Harris v. Quinn

On June 30, 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, decided the case of Harris v. Quinn --
    http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/11-681_j426.pdf

From the decision document --

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"ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined.  KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined."

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The court held that the First Amendment prohibits the collection of an agency fee from Rehabilitation Program Personal Assistants (PAs) who do not want to join or support a union.

The case is fascinating in that it has generated so much controversy, while at the same time being so simple in its facts.

The group of plaintiffs included individuals like Pam Harris, who care for a disabled family member at home, and who receive a subsidy from a Medicaid-waiver program to do so.

Here's the basic description of the program from the majority opinion in the decision document --

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http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/11-681_j426.pdf

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   Millions of Americans, due to age, illness, or injury, are unable to live in their own homes without assistance and are unable to afford the expense of in-home care.  In order to prevent these individuals from having to enter a nursing home or other facility, the federal Medicaid program funds state-run programs that provide in-home services to individuals whose conditions would otherwise require institutionalization. See 42 U. S. C. §1396n(c)(1).  A State that adopts such a program receives federal funds to compensate persons who attend to the daily needs of individuals needing in-home care.  Ibid.; see also 42 CFR §§440.180, 441.300–441.310 (2013).  Almost every State has established such a program.  See Dept. of Health and  Human Services, Understanding Medicaid Home and Community Services: A Primer (2010).

   One of those States is Illinois, which has created the Illinois Department of Human Services Home Services Program, known colloquially as the state “Rehabilitation Program.” Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 20, §2405/3(f) (West 2012); 89 Ill. Admin. Code §676.10 (2007).  “[D]esigned to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of individuals who may instead be satisfactorily maintained at home at a lesser cost to the State,” §676.10(a), the Rehabilitation Program allows participants to hire a “personal assistant” who provides homecare services tailored to the individual’s needs. Many of these personal assistants are relatives of the person receiving care, and some of them provide care in their own homes.  See App. 16–18.

   Illinois law establishes an employer-employee relationship between the person receiving the care and the person providing it.  The law states explicitly that the person receiving home care—the “customer”—“shall be the em­ployer of the [personal assistant].”  89 Ill. Admin. Code §676.30(b) (emphasis added). A “personal assistant” is defined as “an individual employed by the customer to provide . . . varied services that have been approved by the customer’s physician,” §676.30(p) (emphasis added), and the law makes clear that Illinois “shall not have control or input in the employment relationship between the cus­tomer and the personal assistants.” §676.10(c).
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In no way is Pam Harris, or any of the other plaintiffs in her situation, an employee of the state, or even an employee at all, so it's a complete non-sequitur to claim that she is any way represented by a union --
     http://www.illinoispolicy.org/a-moms-fight-for-justice-harris-v-quinn/

Of course, that didn't stop many people from making that argument.

From economics, the idea of 'Free Riding' is typically used as the basis for that argument.  For example, it's not hard to find articles similar to this one, written by Nina Totenburg, the award winning NPR reporter --

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http://www.npr.org/2014/01/21/264257440/illinois-case-brings-new-union-questions-to-supreme-court

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No one is forced to join the union, but non-union members — and there are three in this case — do have to pay the costs of negotiating and administering the contract. Under long-established labor law, when a majority of workers approve a union, those who do not join cannot be forced to pay for political activities of the union. But if the union is accepted by the state, as it was in Illinois, non-members still have to pay their fair share of the expenses of negotiating a contract. That's to prevent them from free-riding on the dues of members.
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It's perversely fascinating that someone would make a reference to free riding in regard to contract negotiations, when this case deals with one or more individuals who are not employees and do not have an employment contract with anyone.  That the state regulates the minimum qualifications for PAs doesn't alter this fact -- anyone who can prove that they have the minimum competence required to perform as a PA can care for a disabled family member -- they don't need formal employment with the state at a negotiated salary to do so.

Claiming the plaintiffs in this case are employees of the state, is equivalent to saying that all licensed taxi drivers, that are paid by a disabled person to transport them with Medicaid funds, are also employees of the state, because they had to pass a driving test administered by the state, and their qualifications as a driver are subject to periodic state review.

A more relevant question here is: 'Why is a union organization, that represents state employees, trying to force payments from individuals, for something those individuals don't want, and that the union did not, and could not, provide?'

