![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_zaoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Exchange Rate from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/exrate/24hr-zar-small.gif)
![[Most Recent Exchange Rate from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/exrate/24hr-euro-small.gif)
On 1 June our pal stickman over at stickman’s corral wrote a post entitled, Should pregnant women be banned from smoking? In the post stickman basically poses the question of the title and then roughly comes to the conclusion that if we ban smoking in public places, should pregnant mothers not also be banned from doing the same in private for the sake of their unborn? Stickman is not particularly committal to a view here, but basically he’s leaning toward the ban in asking how ’we’ can protect children from the negative ‘externalities’ that children have no choice but to accept.
He finally asks,
“I’m interested to hear the libertarian take on this. Is the simple libertarian answer that the child would sue her mother for health ailments, emotional suffering, etc once she reaches the requisite age? [Side note: Does anyone know of such a case?] More plausibly, perhaps children are expected to negotiate with their parents about where and when they smoke in each other’s company? (I say “plausible”, but that still leaves the uncomfortable period when the toddler or young child is powerless to negotiate on anything resembling equal terms.)”
The issue that perhaps stickman and others need to consider here is that parents, for all the emotional/physical damage they MAY inflict on their children, are chiefly responsible for giving their children life itself.
This gives parents something of a creative ownership of their children. Now if we define children loosely as the property of their parents (just remember I said loosely) then we can probably also impute some basic property laws onto this relationship.
One of the critical elements of property ownership is homesteadability. If I cannot practically homestead and steward and protect property, my ownership of it is practically meaningless.
Neil Armstrong might have claimed that he owned a patch of the moon an even demarcated it with white stakes in the moonsoil, but no amount of ‘official’ title could actually grant him this property right in a practical (meaningful) sense because his ability to practically administer this property is rendered impossible and inconsequential by the geographic peculiarities. Anyone with enough resources and insanity could get to Armstrong’s stakes, rip them out, and use the moon real estate as if it were theirs. In fact when they do this it practically becomes theirs unless Armstrong can muster up the resources to go an claim is property right back.
In the same way, a child is under the property care/stewardship of its creator, the parent – yes, God for some readers, but the parent in the physical and practical sense for this article – until such time as the homesteadability of that child becomes impossible to enforce (child old enough to viably leave home by physically resisting parental restraint if necessary). Before that the child typically is willing to remain under the stewardship and care of its creator, but even if it is not, it practically faces little choice.
However in parallel to the stewardship of this child, the parent is also subject to the laws of basic liberty, which is to honour and respect the child’s life, liberty and property as a fellow human being. In this case this means a) the life of the child, b) the basic inalienable personal freedoms of the child, and c) the child’s body (since the child won’t own any other property per se). Responsible parenting usually clashes with point b) while the child learns to discern what is the best use of freedom and to make successful choices.
In the instance of a particular type of child abuse, a few critical elements need to be appreciated taking into consideration these overlapping mandates of property stewardship and basic libertarian rights/obligations. The mother may be smoking or feeding her child unhealthy food, or neglecting the child emotionally, or not dressing the child warmly in winter. These might be considered bad property stewardship, but in a free society they are unlikely to be considered as fundamentally jeopardising the child’s life, liberty and property (I am excluding here such neglect as to actually threaten the child’s life or end it). Moreover bad stewardship is not a crime in a free society.
In the case where the mother or father neglect the child so acutely so as to, for example, not care where it is or what it does, they relinquish homesteadability of that child and the child can legitimately come under the stewardship of another on the same basis of property and basic libertarian rights as before. If the neglect is of a more positive nature (i.e. purposeful physical neglect/abuse/torture), then the parent is likely to be impinging on the basic rights of life, liberty and property of the child. In this case, in a libertarian society of justice and not a totalitarian big brother society, others may come to find out about this neglect and can legitimately rescue the child from this state. They would of course need to then have the child kept in safe custody and speedily (which would happen in a libertarian society) mount a court case proving the infringement of the basic right to life, liberty and property, while the parent can mount a defence.
If the abuse goes on behind closed doors, then no rescue for the child is likely and the child may die. If others knew of the child’s existence, then its death may become known and an investigation may be launched by concerned others as to the cause of death. This process may result in a murder conviction for the parent.
If one accepts this sort of framework, most issues become quite easy to deal with. In the case of smoking while pregnant, we have to remember that the foetus and the mother are at once two separate human beings and at the same time one completely inseparable being, with the child’s life, until viable birthing age from say 26 weeks, completely and wholly dependent on the mother.
What the mother does to herself she does (in some measure) to the foetus. But we cannot forget that she created it! She is the rightful owner, carrier, and sole sustainer of the unborn child. She must respect its life (no abortion), liberty (right to occupy the womb) and property (body). Whatever actions we think are harmful to the child, it needs to be acknowledged that she is the life giver. Without her there would be no child, and no lamenting her smoking-while-pregnant habit.
