The Human Prospect

Ernest Partridge

November 1, 2012

This essay is essentially a brief version of "A Dim View of Libertarianism," 
a six-part series of essays at this site. 

The prospects for future generations are bleak, as long as the dominant economic and political ideologies of the industrial world prevail. These ideologies are systematically individualistic, anti-social, and short-sighted regarding consequences for the future. This bundle of ideologies, which we will refer to as “libertarianism,” dismisses the physical and environmental crises facing humanity, insisting that economic incentives and individual human ingenuity (Julian Simon’s “ultimate resource”¹) combined with the privatization of economic resources will suffice to solve these global problems without collective government “interference.”

These crises are well-known, but rarely fully appreciated. So a reiteration might be in order. "Peak oil," the permanent reduction of petroleum production, is upon us, and there is no reasonable prospect that new energy sources will pick up the slack soon enough. And yet high-energy use agriculture is essential if seven billion plus and growing human beings on this planet are to be fed. And then there is climate change. In about forty years (and probably sooner) the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in the summer, and the resulting increase in ocean temperature will accelerate the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, which, in turn, may cause the sea levels will rise from twenty to thirty meters. If so, then New York, Miami, Hamburg, London, St. Petersburg, and hundreds of other coastal cities will have to be evacuated along with entire island nations and half of Bangladesh. Global warming and ocean acidification is causing the destruction of coral reefs, which sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the reduction of phytoplankton, the base of the oceanic food pyramid and the source of half of the atmospheric oxygen upon which all terrestrial life depends.²

As I will endeavor to demonstrate in this essay, libertarian doctrine is ill-equipped to deal with these emergencies. In league with the coal and oil industries, it resists research, development and implementation of sustainable energy sources, it denies the very existence of human-caused global climate change, it sanctions the ravaging of the natural environment, and it forbids collective national and international institutional responses to these crises. Accordingly, if libertarian doctrine is allowed to continue to dominate US politics and the international economic order, it will devastate the future.

At the outset, I should point out that many self-described libertarians espouse principles that are endorsed by freedom-loving individuals worldwide, this writer included. With John Stuart Mill, they proclaim that “over himself, over his own mind body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”³ Thus they oppose government restrictions on free-speech, the press, religion, association, drug use, sexual behavior, etc. In short, along with most Americans, libertarians endorse the personal freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Governments, they insist, exist to protect the personal rights to life, liberty and property. Not very controversial.

The controversy arises in the further insistence by the libertarians that the protection of life, liberty and property, the so-called “negative rights,” is the only legitimate function of government. Regarding economic activity, what Robert Nozick dubs “capitalistic acts between consenting adults,” government has no place. Neither is government entitled to promote “social benefits,” least of all with funds obtained through taxation.

I will contend that libertarianism beliefs, as enumerated below, are dogmas, accepted on faith and unsupported by empirical and historical evidence, practical experience, or sound argument, relying instead on anecdote and repetition. There are compelling reasons, founded on solid empirical evidence and readily recognized by ordinary experience, to reject these dogmas. Furthermore, for the sake of future generations, it is essential that these dogmas be rejected. They are the dragons at the gateway to the future that must be slain of we are to leave a worthy legacy to our successors

These are bold claims. So that I will not be accused in turn of dogmatism, I will in this essay offer evidence and argument in their defense.

This essay will focus on economic libertarianism and privatism, both of which, I will argue, put the fate of future generations in great jeopardy.


THE DOGMAS:

Social Atomism and Privatism. Libertarianism is a radically individualistic doctrine. The optimal libertarian social order is an aggregate of individuals in voluntary association, privately optimizing their personal satisfactions and secure in their "natural rights" to life, liberty and property. In fact, libertarians dismiss the very concepts of "society" and "the public." As Margaret Thatcher famously remarked, "there is no such thing as 'society', there are individuals and there are families,"⁴ and Ayn Rand proclaimed, "there is no such entity as 'the public.'"⁵  Lest these stark pronouncements be dismissed as fringe opinions, consider in addition the following observation of David Boaz of the Cato Institute:

For libertarians, the basic unit of social analysis is the individual.... . Groups don’t have plans or intentions. Only individuals are capable of choice... [At] the conceptual level, we must understand that society is composed of individuals. It has no independent existence.⁶

The implications of Social Atomism are radical in the extreme, for if there is no such thing as “a public,” it follows that there are no “public goods” or “public interest,” apart from summation of private goods and interests. Moreover, if there is no society, it follows that there are no “social problems,” there is no “social injustice,” and there are no “victims of society.” Since there is no such thing as a “public,” taxation for the support of such so-called “public” institutions as education, libraries, the arts, parks and recreation, is coercive seizure of private property, or “theft.”

Spontaneous Order. “The great insight of libertarian social analysis,” writes David Boaz, “is that order in society arises spontaneously, out of actions of thousands or millions of individuals who coordinate their actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes.”⁷  Because an orderly society arises “spontaneously” out of the free associations and activities of individuals, without the support, investment or coordination of any overarching institutions (e.g., governments), a well-ordered society is a “free gift,” for which nothing is owed (e.g., in taxes ) by the component individuals for its maintenance.

Market Fundamentalism. “The wisdom of the market place” – prices that arise out of the numerous free transactions between autonomous individuals – will always exceed the “wisdom” of regulated markets, controlled and coordinated by superordinate (namely government) agencies. Milton and Rose Friedman clearly enunciate this central dogma of libertarianism:  "A free market [co-ordinates] the activity of millions of people, each seeking his own interest, in such a way as to make everyone better off... Economic order can emerge as the unintended consequence of the actions of many people, each seeking his own interest."

In the phrase “the activity of millions of people, each seeking his own interest...” we see the concept of Social Atomism at work. And in the clause, “economic order can emerge as the unintended consequence...” we find a reiteration of the concept of spontaneous order.⁸

Minimal Government. Libertarians fully endorse Ronald Reagan’s pronouncement at his first inaugural address: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Government has no function other than to protect and secure each individual’s natural and inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. Any additional functions of government, for example public education, public parks, museums, support for the arts, scientific research, welfare payments, foreign aid, are illegitimate, and taxes levied to support these functions constitute theft of private property.

Privatization and the Repudiation of “the Commons.” Public accommodations such as schools, parks, and physical infrastructure are managed better, and the natural environment is better protected, under private ownership.

Accordingly, the libertarians contend that all environmental problems derive from common ownership of such natural resources as pasturage, fisheries, and even air, water and wildlife. The solution? Privatization of all such resources. Does this sound extreme? Consider the following from Robert J. Smith (my emphases):

“The problems of environmental degradation, pollution, overexploitation of natural resources, and depletion of wildlife all derive from their being treated as common property resources. Whenever we find an approach to the extension of private property rights in these areas, we find superior results.”⁹

"All," "whenever" -- no qualifications evident here.

The environmental devastation in the former communist countries, the libertarians argue, proves the rule: that which is the property of everyone (i.e., the state) is the responsibility of no one. In contrast, they argue, resources will be best protected when the costs of environmental degradation fall upon the property owner. Accordingly, when the environment and its resources are privately owned, there is no need to urge the owners to practice "good ecological citizenship" for abstract altruistic reasons or through the threat of government sanctions. Instead, the libertarian believes, self interest and economic incentives will suffice to motivate the property owner to maximize the long-term value of his property.

Thus in the United States today, we find that public assets and institutions such as roads, bridges, prisons and schools are being privatized. Even much of the military is being “contracted” to private corporations.

Neo-Classical Economic Theory. Libertarianism is the policy extension of neo-classical economics, which describes with elaborate mathematical modeling the behavior of a hypothetical individual (“economic man”) in an hypothetical environment (“the perfect market”). “Economic man” is fundamentally an egoist, exclusively motivated to maximize his satisfactions (“utilities”) in his economic transactions. “The perfect market” is characterized, in part, by these properties: perfect information, no transaction costs, many participants who never collude (“perfect competition”), no externalities, and finally, of course, all participants are “economic men.”