And note the false distinction Nina makes in the quote above regarding so-called 'fair share' fees --

'No one is forced to join the union, but non-union members do have to pay the costs of negotiating and administering the contract.'

This is a distinction without a difference -- that is, what's the difference between being forced to pay fees to a union, and being forced to become a member?

But there is an important difference, and it makes the situation even worse for individuals who don't want to deal with a union organization.  By only paying the so-called 'fair share' fees, individuals aren't considered union members, so they have no say regarding union activities.

So, the 'fair share' fees are not fair at all, in that they force individuals to pay for something they have specifically stated they don't want (since they didn't want to join the union to begin with), while at the same time removing their ability to express any say in union activities.

Now that's what I call free riding, it's just that it's the unions doing the riding.

What a deal for the unions -- having government force the payment of fees from individuals who don't want to be represented by the organization, while at the same time allowing them to deny those individuals any say regarding the organization's activities.

King George would have blushed.

Of course, union supporters are quick to point out supposed benefits everyone in a unionized field receives from union activities, while ignoring the harm that unions cause, and how union influence has been critical in the failure of certain companies, like Hostess --
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Featherbedding
   http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/11/28/more-hostess-liquidation-to-come-micro-unions/

Well, someone did originally get this issue right.  In 1961 the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 7-2 ruling for the case International Association of Machinists v. Street.  In this ruling, the Court held that it is NOT unconstitutional for unions to collect fees from dissenting nonmembers, but only to perform bargaining duties.

Of course, union organizers loved that decision, but notice this statement from Hugo Black, one of the dissenting judges in Machinists v. Street --

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http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16218813564309818799
http://supreme-court-cases.findthebest.com/l/1768/International-Association-Of-Machinists-v-Street

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Unions composed of a voluntary membership, like all other voluntary groups, should be free in this country to fight in the public forum to advance their own causes, to promote their choice of candidates and parties and to work for the doctrines or the laws they favor. But to the extent that Government steps in to force people to help espouse the particular causes of a group, that group— whether composed of railroad workers or lawyers—loses its status as a voluntary group. The reason our Constitution endowed individuals with freedom to think and speak and advocate was to free people from the blighting effect of either a partial or a complete governmental monopoly of ideas. Labor unions have been peculiar beneficiaries of that salutary constitutional principle, and lawyers, I think, are charged with a peculiar responsibility to preserve and protect this principle of constitutional freedom, even for themselves. A violation of it, however small, is, in my judgment, prohibited by the First Amendment and should be stopped dead in its tracks on its first appearance. With so vital a principle at stake, I cannot agree to the imposition of parsimonious limitations on the kind of decree the courts below can fashion in their efforts to afford effective protection to these priceless constitutional rights.
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Notice his statement that any violation of the freedoms described by the First Amendment 'should be stopped dead in its tracks on its first appearance.'

Obviously, that didn't happen, but at least the recent decision on Harris v. Quinn is a move in the right direction.

I'm so happy that I've never worked in a field dominated by unions.

All Government Securities are a Liability to Taxpayers

One obvious fallacy that is often repeated, especially in regard to Social Security, is the claim that government debt is an asset to taxpayers, when that debt is intended for some public purpose.

At the link below is an article from a fellow at the Brookings Institution with a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, in which he claims there's no immediate problem in Social Security collecting less in tax payments than it pays to beneficiaries.  Why?  Because the interest income on the trust fund is NOT being counted, and that the nation's private pension system is also normally in this 'cash negative' situation.

Notice that the author correctly describes the Social Security interest earnings as an expense to the U.S. Treasury, thereby cancelling out the interest earnings as a source of income to taxpayers.  He then contradicts himself by calling it a 'plain fact' that the interest earnings 'add to Social Security's spending power just as it does in the case of a private pension plan.'

But the author doesn't mention the obvious point that Social Security's interest income is paid by the same people contributing to the plan (U.S. taxpayers), since the so called Social Security 'trust fund' holds government treasuries (as the author also points out), so any Social Security income is yet another expense that must be paid by future taxpayers — that is, the so called income from Social Security's 'investment' must be paid by the plan participants — this is not the case with private pension plans holding real investments that generate income that is in no way paid by the plan participants --

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http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2011/11/16-social-security-burtless

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The investment income of a private pension plan is regarded as a legitimate and uncontroversial way to pay for pension benefits. Curiously, however, the investment income of Social Security is widely believed to be a dubious, almost fictional source of funds. This is mainly because all the investment income of Social Security is earned on U.S. Treasury bonds, which is the only asset held in the Trust Funds. Interest on Treasury bonds is also a source of income for private pension plans, of course. In fact, Treasury securities are generally considered the safest assets in a pension fund’s portfolio. Why, then, are Treasury bonds thought to be such an unreliable source of revenue for Social Security?