It may be deemed that she is destroying the foetus physically by smoking or drinking, and at a stretch some might argue she is denying the foetus the right to its property (its body). In a free society this must be proven in a court of law, which will be very difficult to do and highly costly, if not impossible. First of all the foetus would have to be tested in the womb and conclusive irrefutable proof of damage found. However, even before this took place, the mother would have to consent to having her insides examined and to be prodded and poked with medical instruments, something I would suggest most mothers up for such a suspected crime would refuse and under libertarian law would have the right to refuse as they have freedom to determine what happens to their body.
Moreover, we don’t know and cannot prove whether she is placing her child at a disadvantage. What if the child would have been born physically and mentally superior in every way, but due to smoking in the womb only turned out completely normal? Does the child have the right to be born exceptional, especially considering those exceptional genes were given by the parents themselves?
What about the amount of smoking? Is one cigarette during pregnancy deemed illegal or legal? When is it too much? What if she’s smoking filters or lights or pipes? What if puffs but doesn’t inhale?
To ban pregnant women from smoking then is to ignore that they are the rightful property owner of their baby. It is to ignore that they are the sole life-giver. It is to ignore that proving such guilt must necessarily impinge on the mother’s personal freedoms to her life, liberty and property. It is to make completely arbitrary judgements of what constitutes disadvantage. It is to construct a policing framework that requires prosecutors to prove the un-provable. It is to set a precedent that any kind of behaviour some of us don’t like is ban-able. It is to ignore the right of parents to steward their property how they see fit, and it is to impose upon them an arbitrary code of ethics and personal behavioural restrictions that are not compatible with freedom.
So to answer stickman, a libertarian view of all this needs to appreciate the homesteadable property aspects of child rearing, and an understanding of basic libertarian rights. It requires us to conduct a thought experiment as to what all this might look like in a free society, and to conclude that an infringement of basic libertarian rights of an unborn child is practically very difficult to prove and prosecute, and even then possibly not even permissible to prosecute without impinging on the mothers right not to be prodded and poked by a bunch of prying doctors from the prosecuting bench.
How do we then deal with unsavoury types of behaviour like pregnant women smoking? Well, the first thing I would say is, don’t worry too much about it. Millions of people grew up having been a smoked out foetus, and the world didn’t fall apart. The second thing I would say is, how about persuasion rather than legislation? How about convincing pregnant mothers not to smoke rather than forcing them not to? If these ban-everything-that-moves types are so convinced of their brilliant policies of salvation, why not reason with the world instead of legislating us all into oblivion.
Stickman’s basic thought experiment is this: can children have some kind of restitutory recourse against their parents for being given a bad start in life. If the bad start was that the parents deliberately cut off the child’s legs when it was a toddler, then yes, but only if the child can prove it, and this may be hard or impossible years after the fact if no one else saw it…and even then the child’s disutility from creating enmity with its parents may outweigh the utility of whatever compensation may be forthcoming. If the bad start was smoking in the womb, good luck proving your case in a rational and reasonable court of law, and good luck proving you wouldn’t have turned out like you did anyway.
Additionally, what about the opposite. What about parents who suffer pain and abuse from their children? What about children who create negative externalities for their parents? What recourse for them?
Bottom Line: not everything in life is legislatable and courts are not the libertarian answer to anything and everything under the sun as so many like to think.
In a way stickman agrees with this, and I think he is saying, from the article and comments following it, that because legal recourse fails here, the state needs to step in early and ban these kinds of detrimental behaviours outright. I believe I have dealt with this above and shown that this is simply non-viable, arbitrary, and basically tyrannical.
At the end of the day, the parent’s punishment for their negligent behaviour (whatever it may be) will be made manifest in a disadvantaged child. If the parent loves their child and attaches importance to them, and can be educated as to why their child is manifesting these traits, then they will feel more than enough guilt than any court of law could heap upon them. The child may learn of its disadvantages and become resentful and disown its parents, which too may be compensation enough for the child and punishment enough for the parents. Alternatively, the child may forgive its parents and choose to do things differently with its children, turning stickman’s single generational negative externality into a potential multigenerational positive one.
Here’s the final lesson in my view: not everything in life can be covered by neat legislation or perfect courts of law. Real life is a bit messy. True libertarians understand this, but they are willing to tolerate these issues on the fringe for the overwhelming benefits of being free from micro regulators, police states, and legislative tyrannies like we have in ALL so called modern liberal democracies. Pro-legislation folk like stickman tend to think that ‘good’ regulation can sort these ugly fringe areas out, but as I’ve shown, this almost always infringes on basic human rights, constructs arbitrary morality out of thin air, and creates an impractical edifice of laws and lawsuits that is simply not conducive to or consistent with a normal functioning society.
A comment from Chris to stickman’s post sums it up rather well,
Point is meddling in people’s lives through the state apparatus with force and violence is right on the road to totalitarianism.
If you want to ban pregnant women from smoking, do it to those women you can control and influence like your own wife/girlfriend/daughters/friends. Make laws in your own home. Don’t make blanket laws to control everyone through the state.
If you want to educate people about the risks, do it with your own money, not everyone else’s.
We need to stop banning everything and preoccupy ourselves instead with sharing ideas rather than imposing them, and compassionately and respectfully imparting our preferences to others rather than dictating them from our holy seats above.
