Tag: Ron Paul

Voting anarchists

One of the longest ongoing debates in anarchism concerns the morality of voting. Thomas Woods has weighed in and not only believes that it is not immoral to vote, but that there are good reasons to vote for a candidate such as Ron Paul. He writes:

If you were stuck in a prison camp, and the guards let you vote on whether you were to have gruel or prime rib for dinner, would you be “consenting to the system” to vote for prime rib, or would you simply be doing the best you could under the circumstances to improve your material condition?

It is not clear in Woods’ example if anyone else is voting so it does not address the most obvious reason why many people in mass democracies do not vote; the recognition that there is an extremely small probability that your vote will decide the outcome, and therefore is quite a futile exercise.

Austrian economists define rationality as purposive behavior. This makes it harder to adapt the framework in which it can be hypothesized that it is irrational to vote. As a consequence, Austrians are not able to launch a research program to investigate the implications and consequences of this phenomenon for public policy. In contrast, classical economists like Bryan Caplan, who are not burdened by such a vacuous definition of rationality, have made useful contributions to the microfoundations of political failure.

One implication of the statement that not voting for Ron Paul “hurts the cause of the free society” is that it posits a “free society” as a goal that should be pursued by rational individuals. This approach reinforces the politicization of individual decision making and implies that a free society is the product instead of the absence of politics.

Much of what we call political behavior is most likely a remnant of our ancestral past where one person’s opinion and behavior mattered a lot more and the relationship between people could be characterized as a zero-sum game.

As Patri Friedman has observed at Overcoming Bias:

In the ancestral environment, pulling together to help the tribe in a time of crisis was the best way for an individual to survive.  In our modern environment, however, we are often led to identify with an entire nation as our “tribe”, and it turns out that this is an inefficiently large group for most types of collective action.  We evaluate the prospect of unity with ancient mental modules optimized for Dunbarian tribes, and that sphexishness leads us into disastrous collective ventures…Anytime you get excited about collective actions in supra-Dunbarian groups, you should be suspicious that you may be in monkey-mode… anytime you are arguing about politics as if you can do anything about them, then unless you are very wealthy or powerful, you are probably in monkey-mode.

In contemporary society the ancestral mindset still dominates, but it is hard to see how the cause for a “free society” will be strengthened by reinforcing it.

In August 2011, Stefan Molyneux (for this views on voting, listen to this) released a video aimed at addressing arguments by libertarian economist Walter Block about libertarian anarchists such as Wendy McElroy and Molyneux himself who do not support Ron Paul’s political campaign. Stefan objects to Ron Paul’s incoherent “constitutionalism,” discusses the costs and benefits of political action, presents anarchism as a multi-generational effort, and also gives a Burkean perspective on what might happen if a libertarian President would attempt to roll back the state in a country where libertarianism is a minority outlook (social unrest and violence).

If you think of a libertarian society as an emergent outcome that arises from evolving social interaction between rational individuals instead of an “ideology” that requires people to conform to categorical imperatives like the non-aggression principle, a lot of the debate about the morality of voting is not useful. Stefan’s treatment of Block’s arguments is not confined to such a moralist perspective; he also discusses what Wendy McElroy calls”non-ideological objections to electoral politics,” such as the effectiveness of changing things that are within individual control versus participating in collective action. He seems to recognize that one of the consequences of advocating people to vote and campaign for Ron Paul is to induce them to adopt a rigid and politicized framework for thinking about personal liberty.

Anarchist economists routinely contrast the operation of a free market with collective choice but many of them do not recognize that the postulates about individual decision making and value in their economic theories present major challenges for traditional thinking about morality, collective action, and (electoral) politics. In an older post on this topic Wendy McElroy quotes Sunni Maravillosa to contrast her individualist perspective with that of the voting anarchists:”What happened to the understanding that liberty is, first and foremost, an individualistic idea and pursuit? How did it happen that to achieve liberty we must all unite and act as one, pulling the great lever for The One Man Fit to Rule Us All.

The addiction to politics

Can politics become an addiction? A more realistic question is to ask why politics is an addiction for so many people. The most straightforward answer would be that a compulsive interest in politics just reflects a natural preoccupation with advancing one’s interest (or that of others). But as was discussed in the previous installment, The Calculus of Voting, as general rule, politics is not a very effective means to advance one’s interests. Could it be that the identification of advancing one’s interests and engagement with politics reflects tribal instincts? As Hal Finney writes on the blog Overcoming Bias:

We have this instinct that choosing our Leader is as important to our lives as it was when we were a tribe of two dozen, and that we have similar influence over the result. Following elections and participating in politics activates these vestigial tribal instincts in much the same was as sports, with similarly futile results.