A MASTER MORALITY

If libertarian dogma is, as I claim, extreme and as unfounded on historical evidence and practical experience, how are we to explain its apparent success in the United States, and beyond in the industrial world?

Quite simply the success of libertarianism derives from the fact that it serves the interests of powerful and wealthy individuals and multi-national corporations, who promote it lavishly with publications, think-tanks, endowed university chairs and corporate mass-media.

Libertarianism is, to borrow Nietzsche’s label, a “master morality.”¹⁰  However, "master morality" predates Nietzsche and the libertarians, and in fact is as old as class structure in human society. Whenever a sovereign class claims and enforces its perceived "right" to rule over all others, that "right" is accompanied by an ideology that purports to justify the privileges and powers of the ruling class. Until the Eighteenth Century and the Age of Enlightenment, that justification was found in the doctrine of "the divine right of royalty" -- the claim that The Almighty Himself had bestowed upon royalty, the right to rule. That doctrine was followed by John Calvin's claim that an individual's wealth and power was "proof" of God's grace upon that person's eternal soul. Then came the "Social Darwinism" of the late Nineteenth Century, whereby wealth, power and privilege were regarded as the "natural" result of the survival in society of the "fittest" individuals and corporations. Libertarianism is but the latest of a long line of ideologies which, in John Kenneth Galbraith's words, "is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."


IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.

Clearly, libertarianism, as summarized above, is ill-suited to serve the interests of future generations. Its radical individualism forbids collection action, still less collective personal sacrifices, in behalf of the remote future. With its embrace of market fundamentalism and its roots in neo-classical economics, libertarianism clearly rests upon an economic foundation, and economics, especially of the neo-classical variety is systemically myopic. For example, the ruling motivation of businesses and corporations is return on investment to the stockholders. Indeed, in the United States, that objective is written into law: it is called “fiduciary responsibility.” Accordingly, the corporate officer who deliberately sets out to “serve humanity and the future” would find himself facing a lawsuit from the stockholders. And, according to the law, he would lose. Investors are typically not interested in having their investments yield returns centuries in the future, just within their lifetimes, and much sooner than that, if you please.

Economically based political systems such as libertarianism prefer to assess policies though cost-benefit analysis, which is to say, by monetizing values.¹¹ And money, as everyone knows, depreciates through time. This depreciation is called “the discount rate.” Thus, assuming an annual discount rate of 5% a dollar today is worth 95 cents in a year (present value), which is why banks must offer interest rates if their customers are to defer spending that dollar at time present. With the compounding of discount rates, cash value in the remote future soon decreases to insignificance. Place cash value on a human life (as insurance companies and law suits do), at an annual discount rate of 5% the value of a human life today is equal to two lives in fourteen years, one hundred and thirty-one lives in one hundred years, and more than a thousand lives in two-hundred years.¹²

Additional reasons to doubt the capacity of libertarianism to address the responsibility to future generations will become apparent as this essay proceeds.


CRITIQUE OF LIBERTARIANISM:


A Society is More Than the Sum of its Component Parts. In defense of the libertarian dogma of Social Atomism, Frank Chodorov writes:

Society is a collective concept and nothing else; it is a convenience for designating a number of people... Society disappears when the component parts disperse... When the individuals disappear so does the whole. The whole has no separate existence.¹³

Herein, Chodorov commits the elementary logical fallacy of equating necessary conditions with sufficient causes. True, “when individuals disappear so does the whole.” But it doesn’t follow that the whole is “nothing but” a random collection of the parts. Analogously, without notes there is no Beethoven Eroica symphony, and without words, there is no Hamlet. But the Eroica and Hamlet are more than a summation of their component parts. Those parts have been selected and organized by geniuses. Like chemical compounds with properties distinct from those of their component elements, the Eroica and Hamlet are what philosophers call “emergent entities” – wholes that are more than the sum of their component parts.