UPDATE: For those readers (and stickman) who want to see what remorseless legislation creep looks like, see this post from Nov 2009.
In it we cited a section from the 2,000 page Obama healthcare bill monster…
“The requirements of sections 2711 (other than subsections (c) and (e)) and 2712 (other than paragraphs (3), and (6) of subsection (b) and subsection (e)) of the Public Health Service Act, relating to guaranteed availability and renewability of health insurance coverage, shall apply to individuals and employers in all individual and group health insurance coverage, whether offered to individuals or employers through the Health Insurance Exchange, through any employment-based health plan, or otherwise, in the same manner as such sections apply to employers and health insurance coverage offered in the small group market, except that such section 2712(b)(1) shall apply only if, before nonrenewal or discontinuation of coverage, the issuer has provided the enrollee with notice of non-payment of premiums and there is a grace period during which the enrollee has an opportunity to correct such nonpayment.”
You got that? Mmmm, thought so, clear as mud.
We need to stop banning everything and preoccupy ourselves instead with sharing ideas rather than imposing them, and compassionately and respectfully imparting our preferences to others rather than dictating them from our holy seats above.
Hallelujah, brothers! Amen, praise the Lord of Liberty above!
Freeman, thanks for the link, if not quite the interpretation. To all your other readers, I invite you to click through to my original post and see whether I am guilty of “leaning toward the ban”, or even a “ban-everything-that-moves type”. (Please pay particular attention to my caveats at the end of my post and my extended thoughts in the comments section on the importance of health education first-and-foremost.)
I’ve a number of other comments, but I’ll try to keep it fairly short:
Moreover bad stewardship is not a crime in a free society.
No. However, abuse of another human being, particularly children, is. May I suggest you are taking your “homesteadability of that child” line of reasoning to its inevitably skewed conclusion?
Additionally, what about the opposite. What about parents who suffer pain and abuse from their children?
You have already spent some time highlighting the crucial distinction in your post. The parents “chose” (either directly or as a consequence of their actions) to become parents. They bear the responsibility for these choices and actions. The child, on the other hand, had no say in being brought into this world, but it certainly deserves protection against unreasonable harm given that.
If the parent loves their child and attaches importance to them, and can be educated as to why their child is manifesting these traits, then they will feel more than enough guilt than any court of law could heap upon them. The child may learn of its disadvantages and become resentful and disown its parents, which too may be compensation enough for the child and punishment enough for the parents.
Can’t you see how unbelievably unsatisfactory these “solutions” are? An analogy: We place restrictions on drink driving not because someone won’t feel unfathomable remorse if he kills a pedestrian while under the influence… But because there is a clear link between increased recklessness when DUI and — crucially — justice administered ex post in these situations is horribly inadequate for all parties concerned. [Complete tangent: "Limousine" by Brand New. A tragic story set to some powerful music...]
If the bad start was smoking in the womb, good luck proving your case in a rational and reasonable court of law, and good luck proving you wouldn’t have turned out like you did anyway.
Now, of course, I explicitly used the case of tort law as an instance where (personal) legal recourse is totally unsatisfactory. As such, I don’t wish to argue for something that I find ludicrous… However, I feel compelled to comment nonetheless since my uncle happens to be, arguably, the top neonatal professional in the country. His views on the damage wrought by substance abuse during pregnancy are quite clear and informed, of course, by a raft of medical evidence. I’m curious to know why you think that the link cannot proved, or the mother in question absolutely needs to be prodded with all manner of instrumention to determine whether her abuse of substances is bad for her baby? If the case is severe enough, achieving the prosecution’s goal “guilt beyond reasonable doubt” is certainly plausible. (Just as no-one needs to “see” the killer for a jury to convict him in the case of strong circumstantial evidence.) That aside, there is enough legal precedent for invasion of privacy — search warrants, paternal blood testing, etc — in exceptional circumstances, for me to imagine that a woman could be ordered to face medical testing if deemed a particular risk. As I say, however, these are just philosophical points that I’d be interested in hearing your comments on and not something that I personally wish to promote. Speaking of which…
Bottom Line: not everything in life is legislatable and courts are not the libertarian answer to anything and everything under the sun as so many like to think.
Thank God. I’ve been trying to get that concession for a while.
:)
“May I suggest you are taking your “homesteadability of that child” line of reasoning to its inevitably skewed conclusion?”
This is a straw man stickman, something which I know you hate, which is why it comes across all the more sloppy that you use it. I make it clear in my post that parent child relationship is uniquely one of property stewardship AND one of respect for life, liberty and property.
“However in parallel to the stewardship of this child, the parent is also subject to the laws of basic liberty, which is to honour and respect the child’s life, liberty and property as a fellow human being. In this case this means a) the life of the child, b) the basic inalienable personal freedoms of the child, and c) the child’s body (since the child won’t own any other property per se). Responsible parenting usually clashes with point b) while the child learns to discern what is the best use of freedom and to make successful choices.”
Children are not inanimate planks and you know that’s not my view or argument.
