Voice For Liberty

Tag: Free markets

  • We really don’t know what Kansas taxes should be — except lower

    Today’s edition of the Kansas Jackass blog has a post written by Jason Croucher that criticizes Americans For Prosperity because the group doesn’t like taxes.

    That’s not quite accurate, as Croucher himself says he doesn’t like paying taxes. Instead, the post seems to argue that we have to pay taxes because they’re there, and we don’t know whether they’re too high, and anyway, we can’t identify and agree on what is waste, so let’s just pay. Something like this, anyway. But there are a few problems with this post that deserve discussion.

    He likens paying his cable television bill to paying taxes. This analogy is false on several levels.

    First, subscribing to cable television is a voluntary act. A company offers a service, a person decides to buy, and therefore becomes a customer. The customer — and the company, too — can decide to sever the relationship whenever and for whatever reason the parties have agreed to.

    That’s not the way taxes work. There’s nothing voluntary about the relationship between state and taxpayer.

    Then he says that he doesn’t know whether his cable bill and taxes are too high — his emotions make him feel like they are — and how there’s no rational reason for thinking they should or could cost less.

    As it turns out, there is a rational reason why a cable bill is what it is: competition provided through markets. It hasn’t been this way until recently, but now you can get television service in several ways besides free over-the-air broadcasts: cable TV, satellite TV, and in many areas, TV provided by the telephone company. These three service providers compete with each other on the basis of price and service. (This doesn’t include services like hulu that show television programs over the Internet.)

    For most of the things that government does and taxes us to pay for, government is the sole source. Even for areas where there are alternatives, such as private schools, many people can’t afford to pay their taxes and private school tuition at the same time, so government is almost like the sole source. And even if a family decides not to use the government schools, they still have to pay the same taxes just as through they used them. Companies operating in markets can’t compel their customers to do that.

    Furthermore, competition provides a built-in incentive to control waste, something that Croucher seems to think is desirable to control in government, if we could come to agreement as to the definition of waste.

    In private industry, the profit and loss system provides a powerful incentive to control waste. At the minimum, being efficient while satisfying customer needs leads to greater profits. Its strongest incentive, however, is survival: those firms that are wasteful die.

    What happens to wasteful government programs? President Obama campaigned on ending wasteful earmarks, but signed a bill containing 8,500 such earmarks. He did say this is the “end to the old way of doing business,” but I don’t think anyone believes him. Or ask George Will about the mohair subsidy.

    The automatic pruning of inefficient or wasteful companies through markets and the profit and loss system saves consumers from having to do with a grocery store what Croucher wants us to do with Kansas government: come up with a list of “waste.”

    So government, as we see, is largely immune from the pressures of a marketplace. So Croucher is correct on one respect: we don’t know what our taxes should be.

    But we can be positive that they’re too high.

  • Another inept Kansas smoking analogy

    In today’s Wichita Eagle, Wichita busybody Charlie Claycomb makes another inept analogy in an attempt to press his anti-smoking agenda statewide.

    A while back he tried to compare a smoking section in a restaurant with a urinating section in a swimming pool. This is ridiculous to the extreme, as I show in the post It’s Not the Same as Pee In the Swimming Pool.

    Now in today’s letter in the Eagle, Claycomb says that although the United States Constitution gives us the right to bear arms, since that right is heavily regulated, government has license to regulate smoking, as smoking isn’t mentioned at all in the Constitution.

    Here’s why this is another ridiculous analogy (without conceding the regulations on arms are justified or effective): A person in, say, a bar that’s carrying a gun can’t be detected as you enter the bar. You just can’t tell upon entering an establishment whether someone has a concealed gun and intends to cause harm to patrons. This is the case even if there’s a law prohibiting carrying guns into bars, and even if the bar has a “no guns” sign.

    But you sure can tell if people are smoking.

    Smoking ban supporters might argue that since there may be smoking in some establishments, my rights are being infringed since I can’t patronize those places without exposing myself to harmful smoke.

    That’s true. But there’s definitely no right in the Constitution to be able to go everywhere you want on your own terms.

    By the way, did you know that Claycomb is treasurer for Wichita city council candidate Janet Miller? Expect more nonsense like this if she is elected.

    “Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.” — John Stuart Mill

    “Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions.” — Milton Friedman

  • Kansas minimum wage on Kansas Week

    Bob Weeks discusses the Kansas minimum wage on the KPTS public affairs television program Kansas Week, February 13, 2009.