So too with societies and publics. If it can be determined that benefits to individuals (“each”) can result in harm to the whole (“all”), and vice versa, then we can clearly distinguish the components of society from the “emergent” society-entity. Examples of these rules -- “good for each, bad for all” and “bad for each, good for all” – are abundant in ordinary experience, and irrefutable. Here are two examples: antibiotics and traffic laws. It is well-known that the widespread use of antibiotics reduces the potency of these drugs by selecting surviving “super-germs.” Accordingly, casual use of an antibiotic for an inconvenient but non-threatening infection, while good for the individual patient, is bad for the population at large: good for each, bad for all. The solution, a public policy restricting the use of antibiotics to life-threatening illnesses: bad for each, good for all. Similarly, traffic laws (in particular, stop signs and traffic lights) restrict the freedom of each driver while facilitating the travel of all drivers. Libertarians who doubt this should try to drive in a large city during a power outage.¹⁴


Market Transactions Have Consequences for Non-Consenting Third Parties. Libertarians extol the unfailing benevolence of “the invisible hand of the market,” which spontaneously bestows its largess upon society, unplanned and automatically as ordinary citizens go about their business. But in so doing, they fail to acknowledge “the back of the invisible hand,” called “market failures,” which are routinely recognized and taught in introductory economics classes.

Prominent among these “market failures” are “negative externalities” – harm to the “third parties” to economic transactions, the “stakeholders,” who are impacted by these transactions without their informed consent. These include individuals residing downwind and downstream from polluting industries, taxpayers who must pay for the medical costs of others' smoking habits, citizens at risk of injury or death from toxic chemical releases, homeowners near airports, and most recently, the tax-paying public, present and future, that has been presented the bill for rescuing Wall Street bankers and investors.

In addition, there are harms to the “second parties” – the customers who are not informed of the consequences of their purchases. These include teen-agers induced to take up smoking, consumers of insufficiently tested drugs, etc. If the stockholders of a corporation are dissatisfied with the profit-making of the corporation, they can fire the managers, or sell their stock and invest it elsewhere. But who, other than the government, speaks for the third-party stakeholders and the swindled second parties? The costs to these innocent victims of “the free market” do not figure into the profit-maximizing plans of corporations, unless those costs are imposed by force of law and regulation or perhaps even outlawed. And this, of course, means a constraint upon “the free market” by the only agency that can legitimately act in behalf of these victims: the government.

I do not wish to suggest by this critique that all markets are useless or still worse, intrinsically evil. Markets can be very effective, efficient, and yes, moral means for distributing goods and services, and “maximizing utilities,” as the economists put it. Without question, many markets are worthwhile. Arguably most markets are. But not all markets. Markets are not, without exception and without constraint, the unfailing answer to all social needs.  Which is why no civilized society allows "free markets" in murder for hire or child pornography.  These and other malevolent activities are forbidden by law, which is to say, by governments.


“Spontaneous Order” is a Myth.  Aside from the police, the military and the courts, enacted to protect our natural rights to life, liberty and property, all social institutions, the libertarian assures us, will arise “spontaneously,” without government initiative or regulation, out of voluntary human interaction. As the libertarian, David Boaz writes:

... order in society arises spontaneously, out of the actions of thousands or millions of individuals who coordinate their actions with those of others in order to achieve their purposes... The most important institutions in human society – language, law, money and markets – all developed spontaneously, without central direction.¹⁵

While “spontaneous order” may be true of natural languages, Boaz's claim that law, money and markets arise "spontaneously" and thrive without deliberate governance, is resoundingly refuted by both history and practical experience. In fact, few if any complex human activities can take place without rules and the active enforcement thereof. For example, all team sports require referees. Even markets operate under sets of rules, and sanctions against those who violate these rules. And we are now, to our profound regret, discovering what happens when markets are allowed to function "spontaneously" without regulation.

Furthermore, the need for law may, as Thomas Hobbes argued, arise “spontaneously.” But most assuredly, the content of the law does not. The body of law is formulated and enacted in legislatures, and is then enforced by courts and the police – government agencies, all.