The simple explanation is the treatment of Social Security interest earnings in the federal budget accounts. The interest earned on Social Security reserves is an income entry in the Social Security accounts, but it is a spending item in the U.S. Treasury accounts. The positive entry for Social Security is exactly offset by a negative entry in the Treasury accounts. When the two items are summed to calculate the unified federal budget balance (including both Social Security and the Treasury), the interest income essentially disappears. The only Social Security items that remain are the program’s tax collections and its benefit and administration outlays – in other words, the program’s “cash balance.”

The plain fact, however, is that the investment income of Social Security adds to the program’s spending power just as it does in the case of a private pension plan. If the Social Security Trust Funds earn $117 billion in interest income, as they did last year, the Social Security Administration has the authority to spend an additional $117 billion on benefit payments, either this year, next year, or in any future year when the Trust Funds still hold positive reserves.
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The real 'plain fact' is that it's correct to cancel out the Social Security interest earnings by the expense of that interest to the U.S. Treasury — unless you want to pretend that you can become richer by moving money from your left pocket into your right.

Of course, the interest income does add to the spending power of the Social Security program — but not before it has reduced the spending power of the U.S. Treasury by the same amount.

It's absurd on its face to claim that an interest expense to taxpayers is somehow increasing their spending power.

What is it about the relationship between government securities and taxpayers that makes it so hard for people to understand that the citizens of a given nation do not profit when their government issues debt, since the citizens are responsible for paying back the principle, as well as making the interest payments on that debt?  Government debt is always a net loss to taxpayers, since taxpayers must make the interest payments on the debt.

In essence, government debt is equivalent to a home mortgage with a huge principle where all taxpayers share the mortgage payment.  There are different kinds of government debt securities — Treasury Bills, Treasury Bonds, etc. — that all work in slightly different ways, but they all share the essential feature of making a promise to a lender (the purchaser of a given security), to pay back the original loan principle, along with a certain amount of interest.  A home mortgage works the same way — a lender puts up the bulk of the purchase price of a borrower's home purchase, under the agreement that the borrower will make payments to the lender to return the original loan principle with interest.

A home mortgage is an asset to the lender, and a liability to the borrower. A home mortgage is a net loss to the borrower, because the borrower must pay back more than they borrowed (the interest), in order to incentivize a lender to make the loan.

In the same way, a government security is an asset to the lender, and a liability to the taxpayer (borrower).  A government security is a net loss to the taxpayer, because the taxpayer must pay back more than they borrowed (the interest), in order to incentivize a lender to make the loan.

A borrower may purchase an asset with a loan (like a home, or, for taxpayers, a new highway), and that asset may appreciate or provide economic gain beyond the interest cost of borrowing the money, leaving a net gain — but that's a separate issue, that doesn't remove the cost of the interest.  And this certainly doesn't apply to Social Security, which is a transfer payment — not an asset purchase.  Taking a payroll deduction from a worker, and paying that money to a retiree, is a zero sum game.

Whatever the result of spending borrowed funds, interest payments reduce that result, since interest payments are a cost over and above the amount of money borrowed, that must be paid from a borrower's income, thereby reducing the living standard of the borrower.

Here's another person with a Ph.D. in economics who doesn't understand that all government securities are claims on future tax receipts, which means they are a claim on the future earnings of taxpayers, since, again, debt payments must be made from the taxes collected from the earnings of taxpayers --

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http://zfacts.com/node/141

Who’s behind zFacts, oil companies or what?  Nope.  I’m Steve Stoft and this is my web site. I’m building it with a little help from my friends and volunteers, but so far, it’s mostly my work. I’m a Ph.D. economist and my day job is consulting for public electricity markets—California, PJM, ISO-NE, some private generators, and occasionally the World Bank, DOE and the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.
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What are your biases?  At heart, I’m a scientist; that means I’m a skeptic. I don’t trust easy answers especially from politicians. I also don’t trust extremists, either left or right. But I don’t think these are biases; they’re based on observation. It’s hard to know your own biases, but I believe openness, information, and clear thinking are helpful—maybe those are my bias. I tend to be hard headed and soft hearted.

