Flutterby™! : On becoming less libertarian 2008-02-14 18:34:03.824962+00

On becoming less libertarian

2008-02-14 18:34:03.824962+00 by Dan Lyke 30 comments

I've mentioned that my libertarian leanings have been tempered of late, but I had it tossed back in my face a bit yesterday, and figured maybe I'd do a little musing on it. This MeFi thread points to a collection of un-sourced anecdotes called Mythbusting Canadian Health Care. I hear the argument, I've also known various Canadian doctors and nurses who've come down to the U.S. to practice, and the well-off Canadian politician who preaches the superiority of their system until they have something major go wrong and they have to sneak across the border to the U.S. is so common that it's cliché

So I don't want to talk about ~~socialized medicine~~ "single payer" health care. Instead it was the self-realization when I read "blenderfish" pointing out:

You are perfectly free to give your income that isn't taxed to people who need medical care, without the government's help. But that's not what you want; you want guys with guns to force me to pay, too.

Of course what follows is the usual "if you want no government you could move to Rwanda" canards. Blenderfish is right, of course, that's what taxes are, but the ensuing discussion got me to wondering when I stopped viewing removing violence from human interactions as a good thing? Heck, nowadays I'm almost a proponent of single payer health care, I acknowledge that the implementation of it is a matter of threatening violence, and like the kid who won't tell on his shoplifting buddies because he wants to fit in, preaching non-violence is no longer worth the struggle.

I guess that I've come around to see that threats against our neighbors is the natural order of things, and that it's a matter of compromising to build coalitions so that my side has the ability to kick the ass of your side, which, frankly, makes me sound more Neo-Con than Democrat, I just wish we'd get our rhetoric in-line with our actions so that our response to the idealistic youth isn't this patronizing "you'll temper your views when you grow up" bullshit. When you grow a little older you'll realize that you can't win alone, and you'll have to lie to build coalitions, and that's just the way it is.

So, Blenderfish, back when I was a teenager I airbrushed a T-shirt for my grandfather that said "Old age and treachery beat youth and skill, every time". It's true, and all that crap you were told as a child about peace and harmony is mostly a way to keep your youthful energy from being a threat. C'mon over to the dark side, it's the way of the world.

I expect it within two years. The problem is that we do not have a free market. We do not have a completely socialized market, but somewhere in between. The providers and the government have gotten it so messed up that its so expensive no one can afford it, whether its me directly or an insurance company.

Were we to go to a free market we would see costs drop by 90% so that an MRI would run $99 (today only!) and be everywhere instead of $3500 and hard to get to.

Its like cars in India. At one time their government controlled all car production and they were bad cars and overpriced. If doctors built cars they would be $750,000 per copy.

What is the issue? "Certificates of need" It requires like around 100 approvals before you can open an MRI facility or any other medical thing.

This all began in the 1970s when insurance was around $26 per month for full coverage for a male age 29 becuase cost of care was low. Then the government began requiring certain coverages like alchoholism and such, and then Carter put in a law which reduced the number of Dr's in Med school and required all the Certificates under the theory that fewer facilites would result in each facility having more business and hence lower costs per patient which any economist knows is backwards.

I understand why it would seem single payer would be better when it costs $8000 to walk into an emergency room. I want a solution too and can not afford the one they provide now. The problem is we are asking for more government interference to correct all the prior government interference which will not work.

But single payor is coming; the socialist Obabma is coming and that will be just the start. Once we get single payor they will begin to curb costs like Canada (one MRI for all of Toronto?) and ration by need instead of price. Just now you can not get a knee operation in England if you are over a certain age. And so forth. So pick your poison. The medical system will collapse along with the republic before it starts to get better. Atlas will Shrug and we will feel apathetic and wish for the good old days of freemarket health care, someday.

Rand wrote that in a mixed economy it is not always easy to know what is the right and moral thing to do. Here is a good example. Are you asking to use force? More likely you are asking them to stop using force but they have guns and we do not so we have to try and get by, neither sacrificing ourselves but never failing to object when its safe to do so.