Government is an Indispensable Institution. Impatience and frustration with governments, by both businesses and ordinary citizens, is understandable. But it is also fundamentally irrational. That animosity is reflected in the sport fan’s shout, “kill the umpire!” But the fan fails to appreciate that the moment the umpires leave the field, the game is over, and nobody wins! This is true with every organized team sport, and as history demonstrates conclusively, it is true of all human societies that have attained a civilized condition. All complex human activities proceed according to rules, and rules can only operate effectively if there are sanctions against those who violate them. In civilized society the rules that apply to citizens and collective entities such as corporations are called "laws," and virtually all political ideologies endorse the concept of "the rule of law." But "the rule of law" is an empty letter without sanctions and enforcement. Hence governments.

The principle, “all complex human activities proceed according to rules” applies no less to markets, which cannot operate without rules and sanctions against fraud, collusion, embezzlement, etc. And what institution establishes these rule and punishes those who violate them? Government, of course!

The greatest strength of the anti-government message lies in the fact that to some degree it is true. "Aren't governments shot-through with waste, fraud, and abuse?" Of course they are! And so too is every human institution under the sun, including corporations. But the inference from imperfection to uselessness and even malignancy is, to say the least of it, a "stretch." No Police Department can completely eliminate crime, and no Fire Department can completely eliminate fires. They are imperfect institutions. Do we then propose their abolition? Certainly not! Instead, we strive constantly to improve them.

So it is with governments. The founders of the American republic were well aware of the abuses of government, having successfully struggled to overthrow a foreign tyranny. And so they tried, with the Articles of Confederation, a minimalist government - which failed. But then, having learned from this failure, the Founding Fathers adopted a Constitution for a government of laws, with checks and balances, and with a Bill of Rights explicitly stating the limits of that government ("Congress shall make no law..."). However, even before the Bill of Rights and the body of the Constitution itself, we find the Preamble, which clearly recognizes that government has a function: namely, "... to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..." Nowhere in that document, did the founders say or suggest that all this could be accomplished entirely through the unregulated activity of self-serving "economic persons" in the market place, Adam Smith's "invisible hand." Least of all did they indicate any endorsement of Margaret Thatcher's infamous observation that "there is no such thing as society, there are individual men and women, and there are families."

If, as the libertarians insist, it is the legitimate function of government to protect the lives, liberties and property of its citizens, then it is clearly the function of government to regulate the activities of private individuals and corporations that threaten these lives, liberties and property – in other words, to protect the interests of those aforementioned non-consenting third parties to economic transactions. As history testifies, entrepreneurs do not like to be told that the internal organs of unconsenting citizens are inappropriate catchments of their toxic chemical residues. Meat packers don't like to have government inspectors around while they are making sausages. Drug companies do not like to be told that they can't put opium in their cough medicine, and that they cannot put a drug on the market before it has been proven both safe and effective. Mine owners have fewer qualms than government inspectors about putting their workers' lives in peril. Broadcasters don't like to be told that the public airwaves that they are freely given must contain some "public service" content, or that opinions other than their own deserve a fair hearing. And most conspicuously, Wall Street bankers do not want “government bureaucrats” looking over their shoulders as they gather up junk bonds and sell them as over-priced “derivatives.”

Libertarians will insist that they have an alternative to government regulation: the courts, one of the few institutions assumed by the libertarians to be indispensable in their minimalist state. Thus Martin Anderson writes, “"just as one does not have the right to drop a bag of garbage on his neighbor's lawn, so does one not have the right to place any garbage in the air or the water or the earth, if it in any way violates the property rights of others."¹⁶  Tibor Machan adds: "any pollution which would most likely lead to harm being done to persons who have not consented to being put at risk of such harm would have to be legally prohibited."¹⁷  If you happen to be one of those “unconsenting third parties” harmed by “the free market,” Then sue the culprits. This, presumably, will suffice to deter irresponsible economic behavior.