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Note that even with the impressive credentials described at the previous link, including an advanced degree in economics, this author doesn't seem to understand that a Treasury bond represents money spent by government, that it must pay back from taxes, including interest.  The author does also make the comment that the money is spent once borrowed, but he still insists the debt is an asset to taxpayers.  A U.S. Treasury bond, or any other government security, in no way represents money that has been saved by the U.S. government, as stated here --

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http://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/p/477.html

Is the Trust Fund Fake?  It contains  $2+ trillion saved for our retirement from our paychecks (FICA) and by our employers. The White House says "There is no Trust Fund, just IOUs." It's just paper. But those papers are Treasury bonds. What gives? Who could steal this much hard earned money?

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Here's more confusion from the same author --

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http://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/p/336.html

The Whitehouse says:   There is no trust fund, just IOUs that I saw firsthand, that future generations will pay. –Bush, April 5, 2005   • We take your payroll taxes; we pay out the benefits to the current retirees; and with the money left over, we pay -- pay for other programs. And there's nothing left but file cabinets with IOUs. –Bush, April 26, 2005   • I went to West Virginia the other day to look at the filing cabinets, to make sure the IOUs were there — paper. And it's there. ... not a very encouraging sight. –Bush, April 18, 2005 • Now, about $1.7 trillion of that is in the so-called trust fund; that is, money -- that's money that's been collected that's not there as cash at this point. –Cheney, March 22, 2005

Hey, wait a minute!  • What about the Federal Pension Trust Fund? It's just the same—all $800 billion of it. You mean there are no military pensions?!  • What about the $280 billion in Medicare Trusts—are those fake?  • And, the highway trust and all other government trusts? $3.1 trillion all told. And what's their problem with "paper"? A thousand dollar bill is paper, the check I write, my stock certificate, my government bond—all paper. Did they expect the trust would be made of diamonds? What of the millions of Americans who own Treasury bonds, all paper? Seven trillion dollars of national debt has been spent on government programs, and there is "nothing left." Has the US of A defrauded the world of $7 trillion?

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Oh brother.  Notice again the same confusion, and the failure to distinguish between government agencies holding debt that they issued, and private citizens holding that debt.

Of course, there are government trusts, and the U.S. Treasury hasn't defrauded the world of $7 Trillion (at least not yet).

The problem is in pretending a government, any government (or any entity, for that matter), can generate income by paying itself interest.

A private citizen (from any country) can profit from purchasing U.S. treasuries, or the debt of the country in which they live, since in that case the individual acts as the lender, not the borrower, and receives interest payments from the taxes the respective government treasury collects.  In other words, when an individual acts as a lender by purchasing a government security, they have a claim on the future tax receipts of other taxpayers to that government — whether they live in the country that issued the debt or not.

But when governments hold their own debt as part of some government program, that debt is a marker for how much that government must collect in future taxes.  If you're a citizen of a country whose government holds debt it has issued, that debt is a claim against you — there's no reasonable way citizens under such governments can view such debt as an asset, any more than they can view a mortgage on their home as an asset.

And notice this absurd quote, again, from the same author at zfacts.com --

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http://zfacts.com/zfacts.com/p/336.html

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Is the national debt so big we can't pay it back? Compared to the size of our economy it's smaller than in World War II, and we paid it down after that. There is only one danger to social Security, and that's Congress.
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http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

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So supposedly we don't have to worry, because we paid down the debt from the unusual expense that resulted from WW II — an expense that went to ZERO when the war ended — even though our debt is now approaching the same level that occurred during a full scale world war, while nothing comparable is happening, or has happened since.  So what big one time expense is supposed to end, to reverse the trend shown in the chart above?

It's also interesting to note that someone who describes himself as 'a scientist and skeptic' who 'doesn't trust extremists', would create a chart that pretends that U.S. Presidents can unilaterally pass budgets without congressional approval (referring to the comment in green in the chart above).

And note that there was a Republican majority in the Senate for six of the eight years that Reagan was in office, but the House had a Democratic majority the entire time Reagan was in office, from 1981 to 1989.