Such an explanation helps in reconciling the mysterious discrepancy between the empowerment voters  experience when engaging in politics and the actual power it confers to them. If during most of mankind’s existence there was a strong relationship between participation in small-scale decision making and individual consequences, it should not be surprising that we have evolved to be “political animals” and that such instincts are even triggered in elections where millions of people vote and where most individual goals can be more easily gained by non-political individual acts.

It is interesting to note that the changed scale in human interaction does not produce similar effects in markets. Being a consumer of a product or service does not become more futile when more people consume  the good. A company can grow to serve millions of individuals in different nations and supply and demand generally ensures that one gets what one chooses. In his book Social Contract, Free Ride:A Study of the Public Goods Problem, Anthony de Jasay even argues that the absolute size of a group is not directly relevant to the rationality of voluntary contribution to public goods.

Although much ink has been spilled over political bias in the media, one rarely encounters the opinion that the media devotes too much attention to politics as such. Most people who shape public opinion and write for a living seem to share the Aristotelian vision of political participation as salvation. As William C. Mitchell and Randy T. Simmons write in their book Beyond Politics:

Participating in the political process is seen as a way of lifting oneself above the crass self-interest many believe characterize market transactions. In this essentially Aristotelian vision people are not able to reach their highest potential unless they participate in the political process. In fact, such participation is deemed necessary for human moral development.

But as public choice scholars have pointed out, the nature of man does not change as soon as he enters the political arena or takes office. Perhaps it even brings out his worst traits or selects for the people that have them. The short-term and divisive nature of everyday politics seems to be a very fertile ground for fanaticism and biased reasoning.

The desire to engage in political battle and to see one party as the enemy is so strong that, as Bryan Caplan speculates, people tend to ignore the absence of any real differences in public policy between the major parties for the  sake  of enjoying the illusion of a partisan rift:

So what is the “key difference” between the parties? Rhetoric. When Republicans advocate a small contraction of the welfare state, Democrats claim that Republicans totally oppose the welfare state. And many Republicans oblige them by standing up for “liberty” and “responsibility.” Similarly, when Democrats advocate a small expansion in the welfare state, Republican claim that Democrats oppose free markets. And many Democrats oblige them by saying things like “markets only benefit the rich.”

This rhetorical illusion is so powerful that when a Democrat like Clinton adopts many pro-market reforms, Republicans still hate him as a 60s radical. And when Bush II sharply expands the welfare state, Democrats still hate him as a billionaire’s lackey.

The observation that people can get so excited  about rhetoric despite minor differences in public policy does not bode well for the view of politics as salvation or as a source for wisdom or personal growth.

Although one would expect the views and temperament of people who advocate a de-politicized society to steer them away from a strong engagement with practical politics, a surprising number seem obsessed with everything political. It appears that the tribal instinct to engage in politics and strife does not necessarily exclude people who claim that society would be better off without it.

Some of the most remarkable examples of such libertarian obsession with electoral politics were displayed during the Ron Paul campaign. For example, self-identified libertarian anarchists were observed to continuously monitor the primary elections results and blog the latest results online. But when Ron Paul failed to win the primaries, many of his advocates returned to advocating non-voting instead.

Although campaigning to vote for a  politician on one occasion and advocating non-voting on another may reflect just pragmatic political strategy, such a mixed message risks leaving people profoundly confused. In some respects it is also incoherent. The orthodox economic argument that in large democracies  an individual vote has a very low probability of deciding the outcome does not change when Ron Paul runs for office.

But perhaps the most persuasive argument against resorting to politics is one of opportunity costs. All the time that has been spent in vain to political campaigning and producing handbooks to persuade politicians to  refrain from being politicians could have been spent on the creation of private alternatives for government, education of the general public, and legal assistance to people who are faced with government interference instead. One does not have to subscribe to the view that voting is an immoral act to agree that “if one takes care of the means, the end will take care of itself.”

Further reading: Carl Watner (ed.) & Wendy McElroy (ed.): Dissenting Electorate: Those Who Refuse to Vote and the Legitimacy of Their Opposition

This is part 2 in a 3 part series on voting, elections and politics.

Part 1: The calculus of voting
Part 3: Beyond politics

Singularity economics and the future of money

On his website, Robin Hanson discusses an unfilled niche in economics which he calls the “economics of science fiction” or “economics of future technology.” Another modern phrase would be “Singularity economics.” Hanson describes the economics of science fiction as the:

“economic analysis of the sorts of assumptions typically explored in science fiction. It is distinguished from the typical hard science fiction analysis by using the tools of professional economics, rather than the intuitive social scientist of the typical engineer. And it is distinguished from most economics by taking seriously the idea that we can now envision the outlines of new technologies which may have dramatic impacts on our society.”