Courts and torts as a substitute for government? Hardly. Courts are government. Their task is to apply laws legislated and enforced by the government. The primary difference between the “torts and courts” response to corporate irresponsibility and regulation is that the former is reactive and the latter is proactive. And as the old proverb correctly observes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Hence “the precautionary principle,” widely in use in Europe and condemned by libertarians.¹⁸


Libertarianism violates the Principle of Equal Liberty for All.  Libertarians affirm, with John Stuart Mill, the “like liberty principle:” namely, that each individual is entitled to the maximum liberty consisted with the same liberty for all. Libertarians affirm this principle, and then fail to acknowledge that libertarian policy violates the “like liberty of others.” In other words, they fail to recognize that their liberties exact “liberty costs” upon others. For example, the “right to property,” so highly valued by the libertarians, can infringe upon the life, liberty and property of others, as in the case of the segregation laws in the American south, prior to the enactment of the “liberal” public accommodation laws. In addition, the liberty of some can exact “welfare costs” upon others namely, poverty, loss of access to medical care, loss of educational opportunities. And since, as Franklin Roosevelt observed, “a necessitous man is not a free man,” welfare costs translate into liberty costs.

One of the books of the libertarian economist and Nobel Prize winner, Milton Friedman, is titled "Free to Choose."¹⁹ That title reflects the libertarian conviction that the individual is the best judge of his own welfare, and that the welfare of all will be best realize through an exchange of personal and private "preferences" in the free market and through the assured security of one's life, liberty and property.

In response to Milton Friedman's celebration of the "freedom to choose," one is immediately led to ask: "freedom of whom to 'choose' -- and at whose expense?" Given the libertarian's uncompromising fidelity to property rights and his faith in the free market, those with property and with the wealth to enter the market have the "freedom to choose," in direct proportion to their wealth. And at whose expense? Presumably, those without the tickets (i.e., cash) to enter the marketplace or to own property. This would include the very young, the very poor, other species, ecosystems, and future generations..


Neo-Classical Economic Theory Has No Application in the Real World. This theory describes the hypothetical behavior of an imaginary individual (“economic man”) residing in a mythical environment (“the perfect market). Since neither exist, this theory does not describe the real world.²⁰  If it did, then neo-classical economists would be able to predict economic activity in that real world, and they are notoriously unable to do so. If a neo-classical economist could merely predict the behavior of the stock market with 60% accuracy, he would be able to retire fabulously wealthy at forty. I know of no such fortunate neo-classical economists.


Values precede, and are independent of, economic costs. Throughout the industrialized world, economic values dominate in the assessment of government policies. The gross domestic product and other economic indicators are the measure of the success or failure of official policies. And as we noted above, in recent Republican administrations, executive decisions and administrative regulations must show a positive cost-benefit ratio if they are to be implemented, and cost-benefit analysis figures prominently, if less than absolutely, in Democratic administrations.

The dominance of economic values in public policy decision-making have prompted some economists to fall off the deep end by suggesting that all values can be measured in terms of money. For example,

Myrick Freeman: “All goods that matter to individuals must be capable of being bought and sold in markets.²¹

William Baxter: “Environmental problems are economic problems, and better insight can be gained by economic analysis.²²

Freeman, Haveman and Kneese: “In principle, the ultimate measure of environmental quality is the value people place on these services ... or their willingness to pay.²³

Steven Edwards: "anything that is valued instrumentally ... can in principle be handled by economics, be it acts of friendship or love."²⁴

A moment’s reflection, however, might reveal that these economists have put the axiological cart before the horse. Ask such an economist, “what is the value of this?” and he will likely reply with a question: “what are you willing to pay for it?” But the intelligent response must be, “I can’t tell you what I am willing to pay unless I first assess it’s value.” Thus a value assessments logically precede the assignment of price.

It would be unfair to include the libertarians among those who hold that all values can be reduced to economic prices. After all, their primary value is liberty, a non-economic value. Even so, with their unqualified endorsement of the free market and their defense of property right, economic values dominate their ideology.

Accordingly, it would be instructive to list a few human values that are independent of economic pricing. Among them:


Demonstrable Truth, the primary value of the scientist and scholar. An authentic scholar will say, "show me your evidence." and if it is well-founded and your argument is sound, then you will convince me." Never will he say, "how much are you willing to pay to have me believe you?" And even the editors of economic journals, when they select submitted papers, require sound arguments, not bids.