And it was even worse for George H. W. Bush — there was a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress from 1989 to 1993, when George H. W. Bush held office —
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidents_and_control_of_congress

So the chart below is a little more objective, in that at least it doesn't pretend that the country would have a dramatically lower level of debt, had a couple of Republican presidents tried to do something different with the budgets that were passed during their tenure --

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http://www.truthfulpolitics.com/http:/truthfulpolitics.com/comments/us-federal-debt-by-political-party/
http://www.truthfulpolitics.com/images/us-federal-debt-percentage-gdp-by-president-political-party.jpg

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Government Spending — a 'Tragedy of the Commons'

In December 1968, the late Garrett Hardin published the now famous essay entitled 'The Tragedy of the Commons', in 'Science'.

The essay deals with a class of problems Hardin called "no technical solution problems".  He claimed that the "population problem" is in that class, and he described the tragedy of the commons as a way of rebutting the notion that rational self-interest would address the "population problem".

The tragedy of the commons is a situation where people are incentivized to deplete a common resource, due to the costs of the overuse being dispersed among everyone, while the benefits are concentrated to particular individuals.  Here's Hardin's description --

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http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html
http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/v1003/lectures/population/TragedyoftheCommons.pdf

Tragedy of Freedom in a Commons

The rebuttal to the invisible hand in population control is to be found in a scenario first sketched in a little-known pamphlet (6) in 1833 by a mathematical amateur named William Forster Lloyd (1794-1852). We may well call it "the tragedy of the commons", using the word "tragedy" as the philosopher Whitehead used it (7): "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things." He then goes on to say, "This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama."

The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.

As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component.

1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.

2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of -1.

Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another.... But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
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That people will overuse something when it is free, or does not cost them extra to do so, seems like a pretty common sense notion — it is just the Law of Demand again, in that demand for something tends to increase as the price falls.  Even in the example Hardin uses, where harm is being caused in the long run, the behavior is still rational as he indicated, since individuals who refrain from behaving this way cannot change the outcome with their behavior, since they cannot control the population as a whole.

From dirty public restrooms, to over fishing, to excessive pollution in places like Iran and China, the world has numerous examples to demonstrate this behavior --

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http://science.time.com/2013/10/18/the-10-most-polluted-cities-in-the-world/
http://www.ahwaziarabs.info/2013/03/ahwaz-confirmed-most-polluted-city-on.html

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/feb/25/air-pollution-in-china-in-pictures

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Garret Hardin also wrote that the S&L crisis of the 1980's was an example of the tragedy of the commons --

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http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html

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The tragedy of the commons also arose in the savings and loan (S&L) crisis. The federal government created this tragedy by forming the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC). The FSLIC relieved S&L depositors of worry about their money by guaranteeing that it would use taxpayers’ money to repay them if an S&L went broke. In effect, the government made the taxpayers’ money into a commons that S&Ls and their depositors could exploit. S&Ls had the incentive to make overly risky investments, and depositors did not have to care because they did not bear the cost. This, combined with faltering federal surveillance of the S&Ls, led to widespread failures. The losses were “commonized” among the nation’s taxpayers, with serious consequences to the federal budget (see savings and loan crisis).
...

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This is also an example of moral hazard, where the parties taking a risk do not bear its ultimate cost.  The original statement of the tragedy of the commons is somewhat different, in that it did not involve any sort of promise to protect against failure.

But notice that all government spending has this same quality — since no one is held accountable, and everyone is penalized to the degree that they do not maximize their benefit, there are no incentives to ensure that any government programs are effective, much less sustainable.  The principle entitlement programs (especially Social Security and Medicare), almost seem as if they were specifically designed to fail — everyone is incentivized to pay as little as they possibly can, while drawing the maximum possible benefit.  Failure in some form is inevitable.

Again, we see the same effect that Hardin described in his original essay published back in 1968 — dispersed cost, and concentrated benefit — where the recipient of a benefit (the herdsman in Hardin's example) gets the full benefit of maximizing his consumption, while the costs are dispersed over others.  That participants pay into government entitlement programs does not alter the situation — an individual's contributions are used to pay benefits to older participants, so there is still an incentive for everyone to minimize their contributions by opposing tax increases, while maximizing their benefit in any way possible.

Taxpayer money has always been a commons, regardless of any particular policy that increased the opportunities for exploitation.