One interesting question is how future advances in science and human nature will impact the monetary system. Two developments that may have a substantial impact on the future of money are molecular nanotechnology and the stability of governments.

Tangible forms of money may be greatly affected by advanced molecular technologies because it will enable individuals or organizations to duplicate money at low cost. As Robert Freitas notes in his paper “Tangible Nanomoney,” “any form of physical currency whose value depends solely upon the physical arrangement of common atoms” will fail to meet the traditional criteria that a physical currency needs to satisfy, such as possessing intrinsic value and immunity to counterfeiting. Although counterfeiting of money could remain illegal, the costs of enforcing this may be excessively high. As Tyler Cowen notes, “In the very long run, our monetary standard might be determined by what is least susceptible to counterfeiting or alchemy/nanotechnology.”

During the 20th century, government has acquired almost unlimited power over money. This coincided with a move from a commodity based currency to a fiat currency with no underlying intrinsic value. As humans evolve, it is questionable if such a currency will be sustainable. Most modern states derive their power, and therefore their power to issue and control money, from the mandate of voters. But as economic analysis of voting in large democracies has demonstrated, voting is hard to reconcile with economic rationality. Unlike voting in the marketplace (”buying”), the probability that an individual can affect the outcome of a (national) election is negligible. As David Friedman puts it in his textbook on price theory:

“consider someone making two decisions–what car to buy and what politician to vote for. In either case, the person can improve his decision (make it more likely that he acts in his own interest) by investing time and effort in studying the alternatives. In the case of the car, his decision determines with certainty which car he gets. In the case of the politician, his decision (whom to vote for) changes by one ten-millionth the probability that the candidate he votes for will win. If the candidate would be elected without his vote, he is wasting his time; if the candidate would lose even with his vote, he is also wasting his time.”

When people will come to recognize the tribal origins of voting and selecting “leaders,” and the desire to express individual choice as collective choice will decrease, the mechanisms of empowering a legal authority that issues and controls money will be affected as a result (as will other traditional functions of government).

As Freitas notes, a future currency “should be self-validating by its own physical form, and not rely upon any legalistic governmental imprimatur, easily-altered surface stamping, or monopoly minting authority to partake of value (e.g., no “fiat” specie).” The most obvious alternative for a government-controlled fiat currency is a commodity based currency. For such a commodity to be used as money it should be homogeneous, easy to subdivide, and have a high value to weight ratio. The most obvious candidate for such a currency is gold. Gold has a long historical track record as a commodity used for money and some economists, particularly advocates of the Austrian School of Economics such as Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, have been staunch advocates of the gold standard. Although gold has the clear advantage that its supply cannot be greatly inflated by government or advanced nanotechnology, the value of gold has historically shown considerable variability. For this reason the economist David Friedman proposes that the ideal commodity “would not be any single commodity, but a commodity bundle.”

A major advantage of using such a commodity bundle instead of a single commodity is that changes in monetary and non-monetary demand for a single commodity in the bundle (for example, gold) will only have a small effect on the bundle as a whole. In the context of advanced nanotechnology, commodities that can be produced by physical arrangement of common atoms may need to be excluded from such a commodity bundle to increase stability. Therefore, the most plausible candidate to be used as the standard for money would be a bundle of commodities that cannot be created by advanced molecular technology, i.e., a bundle of commodities reflecting chemical elements. In his paper, Robert Freitas discusses ideal candidates for tangible nanomoney such as the superheavy elements (SHE), which could become a part of a new standard, if not part of the physical money itself in case the standard for such a currency and the currency itself would coincide. Clearly, a mature nanotechnology will have effects on both the standard for future money as well as the physical forms of payment that are used in daily economic life.

There does not need to be a universal commodity (or bundle of commodities) and private firms can issue their own commodity-based money, which may or may not evolve into a universal standard. As David Friedman points out in his manuscript “Future Imperfect,” future (online) technologies can do conversions fast and invisible to the user, permitting multiple standards to coexist. Such a system can be a fractional reserve system, or not. The most important feature of a future money is that it should “not rely upon legalistic governmental imprimatur” and be immune to advanced molecular technologies.

Resources:

Robert Freitas – Tangible Nanomoney
David Friedman – Gold, Paper, Or…Is There a Better Money?
David Friedman – Future Imperfect
Ludwig von Mises – Gold versus Paper
Murray Rothbard – What Has Government Done to Our Money?