Community values. A complete human being is both an individual with consumer preferences, and a citizen with loyalties and moral aspirations, which frequently over-ride the self-serving, "utility maximizing" motives of homo economicus. The governing impulse of the consumer is "I want." The governing impulse of the citizen is "we need.”


Distributive Justice. As economists and utilitarian philosophers have long acknowledged, "economic efficiency" and "utility maximization" do not, by themselves, touch upon the essential moral issue of the just distribution of wealth. Economic theory is silent on the question of whether the wealth of the cooperative enterprise which is society, goes to those who most deserve it. "Just desert" is a moral, not an economic, concept.


Love, Friendship and Loyalty that is bought is less valuable than that which is given freely. Mark Sagoff makes the point with characteristic wit and eloquence: "A civilized person might climb the highest mountain, swim the deepest river, or cross the hottest desert for love, sweet love. He might do anything, indeed, except be willing to pay for it."²⁵

As noted earlier, because of the discount rate and the profit motive, economic values are intrinsically short term, and are thus ill-equipped to address the rights and provide for the needs of future generations. On the other hand, the non-economic values listed above along with empathy, adherence to principles of justice, and a timeless sense of community with all humanity and nature might, with the establishment of just institutions, yield morally appropriate polices for future generations.


VANQUISHING THE DRAGONS AT THE GATE

The emergencies ahead – peak oil and the transformation to sustainable energy, climate change, sea level rise, population growth, and still more crises yet unforeseen – will require massive social, industrial, political and economic reorientation and reconstruction, on the scale of mobilization for a major war – what William James called “the moral equivalent of war” (better, “the moral alternative to war”). As in warfare, these threats must be addressed with coordinated planning on an international scale, informed by advanced scientific research and implemented by radical new technologies. Moreover, a global community must be motivated by more than profit and guided by values quite independent of the market place. Absent all this, future generations will be bequeathed a ruined planet and will face this devastation without the natural, economic and educational resources to deal with it.

In the face of these daunting challenges, the libertarian regime of minimal government, of unconstrained “free” markets, of spontaneous solutions by a benevolent “invisible hand” arising out of a summation of private self-serving activities is, to say the least unequal to the task before us. Still worse, given the dominance of libertarian dogmas in contemporary politics and the enormous financial resources supporting them, libertarianism is a an active hindrance to the implementation of solutions to these crises – a “dragon at the gate” to the future. Returning to the warfare analogy, the libertarian “solution” to these crises would be comparable to facing an invading army by demobilizing the military, firing the generals, scrapping the military strategies and then issuing rifles to each individual citizen and telling them “you are on your own.”

Fortunately, as history testifies, oligarchies such as the one that has been arising in the United States in the past three decades, contain within themselves the seeds of their own destruction. Wealth and power have but one consuming imperative: more!  Eventually, as despots throughout history have discovered, “more” becomes too much and they are overthrown.

Such is the case in the United States today, where the top one-percent own almost 35% of the national wealth, up from 20% in 1976,²⁶ and the income of that same one-percent increased by 275% since 1979,²⁷ while the income of the remaining 99% remained essentially even. But even that maldistribution is apparently not enough, as wealth continues to flow to that one-percent from the national treasury and from the remaining ninety-nine percent.

This trend cannot be sustained, and thus the United States is set upon a course which, if unaltered, guarantees its decline. The ruling oligarchy, by looting the public treasury, slashing taxes on the wealthy, and impoverishing the vast majority of its fellow citizens has caused the deterioration of the nation’s physical infrastructure, a neglect of the education of its citizens and with it basic scientific research, a dismantling of the manufacturing base, and decline of the middle class.

In response to this decline, the “occupy” movement has emerged spontaneously, beginning in Wall Street in New York City, is spreading throughout the world. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has adopted an ideal slogan: “We are the 99%.”

Confronted with this growing and hopefully peaceful revolution, the established governments may face the stark choice: lead, follow, or step aside.