I think the reason single payer is the only solution is that we provide health care to the indigent. When health care is a "right" (and it's hard to draw the line with triage decisions in emergency situations), then preventive care is an economic necessity. The problem is that health care spending can eat up as much as people are willing to give it, modern technology means we can keep a body alive almost indefinitely, so the social definition of "need" is going to get very very complex. At some point we'll wish we were back to economic definitions of need.

And, of course, all of your points about the artificial scarcity of doctors and facilities and the stranglehold that ~~their union~~ the AMA has on medicine, too.

Back to the notion of government intervention in free enterprise... there's currently a big push to keep "big box" stores out of Petaluma, with all of the expected hollering on either side, and as someone with a stake (I'm reluctant to use the term "property owner" while the bank has the majority...) in this town I find myself very sympathetic to the "against" arguments. On the surface that puts me definitely in the "not free enterprise" camp, and I'm not sure where the arguments lie once you actually untangle the various subsidies and advantages of one side over the other, so it comes down to "protect my turf, keep the cheap bastards out".

Hmmm...but why not form a coalition to prevent anyone from kicking anyone else's ass? What makes you think that once the violence you want to exercise has become socially accepted (socialized medicine, zoning laws) that it will only be used as a force for good by the guys on your side?

Because I've become convinced that there's no way to build a coalition that large, and because at some point almost everyone has a breaking point at which point they'll threaten violence in order to get their way. Even if the person is starving because of their own failures, at some point they'll steal to eat.

#Comment Is the ability to keep out Home Depot worth $200 K to you? made: 2008-02-14 21:42:20.122144+00 by: crasch [edit history]

Building in most California cities are similarly heavily regulated. The regulatory violence you want to take advantage of probably raised the cost of your house $200 K.

Is it worth the extra years it took you to earn that money?

Even if the person is starving because of their own failures, at some point they'll steal to eat.

Okay, I agree with this. But a) starvation doesn't seem to be a problem for most Americans (in fact, the opposite is the case) b) if food costs are a concern, then why not get rid of the farm subsidies to ADM. (Subsidies, which, I note, are the result of previous so-called do-gooders trying to help small-time farmers.)

#Comment Re: made: 2008-02-14 21:50:10.168547+00 by: crasch [edit history]

Because I've become convinced that there's no way to build a coalition that large...

What convinced you of this? To me, it sounds like a peasant in the Middle Ages lamenting that since he can see no alternative to monarchy, the best course of action is to became a vassal to the strongest lord.

Whereas, I think that even if we cannot see an immediate alternative to our current system, we should not give up and embrace the evil that we once opposed.

crasch, yeah, actually, it is worth about $200k. We had our options about where to live, and when we ran the numbers we figured we were paying pretty close to that as a premium for living in Petaluma (rather than, say, various places in the East Bay).

The follow-on question is "is a Home Depot worth $200k to me", because if I let Home Depot in, the value of my house drops by that much. So now that I'm here, damned straight I want to keep the big box stores out.

The tough part about this is, for reasons we've all gone into, that after a somewhere around a person per square mile population density, human habitation is an act of violence, by necessity the act of living imposes on other humans. It has benefits, too, but it removes choices. What a neighbor does to "their" property directly impacts mine, so restricting development is a matter of holding that additional land communally so that we enjoy the benefits of the lower population density.

On Americans starving, the problem is that "starving" is a continuum. Threat of death becomes threat of discomfort becomes... Some of this is culturally imposed, humans do value peer approval more than life, but I have to find in those people an alliance with which to have the threat of violence on my side.

I totally want to get rid of farm subsidies to ADM. Heck, I want to cut back on social services spending and do all sorts of other things, but the portion of the population that uses those things has quite the potential for violence, so I need to pick and choose my battles wisely.

To go back to the "why don't you move to Rwanda" example above, Rwanda is clearly also an example of violence and threat of violence, the U.S. is just a more stable set of factions so there's less actual violence. But remove the threat, and Rwanda can overrun us.