But in the case of government spending, the effect Hardin described is even more pronounced, because the ultimate failure can be pushed to future generations, and the effects are not even visible to anyone other than a small minority of knowledgeable observers — government spending is a tragedy of the commons on steroids --

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http://www.truthfulpolitics.com/images/us-federal-debt-by-president-political-party.jpg
http://www.truthfulpolitics.com/http:/truthfulpolitics.com/comments/us-fed-debt-by-president-party/

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As an aside, you can find comments like these, claiming that Hardin simply started a myth with his original essay, because he supposedly did not present any evidence --

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http://www.massline.org/PolitEcon/Misc/MythTragCommons.htm
http://archive.is/RiXLX

...
Garrett Hardin hatches a myth
The author of "The Tragedy of the Commons" was Garrett Hardin, a University of California professor who until then was best known as the author of a biology textbook that argued for "control of breeding" of "genetically defective" people (Hardin 1966: 707).  In his 1968 essay he argued that communities that share resources inevitably pave the way for their own destruction; instead of wealth for all, there is wealth for none.
...
Where's the Evidence?
Given the subsequent influence of Hardin's essay, it's shocking to realize that he provided no evidence at all to support his sweeping conclusions.  He claimed that the "tragedy" was inevitable -- but he didn't show that it had happened even once.

Hardin simply ignored what actually happens in a real commons: self-regulation by the communities involved.
...

Hardin, Garrett. 1966.  Biology: Its Principles and Implications.  Second edition.  San Francisco. W.H. Freeman & Co.

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Would someone who is ignoring the obvious evidence, acknowledge it, if it were presented to him?

Seductive Blindness

Here's Walter Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, speaking at Villanova University in February 2012, on "The Legitimate Role of Government in a Free Society".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7dN4tNzvg

In his talk, Walter Williams emphasized that much government action is immoral, and would be considered criminal when practiced by private citizens.  For example, if you were to steal money from your neighbors in order to give to some charity, you would be charged with a crime, not celebrated because you were helping others with money you had stolen.  There's no practical difference between this example and government welfare -- the initiation of force doesn't magically become moral because a majority approves, and legalizes the immoral use of force via a political process.

Williams stated this in very clear terms in his talk -- here's a transcription of portions of the video --

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7dN4tNzvg

...
     The primary justification for the growth of government far beyond what the founders envisioned for us, is to promote fairness and justice.  Well that's a worthy goal, but at the same time we might ask: 'Well, what is fairness and justice?  What is the legitimate role of government in a free society?'
...
     Moral people cannot depend on legality alone to guide them.  That is because there are many things in this world that were and that are legal, but clearly immoral.  That is, slavery was legal.  Did that make it moral?  The Nazi persecution of the Jews, Stalinist purges, they were legal.  But did that make it moral?
    So the moral question that we're confronted with is: 'Is there a moral case for taking by force the property of one person and giving it to another to whom it does not belong?'  Now I have not come up with a moral case for that.
    What the government does, as I said earlier, you and I would get arrested for doing the same thing.  It's just the only difference between what the government does is when they take money they call it 'welfare' -- it's just a matter of legality.
    And so we have to ask ourselves the question: 'Should one person be forcibly used to serve the purposes of another?'  Is that moral?  'To forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another?'  And I think it's immoral.
    Now before I go on, I think that if you find a fellow American in need, I think it is praiseworthy to help them out.  That is, it is laudable to help your fellow man out by reaching into your own pockets to help him out -- reaching into somebody else's pockets to help him out I think is worthy of condemnation, and it's despicable.
    Now, in a free society we want most, if not all, of our relationships to be voluntary, and we want to minimize involuntary exchange.
...
    I always like to say instead of voluntary exchange: I love seduction -- any kind of seduction.
...
   But what's the essence of seduction?  Seduction is when we proposition our fellow man in the following fashion: 'If you make me feel good, I'll make you feel good.'  Now let me give you some examples of that.  I walk into my grocer with $3 in my hand, and I proposition him, I say: 'If you make me feel good, and give me that gallon of milk, I'll make you feel good, and give you $3.'
    And if that exchange is transacted, he's better off, because he valued the $3 more than the milk, and I'm better off because I valued the milk more than the $3.  And we call that a positive sum game, where both parties are better off in their own estimation.
    Now I'm against rape.  What's the essence of rape, or involuntary exchange?  That occurs when we proposition our fellow man in the following fashion, we say to him: 'If you don't make me feel good, I'm going to make you feel bad.'  That's where I went into my grocer with a gun in my hand, and I say: 'If you don't make me feel good, and give me that gallon of milk, I'm going to make you feel bad, and blow your brains out.'  Clearly I benefit, but he loses.  And we call that a zero sum game.
    Now, by the way, you know a lot of people say: 'Williams you know, a lot of these things you complain about, represents that we are democracy, we're a majority, and a majority rules.'  Well, I tell them, I don't think gang rape is any better than individualized rape.  That is, just because you vote to rape somebody, doesn't make it right -- or a majority consensus does not establish morality.
    And by the way, the framers did not intend for us to be a democracy, did they?  No.  I mean, the word democracy is not found in any of our founding documents.  The framers of our nation had utter contempt for the idea of democracy, because they argued -- and you read the writings of James Madison and John Adams -- they said that democracy gives an aura of legitimacy to acts that otherwise would be deemed tyranny.
...
    Now, widespread private ownership and control of resources is consistent with seduction and the minimization of rape.  Widespread government ownership is consistent with rape maximization.  That is, the essence of our relationship with government is that, if we don't make them feel good, they're going to make us feel bad.
...