“The child, on the other hand, had no say in being brought into this world, but it certainly deserves protection against unreasonable harm given that.”
Sure, in the same way that unreasonable harm is unjust against any human being. The key the definition of unreasonable and what is provable. More on that below.
“…justice administered ex post in these situations is horribly inadequate for all parties concerned.”
This is funny. Let’s pre-emptively administer justice for things we deem bad for others. Sounds wonderful. Slippery slope warning here stickman: this logic is the slippiest slope in slippy land. If I follow your logic here, let’s not wait until bad things happen due to irresponsible behaviour, let’s stop the irresponsible behaviour before it happens!! Wasn’t Minority Report about stopping crimes before they actually took place?? The problem with this thinking (apart from the absurd impracticalities) is that it is the very embodiment of a slippery slope proposition. Heck, why stop at drunk driving or pregnant smoking? Date rape a scourge? Ban nightclubs. Obesity a problem? Force people to eat what you tell them when you tell them. Illegitimate children a great injustice on the children and burden to society? Ban one night flings or opposite sex boss-assistant relationships or postmen from dropping off post at vulnerable wives’ houses. I have chosen some serious and some silly examples, but the thought experiment is endless.
What makes you think we can pre-emptively protect children in this way with a pregnant smoking ban, and then not take the next logical steps which are to look and see how else these poor souls are harmed and draft a whole new raft of pre-emptive rules and regs. Heck, this isn’t a prediction, it’s already happening! The child safety laws are off the charts. Laws are being passed forcing parents to put in pool nets/fences, banning them from physically hitting their children, forcing them to send them to school, forcing them to have a child seat in the car until 9 years of age etc. Parents now even require licences to home school. We have regulation upon regulation forcing us to do x, y, and z because some academic or some state bureaucrat thought it conformed to his version of sensible or his version of acceptable.
“As I say, however, these are just philosophical points that I’d be interested in hearing your comments on and not something that I personally wish to promote.”
The philosophical journey you are on here means nothing without recognising the dualism and tension that mother and unborn child are at once separate and inseparable, and that their basic rights are also at once separate and inseparable. Also, true justice is assessing cases on their merits, not applying medical statistics to imply probable damage. The mother’s incentives almost always line up with the baby’s incentives, but in some cases of substance abuse these incentives diverge. But even in this divergence, the baby is not a separate entity from the mother in the true sense. It is being kept alive by the mother, and it is basically the property of the mother. Her decisions for the child (provided the important caveat that she honours, life, liberty and property) are sovereign. To the extent that she MAY be impinging on property (body) by smoking or other substance abuse, there is THEORETICAL legal process that could be followed. But that process has to clear these bars:
1. Others have to know she is pregnant and abusing substances during this time
2. The particular nature and severity of this abuse has to be known proven
3. The severity of this abuse has to be SPECIFICALLY proven to harming this baby (which likely requires prodding and poking)
4. The prosecutor would have to prove that the child is disadvantaged from some prior prospective state absent the abuse
5. The prosecutor would have to prove that the child was disadvantaged relative to some ‘normal’ benchmark
6. The prosecutor would have to prove that the mother did not have the child’s best interest at heart
You’re saying all this is too complex and impractical, so just ban it outright and avoid the complexities. I’m saying, all this is too complex and impractical, so there is no way any state can ban this and still call itself just and fair and a champion of liberty.
“”Bottom Line: not everything in life is legislatable and courts are not the libertarian answer to anything and everything under the sun as so many like to think.”
Thank God. I’ve been trying to get that concession for a while.”
If by this you mean that HumanAction has stubbornly clung to a courts-will-solve-all-our-problems view, then this is subtle and insidious canard and completely wrong. As I have said in these comments and previous posts, there is no such thing as perfection in this world. HOWEVER (and this was the point you missed in our climate change/courts exchange), the practical legal test IS a brilliant way to distinguish what is legally enforceable through regulation/legislation and what is not. I’m NOT SAYING that recourse to courts is always possible and will solve all issues, but I AM SAYING that the possibility (or lack thereof) of practical court recourse is an excellent guide for us on whether we can and should heap up regulation and laws in certain areas. With regard to having court recourse for the ‘victims’ of climate change, I was suggesting that this is how we need to think about seeking justice for those affected – in the courts.
If we cannot practically have court recourse, as you point out in many climate change examples, then all you’re left with is arbitrary central dictate – a sort of Kangaroo Court held by distinguished genetlemen but no less unjust and backward. Again, your conclusion is that this is permissible, and mine is that in lieu of proper evidence and probable cause, all you’re doing is ruling people with an iron first for the sake of pet special interests.
Argghh!!!
I really need to get back to work, but your replies are too much to resist.
You. Keep. Conflating. Separate. Issues. Into. Absurd. Singular. Constructs.