And to your (quite valid) middle ages point: It took a critical mass of people, quite a lot of blood, and centuries (or longer) to change that situation. I'm happy to work incrementally towards change, but I'm most interested in what changes I can actually reasonably effect in my lifetime. The levels of government waste versus services received for my taxes don't actually make lower taxes much of a priority for me, whereas issues of specific sorts of individual freedoms do matter to me.

Dan has a really significant point. Too many people who claim to be libertarians are simply those who never got over the shock of looking at the tax deductions from their first paycheck.

There is a lot more to the philosophy than dollarism. Having worked in government, and having had significant dealings with large corporations, I can state that they tend to have similar structures and suffer from much the same ills. Waste annoy you? Does me too. But I used to have a lot of laughs listening to people who complained about the lazy, inept, useless road crews with 10 laborers standing around watching one work. The kicker of course, was that the construction crews were not government workers, but rather the employees of private corporate contractors.

The issues that objectivism brings to the fore are really those of the freedom of the individual. Economic freedom is only one of many.An old friend from Texas who claims to be a libertarian conservative believes that Texas has the right to ban sex toys (even though he doesn't think they should). A libertarian viewpoint would require that Texas would have to demonstrate that the use of a vibrator by an individual would have serious deleterious effects on society as a whole before such a law could be passed. Not just that a majority didn't think they were "nice".

In short, government as servant, not government as master. Great difficulties abound because of the wide range of human behaviors and perceptions, but a return to the core belief that leaders serve rather than rule would improve life a lot. Unlikely as it is to occur.

Interesting follow-up to the $200k for a Home Depot thinking: That implies that a Home Depot and/or a Wal*Mart would cost the residents of this town hundreds of millions of dollars (in lost property values). I need to read that UW study, because when you cast it like that it's a pretty compelling argument for more land use restrictions, at least to the point where the inflated housing prices start to cost the economy rather than benefiting it...

There are many really good arguments for land use restrictions. But, I'll address the arguments for via the arguments against:

It's very similar to the line I see drawn between people pursuing just an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree. It's pretty well established that getting a PhD results in a net economic loss for the individual that can never be recovered (lost years working in high-paying jobs). One must feel very comfortable in their economic situation (i.e., privilege) in order to accept that loss and pursue a PhD. There are very, very few minorities among the ranks of graduate students because, simply, they get their BS and get out.

Accepting land-use restrictions involves accepting the value of rules imposed universally so the entire community benefits. People who see this value are willing to pay $200K more for a house in such a community. But it takes a significant degree of economic comfort (i.e., privilege) to accept that $200K surcharge.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-02-15 14:45:47.760879+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

Ziffle, I'm open to that argument, but the other side is that absolute property rights lead to monarchies. If the ancestor of the current monarchs claimed the land, and when they allowed others to live on it put restrictions on it, then as long as they allow free travel off of that land then isn't that simply property rights writ large?

And when I purchased this house, I purchased it with the knowledge that the land use restrictions in the area were in place and with the knowledge that the rules can be changed. If I consent to that, then I'm just purchasing some portion of the land use rights, the same way that someone may purchase mineral rights, and if I don't consent to that, then I didn't have to buy the land.

Further, let's face it, however you chase the deeds back to his land grant from Spain, it's hard to make a good case that General Vallejo should have gotten free and clear title here.

Eric, I think it's not strictly true that the entire community benefits, because I think that by Chris and Ziffle's argument the individuals who have the land on which the aforementioned big box stores want to build are unable to develop that property as they wish.

Ignoring arguments about what the real tax breaks for Wal*Mart and the like are, and issues of developing ancillary infrastructure with local dollars and so forth (we've got some interesting land use issues going on with "indian" casinos, the locals have no authority to tax, but they also have no incentive to widen access roads...), the issue breaks down to two things:

Finally (well, not really, because I am actually conflicted about this I really hope that this is one of those threads that goes to 40 messages or so), when Charlene and I were casting about for where we really wanted to live, in order to commit to a place, we looked around the country and came up with the SF Bay Area and Seattle. So to go to the Libertarian paradigm, it's going to take a developer buying up a huge area somewhere and putting those land use restrictions in place, and then creating the sorts of social freedoms one finds in Seattle and SF, to create that much value elsewhere.