---

During his talk, Walter Williams repeatedly emphasized the moral aspect of being free from coercion, and the immorality of forcibly using another person to serve your purposes, and yet the first question from the audience was to question the morality of freedom, as if Williams didn't discuss it --

---

  " ... the very foundation of liberty rests in a central idea.  It has to do with interests, it involves self-interest, if you will, but that self-interest is always defined with a moral foundation.

[supposedly the questioner is quoting James Madison here] "Interest doesn't have any bearing, unless you qualify interest with every necessary moral ingredient."

... and that moral ingredient has to do with the idea of recognize other human beings as human beings and treating them as such, so there's a real positive moral component I think that's the basis of liberty in America, and I'm wondering if you would speak to that ..."

---

Well, what could Walter Williams say in response, other than repeat some of the things that he had just finished saying?  Given that Williams focused on the morality of freedom in his talk, he might have asked in response: "What do you think I've been talking about?"

This question is especially fascinating in a perverse way, since the "moral ingredient of recognizing other human beings as human beings and treating them as such", to quote the audience member again, was precisely what Williams was emphasizing in his talk as missing from government action.

To quote Williams again: "Widespread government ownership is consistent with rape maximization.  That is, the essence of our relationship with government is that, if we don't make them feel good, they're going to make us feel bad."

It was also fascinating that when Williams pointed out the long standing moral tradition that goes against common government actions that are viewed as perfectly acceptable today, the same audience member stated agreement.

Here's how Williams made the point --

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For Christians among us, we should recognize that when God gave Moses the commandment 'Thou shalt not steal', I'm pretty sure he did not mean that thou shalt not steal, unless you got a majority vote in Congress.  And that's what we're doing -- we're taking by force what belongs to one person, and I don't consider that moral, at all.

---

You can hear the audience member who asked the original question respond: "I actually agree with you on that."

But then what motivated the original question?  If you agree that it's immoral to take by force, what 'moral ingredient' is missing from a defense of liberty that relies on that point?

There's a very interesting phenomenon on display here.  The first question from the audience member wasn't for some clarification or specific application from Williams of the principles he was describing -- she asked that he readdress the main point of his talk.  Her question implied a concern for the moral justification of liberty, but Williams repeatedly stressed the moral justification for liberty in his talk, so the act of posing the question treated that moral justification as unimportant and even meaningless.  Clearly, using one person to serve the purposes of another, as Williams put it, didn't resonate with her as a critical issue in defining liberty.

And so the audience member helps prove a point Williams makes earlier (at 00:16:00) --

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For the last half century, free enterprise, and what it implies, has been under unrelenting attack in our country.  Americans from all walks of life, whether they realize it or not, have demonstrated a deep and abiding contempt for personal liberty, private property rights, and economic freedom.

---

In his talk, Williams used the term 'seduction' to describe individuals attempting to entice others to trade with them in a voluntary exchange in a free market, and there's also a seduction expressed in the attitude that so many share regarding freedom.

Whether it's open hostility for freedom, or the more subtle contempt expressed by the audience member in the question quoted above, there's an obvious seductive power on display in the desire of many individuals to initiate force as an expression of their own morality -- as if their desire alone gives them a special moral standing and importance, regardless of the violation of individual rights required by the expression of that desire, and the obvious destructive consequences that often follow.