There is no room for reasonable distinctions in your black-and-white world. Again, the slippery slope mentality is both inevitable (pun intended) and sacrosanct. Insuring against the (otherwise virtually uncontrollable) risk of driving on the road with drunk drivers = Protecting lonely women against the charms of attractive postmen. Yes, of course! That is only remorselessly logical course of action that the mindless drones of modern civilisation can expect to safeguard themselves from themselves. For what its worth, David Sobel has a related post that I recommend you take a look at: http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2011/03/property-rights-and-moral-seriousness.html
You’re saying all this is too complex and impractical, so just ban it outright and avoid the complexities.
Please, I beg you. I IMPLORE you. Read my comments again. This is not what I said. Of course, accurately reflecting my views would only get in the way of a good polemic. (i.e. “If you don’t like it, ban it! The usual recourse of those who want to impose their ideas on everyone else”)
Your last two paragraphs simply try to fudge the issue and, indeed, backtrack. In response to my specific suggestion that no reasonable action against climate change would be enacted without some form of government intervention, you offered the courts as the better alternative. My response was that this is literally absurd, due to both geographical and inter-temporal practicalities. More to the point, I have excellent evidence that HA sees tort law as the answer to environmental woes and general externalities. It is, for instance, contained within some detailed personal correspondence with your co-blogger, JGalt. Moreover, it is perfectly consistent with the approach taken by anarcho-captitalists in general and I can point to any number of articles on the Mises.org site and beyond that endorse this view. Now, of course, you may argue that your particular positions have softened over time (perhaps even as a result of our debates). If so, I am most happy that you are moving towards my side of the road… If only on this specific issue.
Ok enough. Huge sense of humour failure from you, as well as a lack of imagination. You know full well that laws are about precedent. I’m not equating drunk driving to postman sex, but how about the banning of driving while you’re feeling ill or while you’re angry or if you’ve just woken up. And once these more plausible bans take effect, then it creates precedent. How you can deny this is simply strange.
For the record, HA loves the court solution to disputes, but I am saying that unless you can prove something in a reasonable process and not by some state fiat dictate, then your endeavours are inimical to freedom and your regulations are arbitrary and likely also coercive.
Let me make this crystal clear for you: IF SOMETHING CANNOT BE REASONABLY OR PRACTICALLY RESOLVED BY THE COURTS, THAT DOES NOT LEGITIMISE RESOLVING IT BY STATE FIAT DICTATE. SOME ISSUES CAN’T BE RESOLVED BUT WE ARE WILLING TO TOLERATE THIS BECAUSE THE ALTERNATIVE, A STRUCTURE OF ARBITRARY LAWS, IS WORSE. THIS IN NO WAY DIMINISHES OUR VIEW THAT COURTS (AND ESPECIALLY PRIVATE COURTS) GREATLY ENHANCE AND RESOLVE ALMOST ALL ISSUES FOR WHICH WE NOW RELY ON THE STATE. WHERE THE COURTS CANNOT EASILY RESOLVE ISSUES WE USUALLY FIND A LACK OF CLEARLY DEFINED PROPERTY RIGHTS, WHICH 9 TIMES OUT OF 10 IS NOT A MARKET FAILURE BUT A STATE FAILURE.
GOODBYE CHOMMIE
I’m struggling to post this comment on stickman’s blog, so thought I’d post it here.
So here it is below. For HA readers, this is in response to stickman’s comment (go to his blog to read the comment thread to give it context):
________________
stickman said…
How, pray tell, is mine a canard? Did I not accurately reflect Chris’s views on the subject matter? Let’s just review those quotes again, shall we:
“[M]eddling in people’s lives through the state apparatus with force and violence is right on the road to totalitarianism.”
“I say what the hell, bring back eugenics…”
Being incredulous at the above is one thing[*], but I certainly don’t see how I misrepresented his — or your — views. Also recall that, to my great amusement, I’ve been labelled a “Statist” and “Marxist” among other things by you chaps before, so perhaps you can excuse my sensitivity…
Look, much of your comment actually proves my point(s). E.g. You can’t call me a “sophisticate” (tks) or whatever because I refuse to apply blanket rules to all situations… And then, in the same breath, say that I am still an absolutist!
As for idealism… I daresay that I am as least familiar with, and influenced by, public choice theory as either of you. There’s no need to lecture me on stultifying bureaucracy, as I have written much on this topic before.
I am, however, an equal opportunity critic when it comes to both government failure and market failure.[**] Indeed, I take pride in that. This may sound patronising, but I only wish you would adopt a less blinkered approach yourself.
Actually, having said that, perhaps I am beset by “idealist delusions”…
;)
[*] Legislation creep is a problem in some countries, in others not. The world as a whole is in constant flux with regard to legislation, as various societies adapt to changing needs and test different systems. Countries that are now establishing new laws now will deregulate them later, and vice versa. As Hayek apparently even understood, “The Road to Serfdom” certainly hasn’t proved to be a slippery slope that awaited modern social democracies. And, if we’re talking “empirical reality”, then the historical record makes this abundantly clear.
[**] Read this post if you want to get a broader sense my philosophy on market versus regulation… In particular, the paragraph before “THOUGHT FOR THE DAY”.
June 7, 2011 5:05 PM
____________________
My Reply:
____________________
Mmmm, I spot someone going off topic here. First, let me get the petty stuff out the way. You misrepresent Chris’ and my views asking, “My God, why is everything a slippery slope for you?”