Its so hard to know sometimes what is the right thing to do because there is no way to be moral (e.g. make a rational choice( when one is dealing with a mixed or managed economy.

I am a little taken back that $400,000 for a 1200 sq ft house is rational - maybe I need to live there. And I do not see why a Walmart would lower the resale value unless you bought right on a main highway and then that might be an error in judgement one could talk about.

Looks like you bought in a very white area. If blacks start moving in what will you do? Vote them out?

The answer is of course that you have a right to block Walmart - its called 'deed restrictions' and its been used for eons. Deed restrictions can not be arbitrarily changed like zoning and you must agree to the change. This is the right way to enforce restrictions not government action. One, its voluntary and two no one can change it.

Houston TX has no zoning only deed restrictions. It works. Better. Deveopers don't like it because they must satisfy every single owner to buy them out, not like zoning where they can work on a few elected officials.

So if I was caught in the vortex of zoning, California and Walmart I might fight it too, but it does not mean there is a conflict between my principles - only that I am forced to decide - like the band in the concentration camp - play and deny the truth or die ? I guess i'd play. Morality is chosen. No ability to freely choose, no way to be moral, really.

Regarding hundreds of dollars per square foot and a quarter million bucks for an address: ~~Yeah, I have my doubts too, but...~~ no, wait, I live here. Yeah, you'd have to live out here to understand. Giggle.

In a white versus black neighborhood, I think of it as more of a rich versus poor neighborhood, and on that front I'm going to do everything I can to keep property values high. We had neighbors of color out in Lagunitas, they were nice folks, their presence in the neighborhood never once made me think about locking our doors or the bike shed, but I'm guessing from what I knew of their circumstances that their economic status far exceeded mine.

However, you didn't ask that question about the specifics, you asked it about the principles of the matter, and to that end, I'm not sure what I'd do if someone bought a few houses down the road in order to raze them and put in apartments. Seems like I should sit down and learn a bit more about the zoning and planning process here...

No, we're in a neighborhood, a Wal*Mart wouldn't have an effect on any traffic I deal with, it would just bring more poor people into town (rather than diverting them up to Rohnert Park), have the usual depressing effect on wages, and remove the competitive advantage that the more boutique-ish stores of our downtown have right now.

Hmmm.... Dan, google maps shows Home Depot 3.1mi from your home, 3 or 4 thrift stores within 5mi, and an outlet mall (granted, an "upscale" outlet mall) about 2.5mi away. KFC, McDonalds, Wendys, a few 7-11s, Albertsons, Safeway, Rite-Aid, Long's, etc are within a coupla miles too. Those folks don't pay premium wages, nor are some frequented by rich folks..... so methinks there's a reasonable amount of poor folks in the 'hood.

Wiki demographics show Rohnert Park has a median income about $10k less than Petaluma but those at or below the poverty level are dang close.

I dunno. I'd have to look pretty hard to see what my $200K housing difference is buying in Petaluma vs Rohnert Park.

Topspin, for some reason I've no issue with thrift stores, but then our options included San Anselmo and Fairfax, both of which have thrift stores. And the "Home Depot" across the river (and we considered and discarded east of the river for reasons of neighborhood quality) is a "Home Depot Yardbirds", a showroom for particle board kitchens, not a full-on Home Depot.

But you have pointed out that it probably isn't the money, or the money is likely only loosely correlated to something else that's actually what we're looking for. After all we had the option of buying in Fairfax, which would have put the median income of our neighbors at more, or Novato, which also would have been similar. In fact, one of the things I like about this town is that there are sources for industrial components fairly close by.

What do you want to bet that those fast food joints are frequented by service workers working in Petaluma? And beware of linear distances in Google Maps. Demographics aren't Euclidean.