  • Some misunderstand what they criticize …

    But it doesn’t stop them.

    Over at the Kansas Jackass blog, it appears there’s been a discussion about libertarianism and how it doesn’t work. I think however, that the Jackass and some of his sycophants are misinformed about a few things.

    Here’s something the Jackass wrote: “The Libertarian views the world like nature. If a lion eats a zebra, we shouldn’t interfere because that’s the way of nature.”

    This illustrates the Jackass’s lack of knowledge about being a libertarian, for one of the most important things about libertarianism is the nonaggression axiom. Quoting from Rothbard in chapter 2 of For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto

    The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else.

    I would suggest that a lion eating a zebra is an act of aggression. Libertarians are opposed to violence like this.

    The Jackass also said, referring to libertarians, that he’s concerned about “the human affects of their philosophy.” But what is less human than government? As Rothbard says, from the same chapter:

    While opposing any and all private or group aggression against the rights of person and property, the libertarian sees that throughout history and into the present day, there has been one central, dominant, and overriding aggressor upon all of these rights: the State. In contrast to all other thinkers, left, right, or in-between, the libertarian refuses to give the State the moral sanction to commit actions that almost everyone agrees would be immoral, illegal, and criminal if committed by any person or group in society. The libertarian, in short, insists on applying the general moral law to everyone, and makes no special exemptions for any person or group.

    For good measure, the Jackass throws in the “we’re in this together” argument. He asks “What affect would the application of my theory have on the average person?”

    The answer is we wouldn’t be suffering under an oppressive government using paternalistic arguments to maintain its sense of necessity. Rothbard again:

    In recent decades, as the divine sanction has worn a bit threadbare, the emperor’s “court intellectuals” have spun ever more sophisticated apologia: informing the public that what the government does is for the “common good” and the “public welfare,” that the process of taxation-and-spending works through the mysterious process of the “multiplier” to keep the economy on an even keel, and that, in any case, a wide variety of governmental “services” could not possibly be performed by citizens acting voluntarily on the market or in society. All of this the libertarian denies: he sees the various apologia as fraudulent means of obtaining public support for the State’s rule, and he insists that whatever services the government actually performs could be supplied far more efficiently and far more morally by private and cooperative enterprise.

    How, may I ask, is reliance on the coercive force of government “human?”

  • Kansas minimum wage

    A group in Kansas is pressing for raising the state minimum wage. Will raising it help or harm low-wage earners? And are the policy goals — taken in their entirety — of the groups pressing for a higher minimum wage in the best interest of workers?

    The great appeal of a higher minimum wage mandated by an act of the legislature is that it seems like a wonderfully magical way to increase the wellbeing of low-wage workers. Those who were earning less than the new lawful wage and keep their jobs after the increase are happy. They are grateful to the lawmakers, labor leaders, newspaper editorialists, and others who pleaded for the higher minimum wage. News stories will report their good fortune.

    That’s the visible effect of raising the minimum wage. But to understand the entire issue, we must look for the unseen effects.

    The not-so-visible effect of the higher wage law is that demand for labor will be reduced. Those workers whose productivity, as measured by the give and take of supply and demand, lies below the new lawful wage rate are in danger of losing their jobs. The minimum wage law says if you hire someone you must pay them a certain amount. The law can’t compel you to hire someone, nor can it compel employers to keep workers on the payroll.

    The difficulty is that people with lose their jobs in dribs and drabs. A few workers here; a few there. They may not know who is to blame. Newspaper and television reporters will not seek these people, as they are largely invisible, especially so in the case of the people who are not hired because of the higher wage law.

    If we are truly concerned about the plight of low-wage workers we can face some harsh realities and deal with them openly. The simple fact is that some people are not able to produce output that our economy values very much. They are not very productive. Passing a law that requires employers to pay them more doesn’t change the fact that their productivity is low. But there are ways to increase productivity.

    One way to increase workers’ productivity is through education. Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that our public education system is failing badly.

    Capital — another way to increase wages — may be a dirty word to some. But as the economist Walter E. Williams says, ask yourself this question: who earns the higher wage: a man digging a ditch with a shovel, or a man digging a ditch using a power backhoe? The difference between the two is that the man with the backhoe is more productive. That productivity is provided by capital — the savings that someone accumulated (instead of spending on immediate consumption or taxes) and invested in a piece of equipment that increased the output of workers and our economy.