Everything is not a slippery slope for us. Chris’ comments on eugenics were said tongue in cheek and you know it, and his comment about totalitarianism being the result of “[M]eddling in people’s lives through the state apparatus with force and violence” is simply and plainly true as history has shown. To say that “everything is a slippery slope” for us based on one throw-away quip and one basically true statement is a canard dressed in bright neon lights.
Let me clear something else up: I didn’t say you are nuanced in your views AND absolutist. If you read my comment again you’ll see that I imply that YOU BELIEVE you are nuanced and balanced, while I BELIEVE you are idealist and absolutist with the best of ‘em.
So now that we’re 1-1 in the canard match and have cleared up your other off-topic objections, let’s move on to my more pertinent point which was:
“And the point is NOT that you, stickman, are a totalitarian, the point is that 10,000 stickmen with their well-intentioned save-the-world-from-stupidity busybodiness, all nannying about inventing clever little rules and micro bans and laws, all lumped together, create a stultifying, boring, arbitrary society with mounting compliance costs for everyone.”
I don’t think you’ve dealt with this adequately. Saying, “Countries that are now establishing new laws now will deregulate them later, and vice versa”, beggars at least a bit of explanation in lieu of hard proof.
Let me throw in my two-cents worth of “proof” of legislation creep:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/07/high-stakes-test-can-big-government.html
I suspect one would be hard pressed to find the opposite trend in ANY country in the world on almost all issues.
Also, I think you fail to spot adequately at least two fundamental points in our argument (actually I’m sure you do spot them but don’t want to tackle them honestly).
1. Well-intentioned isolated law making added up over time can and DOES create overbearing law structures on society, the enforcement of which REQUIRES an ever-expanding state-police-legal-monitoring apparatus. Why we are so opposed to this petty cause-du-jour law making is that it is usually baseless, but even if it’s sometimes sensible (I stress the ‘sometimes’) it is near-impossible to enforce without creating more hidden cameras (UK), more police (America), or more hoops to jump through and documentation to fill out (Everywhere). You imply that we are in a sense alarmist, myopic, and jump down your throat simply for proposing a simple idea, and I admit that Chris and I can be abrasive in our debating style, but we tackle these issues like this because I believe we see the wood for the trees. You see a clever regulatory trick and the possibility of regulatory containment, while we pull the lens back and see a remorselessly growing heap of rules and regulations that create a society bogged down by compliance costs and paying ever more excessive taxes to support a state apparatus that is becoming increasingly focused on catching them out. This is to say nothing of the enormous strain ALREADY on most countries’ criminal justice systems, and the proliferation of a terrible trend in our modern world: that of creating new criminals out of thin air through new, arbitrary, and quite frankly, anti-freedom legislation out of thin air. For sure some societies have thrown off these regulatory shackles and simplified again, but I am saying that the road to that desperation and revolution (usually violent) can and should be avoided, as you might say, ex-ante.
2. Which leads me onto the second major point, which commenter Chris focused on in his comments. Making all these petty rules and regs is often just outright coercive and inimical to individual liberty. I’m not saying there are not interesting and even challenging ethical issues in the mother-to-unborn-child relationship, of course there are, but I’m trying to draw people’s attention to the arbitrary standards some want to impose on others as blanket dictate, when individual circumstance is varied and personal. As I said in the blog post above, “What if the child would have been born physically and mentally superior in every way, but due to smoking in the womb only turned out completely normal? Does the child have the right to be born exceptional, especially considering those exceptional genes were given by the parents themselves?”
As far as I am concerned the general empirical record is laid bare for all to see: modern nation states and social democracies have heaped law upon law upon law onto their ever-burdened subjects. Most of these laws are arbitrary, make arbitrary criminals, impinge on basic freedoms, and clog up our criminal justice systems making it almost impossible to deal with actual crime. Banning pregnant women from smoking (to focus specifically on this issue but not to detract from the broader point) would add just one more strand of hay to an already enormous haystack of unnecessary laws invented by intellectuals, sold to politicians all too eager to grow their ‘business’, and written into the ever-doorstoppingly thick statue books.
And by the way, Democracy doesn’t help us here, because these laws are usually out of the political choice set and decided behind the closed dark doors of parliament or congress. We’re all told to either vote for the guy with shiny white teeth who’ll spend less, or the guy with shiny white teeth who’ll spend more. And even if the whole choice process was more sophisticated than that, how could the average rational and intelligent voter, with enough on his plate in the form dealing with the time-consuming issues of real life, hope to make sense and vote on the almost infinite legislative minutia? This is one of the many reasons why Democracy is the god that failed (Hoppe). Forget tyranny of the majority, how about tyranny of the do-gooders?
From stickman, who evidently had trouble posting a comment on our site as we did on his (possibly related to links and lenth in both instances)…
________________
Stickman said…
First up, sorry for your not being able to comment on my blog. No-one else has had a problem — including your earlier comments obviously — and I can assure that I’ve nothing to do with it. Perhaps it just has an automated BS detector?