Moab, Utah, has been trying to deal with the Wal*Mart issue. Their answer seems to be to put the Mall*Wart out on a bypass highway. If you've ever been to Moab, you know it sorely needs a bypass to get the big rigs out of the touristy down-town. And the touristy down-town is mostly made up of seasonal specialty shops targeting the out-door and 4x4 crowd.

The biggest concern for Moab is that it's surrounded by dozens of places that would just love to have a Wal*Mart. Ever been to Green River? It's that place everyone has to stop at for gas because there's nothing for the next 120 miles except for some grueling highway. I'm sure they'd love a Wal*Mart.

Boulder has no Wal*Marts. There is a Target - the older, smaller variety. But Longmont - twelve miles away - has two Wal*Marts, a Super Target and a K-Mart. Not to mention a Lowe's and a Home Depot. The City of Boulder already has a strong enough tax-base from private property to let the Wal*Marts go elsewhere and the local shops, like Moab, have a seasonal, touristy twist to them unless they focus on either the outdoor Yuppie crowd or the college students.

Dan, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the "house is an expense, but the community is an asset" concept, I think. You seem to be okay with having to pump money into the house continuously to lessen/avoid depreciation, but you've pumped significant money into the community ALREADY on the front end and will CONTINUE to have to pump money into the community to somehow attempt to "defend" it from depreciating.

From my point of view, putting money into my home to help avoid my property value dropping makes sense because I can have a large amount of control over that investment, but paying almost double as a premium for a home to get the right neighborhood doesn't seem to be a good investment. Your premium helps keep the community closed to those without the assets to pay double and hopefully selects a certain type of neighbor and I suppose it helps keep Petaluma's tax base high, but that alone won't sustain a community without growth either in land development for commerce, industry, or homes. The attitudes and beliefs of the future home buyers are totally out of your control and the future development is largely out of your control, even with the greatest restrictions, and it seems you've invested almost half the price of your home in a way in which you can't have major control over the appreciation/depreciation of that investment.

Topspin, I guess I don't understand the question. When I buy a car, undeniably an expense, I change the oil and do regular maintenance, despite the possibilities for accident or other unforeseen destruction.

Why should attempting to maintain the quality of a neighborhood be any different than changing the oil?

It's the large investment in the 'hood vs the control over the changes in the 'hood that seem risky to me.

I don't buy a Rolls when I look at cars because of the premium attached to that car. I'm sure a Rolls is a good car, perhaps even an investment, but I don't control the environment well enough around my car to make the large premium worth it to me. I'd see a 1/4 premium for a home, but almost 1/2 seems a bit much.... but that's easily a CA vs TN thing, I think.

A 250k premium here would definitely put me in a 'hood I'd rather not live in and most of the time, to me, my home's only a bed, some boxes, and a boo..... so I, and most of the folks in TN, are a few of those folks y'all're paying to avoid. Giggle.

Yeah, I think as Eric realized back in the final days of the .com boom when he came out here to visit and remarked "I recognize the currency, but I can't figure out the exchange rate", everything in California happens at 2-3x Chattanooga prices, If you divide the house price by 3 and our income by 3, you're probably in the ballpark for what living would involve in 'nooga.

1945 sq ft; extremly large garage under the house; 40' by 14' in ground swimming pool with complete privacy; mountain valley view from kitchen; two story ceiling in living room; 3 bed 2.5 baths; fireplace; privacy lot; and obligatory hot tub $163k

and its mostly wired with cat5e and rj45's (for data and phone lines) cause I don't like wireless - in the basement I put a Panasonic KxT616 pbx

Yeah, my parents just got 2k square feet (which my sister, who procured it for them, described as "so finished that they won't have any excuse to do house projects") plus a 2k sq.ft. unfinished basement, on a huge lot with a swimmable/fishable/rowboatable pond, a something like 30x50 foot pole barn for a workshop (what doesn't fit in the basement...), and some tens of kilowatts of automatically switched backup generator, near Toledo Ohio, for sub $200k.