.

IQ and the wealth of nations

Jason Richwine reports on Robert Putnam’s reluctant finding that “the more ethnically diverse a community is, the less social capital it possesses” and suggests that our immigration policies should be altered in favor of preferring skilled immigrants with high IQ’s because

higher IQ people appear to be more morally sophisticated, altruistic, and forward-looking. They exhibit higher levels of civic participation, more strongly adhere to middle-class behavioral standards, and cooperate more readily. This evidence, taken as a whole, confirms that intelligence and social capital are strongly related.

From this perspective, contemporary American immigration policies tend to produce the opposite result. The emphasis on family reunification, “human rights”, diversity, and protecting American workers produces a situation where highly educated people face formidable obstacles to (permanently) relocate to the US.  These “dysgenic” effects are further reinforced by the existence of massive entitlement programs which weaken the link between productivity and rewards.

Health care as a right?

To understand the background of the recent debates on health care it is instructive to look at how this issue  is being approached in “progressive” states like Oregon. Last year a Constitutional Amendment was discussed  which would declare access to health care in Oregon to be a “fundamental right.” But what is so progressive about a proposal that increases the scope of collective decision making over individual choice?

We can think of a right as a contract between two people in which both parties have agreed to accept the obligations of the agreement because it provides them mutual benefit. Evidence that such rights and obligations exist can be found in a verbal or written agreement. For example, person A is obliged to pay person B a specific amount of money, and person B is obliged to deliver A the product before an agreed date. So far, so good.

But when we talk about health care as a constitutional right we no longer talk about rights in this sense. We talk about rights as the outcome of political decision making. Rights conceived in this fashion do not reflect actual agreement between individuals but political authority. This may not be necessarily problematic when the rights in question reflect the “common good,” but rights that generate massive entitlement programs do not reflect this kind of  consensus.

The right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” reflects the freedom of individuals to live their lives as they see fit. The only obligation these “rights”  impose on others is not to interfere. These obligations can be satisfied by doing nothing and we all have an interest in having such freedoms. Such universal agreement is not possible when we talk about a right to health care. The right to health care does not just mean that people have a right to obtain medical care, but that others have an obligation to supply it.  A right to health care will impose obligations that are far reaching in nature and inevitably lead to a state-run health care system where all people are equal in having no choice and health care is rationed by “experts.”

There are many things in life we think as desirable, perhaps even necessary. But from this it does not follow that other people have an obligation to supply these things. During the 20th century there has been an increasing tendency to claim everything we desire in life as a “right.” This does not just undermine the ideal of having a government that serves the common good, it also produces a society where mutual assistance, charity, and self-reliance are increasingly undermined. The movement to make health care a constitutional right reflects a cynical view of the purpose of a Constitution. Instead of protecting fundamental freedoms that all citizens will recognize as just, the Constitution is used to secure greater protection for partisan political issues.

It is guaranteed that a constitutional right to health care will not come about without a political struggle. This itself is indicative that such a right is the outcome of non-unanimous decision making (to put it mildly) and does not represent the common good. If we secure a right to health care this way, it will not reflect right but might. It should go without saying that “might makes right” is not a progressive but an authoritarian principle to organize society.  The situation is not much different in the case of current proposals to reform health care.  If any breakthroughs will be made it will be in the form of one coalition prevailing at the expense of others.

L.A. Rollins’ case against natural rights

Nine-Banded Books has done the world a great favor in publishing a new edition of L.A. Rollins’ The Myth of Natural Rights. Although one could argue that in one sense it is a mixed blessing because it indicates that there is still a need for such a book. While the idea of natural rights seems to be in decline in contemporary libertarian  philosophy, mainstream political culture is more infected with “rights-talk” than ever. In ordinary discourse the word “right” has become a substitute for “whatever I want for myself” or “whatever I want for others,” and if such demands are heeded, just another term to characterize the outcome of political power. But why not  just call a spade a spade and, for example, just demand that the rich hand over their money to the poor? Perhaps this would not be as effective; whereas power is associated with irrationality and aggression, rights convey the image of reason and peace. But what if all this talk about natural (or human) rights is “nonsense on stilts.” That is where L.A. Rollins’ book comes into play.

Although Rollins’ book can be read as a general argument against natural rights, he is mainly concerned with Objectivist and libertarian authors such as Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard. Broadly speaking, Rollins presses the argument that the case for existence of natural rights is neither empirical nor logical.

As of writing, Arthur Guyton’s Textbook of Medical Physiology is now in its 11th edition with more than 1100 pages, but so far no evidence for the existence of natural rights has been found in humans. So perhaps the case for natural rights needs to be found in man’s capacity for reason, or his “need” to use reason without coercion. But as Rollins argues, from a need to be free from coercion does not  logically follow a natural right to be free from coercion, let alone an argument for others to refrain from coercion.  Not only that, Rollins recognizes the flexibility in arguments from “need.” It should not be surprising then, that arguments derived from “needs” have been used to claim rights to virtually everything under the sun, from access to health care to a 36 hour work week.