________________
Freeman said…
dito
________________
Stickman said…
And, with that cheeky little parry out of the way, on to your reply…
“[G]oing off topic”??
Am I taking crazy pills here? Throughout this discussion, I quote direct lines of text from your own posts and then responded immediately below them. Maybe you are putting faith in readers of this thread being so inestimably lazy that they won’t actually bother to scroll up a few inches, but you are swapping canards for straw man fantasies.
________________
Freeman said…
Calm down china. Focus on the substance of the debate which is a) should we ban pregnant women from smoking, b) are such ban’s consistent with freedom, and c) do such bans lead to a proliferation of unecessary and wasteful regulation?
________________
stickman said…
Speaking of which…
If you cannot spot the internal contradiction in your second paragraph, then I cannot help you. Even disregarding that, we BOTH know that there is more than enough context provided by my previous interactions with you chaps to make my accusation of “slippery slope / totalitarianism” canarderie (sic) a very solid proposition indeed. I would happy to provide email correspondence as further evidence should anyone wish…
________________
Freeman said…
And we could do the same to “prove” you’re a love-legislation type. Let’s ease up on the you-said/I-said nonsense…
________________
stickman said…
“Let me throw in my two-cents worth of “proof” of legislation creep:http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/07/high-stakes-test-can-big-government.html”
This is just precious. As “proof” of universal legislation creep, you effectively offer a single document — The Dodd-Frank Bill — which is aimed at reforming the US financial sector after the financial crisis. Well, say no more! Case closed! Q.E.D…
________________
Freeman said…
I wasn’t trying to prove anything here, hence “prove” in “”. let me ask you a simple question: take any modern democracy in the world. How thick were their statute books in 1910, 1920, 1950, 1980, 2000, 2011? You or I don’t have this answer for sure, but I’d bet my house and everything in that there are more by-laws, regulations, hoops, and forms to fill out than ever before…
________________
stickman said…
But, wait a minute, isn’t it possibly misleading to look at this particular document given the present exceptional economic circumstances? Moreover, wasn’t the Bill in question preceded by a broad and extended period of financial deregulation?
________________
Freeman said…
No, regulatory agencies actually proliferated from 2000-2008.
________________
stickman said…
Wasn’t it also preceded by an explosion of financial engineering and new derivative products, which were effectively beyond the scope of any regulation at all and almost certainly played a hand in creating the crisis?
________________
Freeman said…
Suddenly we’re talking about derivatives? Nice. Back to topic please…
________________
stickman said…
So, in a way, thanks for proving my point.
________________
Freeman said…
Ah, whatever mate
________________
stickman said…
Look, you may disagree with the notion that deregulation acted as the proximate cause of the financial crisis, but you are simply dreaming if you said it didn’t occur. And that, is my central point: The process waxes and wanes.
________________
Freeman said…
Um, ok let’s clear this up real quick: FINANCIAL REGULATION AND REGULATORY AGENCIES PROLIFERATED BETWEEN 2000-2008 AND HAVE INCREASED EVEN MORE SINCE 2008. So everything you spoke of above happened under the watch of THE most regulatory financial regime in US history.
So, actually, thanks for proving my point…
________________
stickman said…
Moreover, the modern financial industry, of course, is an unusual sector to highlight in of itself; given both its level of integration and importance to other industries. Contagion spreads effortlessly; there are no natural fire breaks.
________________
Freeman said…
Dealt with above
________________
stickman said…
For a more reasonable idea, simply think about the broad period of industrial deregulation and privatisation that occurred under, say, Thatcher and Reagan during the 80s (though there were many inconsistencies and bad policies mixed up with the good)…
________________
Freeman said…
This period – and it is not actually how much these two really deregulated – was knee-jerk reaction to a systemic crisis built up in the 1970’s that literally threatened to end the very existence of the post-Bretton Woods dollar and launch the US, UK and Europe into fullscale economic meltdown. But hang-on, look what preceeded this pullback: remorseless regulation creep. And why did it end (temporarily in the long timeline of history by the way)? Because there was in effect a revolution.
So actually, this is a poor, isolated example.
________________
stickman said…
…to the repealing of a wide range of environmental and energy laws in places like Western Canada and the northern Europe in the 90s and 2000s.
________________
Freeman said…
Ok, so basically irrelevant pockets of deregulation. Thanks. ________________
stickman said…
Even today, though I do not claim it offers a conclusive picture, one could just consult something like the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” survey. For the uninitiated, you will see a list of top reformers in terms of countries doing away with bureaucratic red tape each year.
________________
Freeman said…
Yes these countries are usually coming off a low base. In many instances economic freedom scores have been falling for the past 10 years, and especially 5 years.
________________
stickman said…
You have, in all seriousness, yet to show how I am “absolutist”. By all means, please tell me. I’ll all ears.
[You]: Legislation creep is an inexorable law!
[Me]: Um, hold on a sec. Countries have constantly been in the process of liberalising and then re-regulating, and then liberalising, etc different industries over many decades.
[You]: Absolutist!
[Me]: ???