    Education and capital accumulation are the two best ways to increase the productivity and the wages of workers. Ironically, the people who are most vocal about raising wages through legislative fiat are also usually opposed to meaningful education reform and school choice, insisting on more resources being poured into the present system. They also usually support higher taxes on both individuals and business, which makes it harder to accumulate capital. These organizations should examine the effects of the policies they promote, as they are not in alignment with their stated goals.

  • Activist Training to be Held in Wichita

    On Saturday February 28, American Majority and Americans For Prosperity will hold Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS. Here’s more information from American Majority:

    The training will be hosted by American Majority and AFP — Kansas, who will be presenting exclusive training to enable common citizens to make a difference in their communities by using tools of information, resources, and by networking with other like-minded individuals and organizations.

    The training will be hosted at the Wichita AFP office at 800 E. 1st Street, Ste. 401 in historic Old Town in Wichita, KS.

    Presentations that will be offered include:

    • Building Coalitions, Reaching Your Community, and Organizing Meaningful Events
    • Holding Your Elected Officials Accountable
    • Getting Involved in State and Local Political Campaigns
    • New Media: Op-Eds, Blogs, Wikipedia Projects and more

    Breakfast and lunch will be served and the cost for each attendee is $10.00.

    Learn more about this event and register at this link: Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS

  • Activist Training to be Held in Wichita

    On Saturday February 28, American Majority and Americans For Prosperity will hold Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS. Here’s more information from American Majority:

    The training will be hosted by American Majority and AFP — Kansas, who will be presenting exclusive training to enable common citizens to make a difference in their communities by using tools of information, resources, and by networking with other like-minded individuals and organizations.

    The training will be hosted at the Wichita AFP office at 800 E. 1st Street, Ste. 401 in historic Old Town in Wichita, KS.

    Presentations that will be offered include:

    • Building Coalitions, Reaching Your Community, and Organizing Meaningful Events
    • Holding Your Elected Officials Accountable
    • Getting Involved in State and Local Political Campaigns
    • New Media: Op-Eds, Blogs, Wikipedia Projects and more

    Breakfast and lunch will be served and the cost for each attendee is $10.00.

    Learn more about this event and register at this link: Special Joint Activist Training In Wichita, KS

  • Leave the New Deal in the history books

    Saturday’s Wall Street Journal contains an editorial (Leave the New Deal in the History Books) that contains a summary of the effect of the New Deal:

    President Roosevelt came to office much as Barack Obama will, shouldering an economic crisis that began under his predecessor. In 1933, Roosevelt’s first year, unemployment hit nearly 25%, as people lost jobs and homes in towns across the country. Believing that government played a key role in restarting growth, FDR, within his first 100 days as president, created an alphabet soup of new agencies that mandated actions or controlled public spending and impacted private capital flow within the U.S. economy.

    At first, it seemed to be working. After four years of FDR’s policies, joblessness declined to 14.3% — still very high but heading in the right direction. Then things turned for worse again: By the fall of 1937, the U.S. entered a secondary depression and unemployment began to rise, reaching 19% in 1938.

    By 1939 Roosevelt’s own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had realized that the New Deal economic policies had failed. “We have tried spending money,” Morgenthau wrote in his diary. “We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. … After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!”

    Mark Levey, the author of this editorial, argues that New Deal spending programs and higher taxes prolonged the Great Depression. Government “work” programs don’t work.

    What should we do? Mr. Levey says: “The quickest way to strengthen the credit system and begin the end of this crisis is to get money into the economy for true job creation, and not into government work programs. The way to do this is to slash taxes. … Capital flows would be in the hands of those who are driven to build businesses and permanent jobs efficiently instead of pushing that capital through a government pipeline with endless amounts of friction.”

  • The bailout reader

    The events taking place in the financial market offer an illustration of the soundness of the Austrian theory of money, banking, and credit cycles, and Mises.org, which has long warned of precisely the scenario playing itself out today, is your source not only for analysis of these events but also the economic theory that helps explain what is happening and what to do about it. There are many thousands of articles available, and also the full text of thousands of books as well as journal articles.

    The Bailout Reader at the Ludwig von Mises Institute continues to be the best place to learn about the economics behind the current crisis.