According to Murray Rothbard natural rights “are embedded in a greater structure of “natural law.” But what is the status of such “law?” How does it differ from laws that are discovered by science?  Scientific laws,  such as the laws of physics, cannot be altered by human action. They describe how things are. Natural law does not describe how things are but how things should be. But what “nature” requires or dictates is in the eye of the beholder. Almost any conceivable form of morality (or public policy) has been defended by appeals to natural law. Adolf Hitler is reported to have said:

“The Earth continues to go around, whether it’s the man who kills the tiger or the tiger who eats the man. The stronger asserts his will, it’s the law of nature. The world doesn’t change; its laws are eternal.”

In the case of Ayn Rand, Rollins highlights a number of flaws in her derivation of rights such as the futile attempt to derive an ought from an is (which is a persistent error in natural rights thinking), the problem of using different meanings of the same word (such as “right”), and the unintended implications of her reasoning. For example, Rollins argues that Rand’s derivation of rights from the requirement of survival would not only give rights to humans but to animals as well, something that she would not likely approve of.

Murray Rothbard does not fair better in Rollins’ book. Although Ludwig von Mises is generally perceived to be a utilitarian of sorts, most contemporary Austrian economists reject utilitarianism as either methodologically confused or collectivist in nature (or both). As a consequence, Rothbard felt pressed to look for the source of libertarian rights in natural law and logic. Although these writings have been illuminating in some respects, the whole approach of deriving rights from man’s nature has been less than persuasive as can be seen in Rollins’ treatment of Rothbard’s argument. More recent attempts to derive self-ownership and private property from the requirements of argumentation (Hans-Hermann Hoppe) have met with great skepticism as well.

Perhaps the Austrian economists are on the wrong track in assuming the burden of proof for liberty and property. As Austrians like Rothbard and Walter Block have not failed to point out, one major problem in social contract defenses of the state is that hypothetical agreement is treated as actual agreement. So why do these Austrians not stick to a strict interpretation of contractarianism as an alternative? One argument could be that the custom of contract requires a “moral” framework to function. But this can be questioned. As argued by Anthony de Jasay in Social Contract, Free Ride, most contracts are self-enforcing (or have a  high probability to be self-enforcing) because they are mutually advantageous. And for contracts that are at risk of defection (for example, contracts where there is a time difference for the parties to deliver), private enforcement and/or mechanisms of social exclusion in case of defection will be an option.

So where exactly does this urge to find an ultimate moral justification for libertarian rights come from? As the political philosopher Anthony de Jasay often argues in his writings, such attempts at justification confuse the difference between a liberty and a right and (unintentionally) encourages a way of thinking (and political climate) in which one has to demonstrate a “right” to do something to lift it out of the universe of prohibitions. Instead, de Jasay argues that logic and epistemology dictate that liberty should be presumed and that that the burden of proof is on those that advocate interference with a liberty.

This does not mean that there is no role for moral or political philosophy at all. If anything, the most credible moral and political philosophy, and of which Rollin’s book is a good example, have been  exercises in demonstrating that most justifications for moral and political obligation are flawed. As TGGP points out in his excellent introduction, if there is any prospect for a positive theory of morality it  may be found in authors that subscribe to some form of moral contractarianism such as advocated by the late Benjamin Tucker or David Gauthier. Academic philosophers may argue that such an approach to morals is too minimal, “incomplete,” and at best could “only” justify (or perhaps we should say, explain) conventions (not necessarily laws)  against killing, stealing or cheating. But is is hard to see why this should be a concern to libertarians! As a matter of fact, one libertarian philosopher, Jan Narveson, has exactly drawn such conclusions. Such a position would not constitute a “justification” of libertarianism; libertarianism either follows from practical reason or it does not.

In his 2008 afterword to The Myth of Natural Rights Rollins asks “why does everyone have to play the moral game?” striking at the heart of not only natural rights philosophy but moral philosophy itself. A similar point has been raised by David Gauthier when he characterized the tendency of philosophers to assume that people need to justify their actions to others in a moral framework as “the secularized residue of the doctrine that persons seek to justify their actions before God. But once that residue is being recognized for what it is, it surely loses all credibility.” If there is a persuasive reason why amoral egoists would benefit from playing “the moral game” it may be found in Gauthier’s work (or others who work in this tradition). Barring the success of such efforts, Rollins’ book is a fatal blow to libertarian philosophy.

The new edition of The Myth of Natural Rights also includes an updated version of Lucifer’s Lexicon, styled after Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary, but with great emphasize on ridiculing self-styled libertarians (of all sorts) and, in its updated version, the doublespeak in contemporary political discourse. Some examples:

Agnostic,n. A Godfearing atheist.

Budget Cut,n. Formerly, a decrease in government spending. Now, a decrease in the rate of increase in government spending.

Social Security, n. Subsidized senility.

And there is a  definition of a certain Ayn Rand novel that is too naughty to publish here.

L.A. Rollins is drawn towards controversial topics as evidenced by his writings on holocaust revisionism and his “Open Letter to Allah,” which begins with, “Dear Allah, I’ve been reading your book, The Holy Qur’an. What a crock of sh#t!” As it turns out, Allah knows less about the solar system than we would expect considering his wisdom.

The Myth of Natural Rights is not just obligatory reading for libertarians with philosophical tendencies, but for anyone who believes in “rights,” from “liberal” activists to members of human rights organizations.  “Rights-talk” has been a major obstacle in clear thinking about human interaction and an inexhaustible source for imposing obligation without agreement and entitlement without a title.

Let’s hope Nine-Banded Books keeps delivering the goods.