See Thomas Sowell's book 'The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy', for a detailed treatment of the phenomenon of visions on social policy being completely disconnected from reality.

Listening to the audience member pose her question quoted above, reminds me of this quote from the first page, of the first chapter, of 'The Vision of the Anointed', 'The Flattering Unction' --

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In earlier eras as well, many individuals foresaw the self-destruction of their own civilizations, from the days of the Roman Empire to the eras of the Spanish, Ottoman, and other empires.  Yet that alone was not enough to change the course that was leading to ruin.  Today, despite free speech and the mass media, the prevailing social vision is dangerously close to sealing itself off from any discordant feedback from reality.

---

Given the complete disconnect between the audience member's question and the points Williams made in his speech, the audience member also did a good job of demonstrating the description Sowell gives in the quote above of a 'social vision dangerously close to sealing itself off from any discordant feedback from reality.'

And consider this telling statement from the audience member: '... there's a real positive moral component that's the basis of liberty in America'.

But liberty does not have a moral component -- liberty is the moral component of a civilized moral society that recognizes the right of individuals to be free from coercion.

Attempting to add a so-called moral component to the expression of the fundamental moral principle that individuals have the right to be free from coercion, can only mean one thing: reducing the freedom of some, and violating the moral principle.

Liberty is a state of being, and just like any other virtuous state, it can't be morally perfected -- refusing to initiate force is moral perfection in a social context.  Anything short of that perfection, can't properly be called liberty.

Now, many people will make the silly comment here that we infringe on the liberty of criminals to prevent crime, for example, and so no reasonable person expects liberty to be unconstrained.

But this is absurd -- criminals function as parasites, and survive by initiating force, and so depriving them of liberty is done in retaliation to protect the liberty of others -- not to constrain liberty.  All coercive criminal activity is a violation of liberty, and justifies retaliation.  The only proper constraint on the liberty of one individual, is the liberty of others.

During his talk, Williams repeatedly made the statement that it is immoral to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another -- of course, since it's a violation of their liberty.  It's contradictory to argue otherwise, since such force requires a subordination of one person to another, and a completely inconsistent definition of individual rights.

George Orwell's satirical tale against Stalin, 'Animal Farm', comes to mind here.  See 'Chapter X' --

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ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS 

---

Williams, among others, foresees the self-destruction of his own civilization, and has been giving a warning for many years, but who is even capable of listening, never mind acting on the warning, when so many are so seduced by blindly maintaining a pretense, that their particular initiation of force is moral, as long as they HOPE it will be helpful?


Here are some other highlights from Williams's speech --

• Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution enumerates the powers the founders gave to government.
• The claim that the Constitution is a 'living document' makes it meaningless, since if the Constitution doesn't fix specific rules, government can't be limited by it.
• The private property and free enterprise that the framers envisioned are mere skeletons of their past.
• Taxes represent claims on private property.
• Taxation and spending show government gaining ground and liberty yielding.
• In 1902, expenditures at all levels of government (federal, state, and local) totaled $1.7 billion, and the average taxpayer that year paid $60 in federal, state, and local taxes.
• From 1787 until 1920, federal expenditures were only 3% of GDP, except during wartime.
• Today, federal expenditures alone are close  to $4 trillion, or 30% of GDP.  State and local governments spend close to $3 trillion.
• The average taxpayer today (2012) pays $10,000 per year in federal, state, and local taxes.
• This shows that as time goes by we own less and less of ourselves and the fruits of our labor.
• Capitalism is defined as a system wherein individuals are free to pursue their own interests, so long as they don't violate the private property rights of others.
• Much of the original intent of the U.S. Constitution as seen in the document itself, and the Federalist Papers that debated the Constitution, was to bring about a climate in which peaceable voluntary exchange could occur.
• The legitimate functions of government in a free society are national defense, police, the adjudication of disputes (courts), and the provision of certain public goods (as an economist would define them).
• In order for these legitimate and constitutionally mandated functions to be carried out, each citizen is obliged to pay his share of the federal government's expenses.
• For the last half century, free enterprise, and what it implies, has been under unrelenting attack in our country.  Americans from all walks of life, whether they realize it or not, have demonstrated a deep and abiding contempt for personal liberty, private property rights, and economic freedom.