________________
Freeman said…
You beleive absolutely that a few ‘policy makers’ can and should decide what is right for the masses of free individuals. This shines through so much of what you say and write. You beleive absolutely that cleverly and ‘wisely’ crafted policy can save us from bad situations. You believe absolutely (rightly or, we beleive wrongly) that there is market failure.
________________
stickman said…
{Side note: Since the above has been prompted by a post from Mark Perry, do you recall (www.humanaction.co.za/2010/03/propaganda-a-greater-pollutant-than-co2)this post? An ironically parallel case on HA… Where the claim was: “Look at those regulatory idiots! Claiming bad air quality in the 1970s and now, 40 years later, it’s never been better!” Incredulous response: “Yes, precisely. A law — the Clean Air Act — was enacted and now we don’t have to worry about pollution.”}
________________
Freeman said…
Ja, I’m sure it was all the act!! No market imperative whatsoever so produce more efficient cars after the OPEC oil shocks or when Japan started competing… hahaha. Funny.
________________
stickman said…
“Also, I think you fail to spot adequately at least two fundamental points in our argument (actually I’m sure you do spot them but don’t want to tackle them honestly).”
Equal measures patronising and untrue, of course. Again, anyone with a modicum of patience can scroll through the discussion to see how empty a claim this is. The entire thrust of our conversation over the last few posts has been about whether legislation in one one area — where market failure is recurrent — will necessarily lead to legislation in another. I’ll say it again, your position is false dilemma: NO regulation versus ALL regulation.
________________
Freeman said…
No, the entire thrust has been on the permissablity of impractical and coercive micro regulations and bans, how these are basically impractical, unadministerable, and inimical to individual liberty, and how these regulations and bans have a strong tendency, often inevitability, of mushrooming into other spheres of life until we are a hyper-micro-regulated society bearing a huge compliance cost. So far I have not seen you systematically address these points, and while you may think you’ve done so on the last point in this comment thread, you haven’t. And nothing can change the fact that modern states in today’s world ARE HYPER-REGULATED. Just go visit the UK or US or Australia, or come back to South Africa and see for yourself. I’m not making this up, I live in it everyday, and so do our loyal Human Action readers. Every day, more laws, not less, as inevitable as the rising of the sun, and each new law sets another precedent for more legal constriction in the future.
________________
stickman said…
My stance, on the other hand, is simply that legislation is a legitimate option that needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
________________
Freeman said…
Strongly disagree. We need to be guided by simple overarching broad principles that respect natural rights, and we need to expend more effort on sorting out the property rights problems which make us think we are beset by market failure. Case-by-case basis? See you in court next millenium…
________________
stickman said…
It isn’t that a nanny state is desirable or that regulatory build-up in some sectors is even a good thing. Quite the opposite and is another straw man that must be set aflame. As you know, I have written a great deal about the need to be wary of bloated bureaucracy, liberalise electricity markets, do away with agricultural subsidies, revoke occupational licensing, the problems of rent control, ending the pointless war on drugs, opening up immigration borders, etcetera, etcetera…
________________
Freeman said…
So what’s good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander? Line drawing must be hard in your world.
________________
stickman said…
Last point, just in case it remains unclear. In the post that prompted all of this, my question is what do we make of a case where someone (a child) is unable to ensure reasonable recourse to harm that is done to it (the mother’s excessive substance abuse) via conventional means.
________________
Freeman said…
Like it or not, we’ve given our answer to this…
________________
stickman said…
It was about what to do when someone uses their civil liberties to infringe upon the civil liberties of another. It was a thought experiment on normative ethics, but — despite my caveats — soon got dragged into a discussion of the practicalities. For the record then, my stance is simple: A leviathan system of big-brother monitoring every pregnant mother is both undesirable and infeasible. I believe the best solution would be through health education (funded by both public and private means), with the possibility to consider the involvement of child services in extreme cases where abuse is unrelenting.
________________
Freeman said…
Remind me of our differences again?
This debate reminds me of something in Martin Armstrong’s latest piece.
The old industries are dying. There was some gain in manufacture due to the Japanese tragedy. But the US is shifting toward an Internet Economy as the young are far more computer savvy than the current dominant generation. The uneducated will continue to find employment opportunities decline and government is not about to understand the evolution process of the economy. They have always tried to manipulate and intervene to maintain the status quo. For example, when automobiles were just starting, many New England states enacted laws against these newfangled contraptions. If you drove an automobile down the road and it frightened a horse, the owner had to drive the gadget off the road and shut it down. If the horse was still frightened, he was required by law to disassemble it.
Around 1985, I was in a Royal Park in London taking pictures on a Sunday. A bobby approached and told me I had to stop taking pictures. He informed me it was a £50 fine. I thought I was on Candid Camera. He became quite indignant because I thought it was a joke. Afterwards, I looked up the law and when cameras were first invented, they used a flash with gunpowder. The noise would frighten horses. The solution, they outlawed taking photographs in a Royal Park on a Sunday. Government always intervenes against technology just as the Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo for life when he dared to say the sun was the center of the solar system.