History has a way of surprising us and accomplishing “impossible” results. The lives and struggles of Mohandas Gandhi, of Nelson Mandella, of Andrei Sakharov and of Martin Luther King testify to this fact. “First they ignore you,” observed Gandhi, “then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” But as the example of these great men testifies, “history” must be assisted. It requires the wisdom to find and use pressure points – the “hinges of history.” We may be coming upon such a time.

Then what is to be done? This late in the essay I can only pose the question.  I have endeavored to identify and refute a few dogmas that stand in the way of a just provision for future generations. Whether or not the generations now alive reject these dogmas and leave a worthy legacy to our successors remains to be seen.

The future is in our hands.

 

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Notes and References:

1.     Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, Princeton University, 1998.

2.     Lauren Morello, "Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950," Scientific American, July 29, 2010.

3.     John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter 1.

4.     Thatcher, Margaret, The Downing Street Years, Harper Collins, London. p. 626.

5.     Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, New York: Signet, 1964, p. 103.

6.     David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer, New York: Free Press, 1997 p. 95.

7.     Ibid, p. 16.

8.     Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1980, pp.13-14.

9.     Smith, Robert J., "Privatizing the Environment," Policy Review, Spring, 1982, p. 11.

10.     Here I am adopting from Nietzsche a label and a concept, not a moral philosophy. While Nietzsche defended “master morality,” in this essay I will criticize and reject it.

11.     Upon taking office in January, 1981, one of President Ronald Reagan’s first executive acts was to require that all administrative agencies justify their proposed regulations with cost-benefit analyses. Similarly, in January, 2001, when George W. Bush assumed the office of the President he withheld implementation of fifty federal regulations pending a determination that their benefits exceeded their costs. For my critical analysis of cost-benefit analysis see Chapter Ten, “Prices and Values,”   of my online book-in-progress, Conscience of a Progressive.

12.     I examine the ethics of discounting at considerable length in my paper, “In Search of Sustainable Values” in The International Journal of Sustainability, 6:1, 2003, available online at this website.

13.     Frank Chodorov, "The Rise and Fall of Society,"  2007. quoted by David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer, New York: Free Press, 1997 p. 96).

14.     I present numerous additional examples in “Good for Each, Bad for All,” Chapter 5 of Conscience of a Progressive,

15.     Boaz op cit, p.16.

16.     Anderson, Martin, from an untitled Christian Science Monitor article, January 4, 1989. Quoted by Walter E. Block, ed., Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, (Vancouver, Fraser Institute, 1990).

17.     Machan, Tibor, "Pollution an Political Theory," Regan (ed.), Earthbound: New Introductory Essays in Environmental Ethics, New York: Random House, 1984, p. 98.

18.     In my essay, “Wih Liberty for Some,” I present six additional reasons why “torts and courts” fails to prevent negative externalities. The essay appears in Environmental Philosophy, edited by  Zimmerman, Callicott, Warren, Klaver, and Clark,  Prentice Hall, 2004, p. 430. Also online at this site.

19.     Milton and Rose Friedman: Free to Choose, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1980.

20.     For a defense of the claim that “economic man” and “the perfect market” do not exist in the real world, see my “Market Fundamentalism” in A Dim View of Libertarianism",  this website.   

21.     A. Myrick Freeman, "The Ethical Basis of the Economic View of the Environment," The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1994. P. 307, 309.

22.     William Baxter, People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution, New York: Columbia University Press, 1974, p. 15, 17.

23.     A. Myrick Freeman, Robert H. Haveman, AllenV. Kneese, The Economics of Environmental Policy, New York: Wiley, 1973. 23

24.     Steven Edwards, "In Defense of Environmental Economics," Environmental Ethics, 9:1 (Spring, 1987), p. 79.

25.     Mark Sagoff, The Economy of the Earth, Cambridge, 1988, p. 69.

26.     G. William Domhoff, "Wealth, Income, and Power, Who Rules America?"

27.     "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007." Congressional Budget Office, October 25, 2011.