Sunday, July 19, 2009

 

"Honey, Scott Sumner's Coming Over; Hide the China!"

Yesterday I sent Scott Sumner a goofy email, to the effect that he needed to blog more because he didn't realize how much angst it caused me when he skipped a day. He warned me that I wouldn't like his latest post. This is true:
I used to think that people deserved what they earned, but no longer. Now I think rich people should keep what they earn if and only if trying to take it away from them it will do more harm than good. In other words, I’ve gone from being a dogmatic libertarian who thought the Nordic model was bad, to being a pragmatic libertarian who thinks it’s worth considering. I lean towards Singapore’s slightly less egalitarian forced saving regime for many different pragmatic reasons. But if someone can convince me that Denmark’s undeniably successful social welfare system is better, I’d jump ship in a moment. As far as I am concerned the fact that “millions of individuals” have “chosen” to spend their money on Nicole Kidman films has no more normative implications than if a bag of Federal Reserve notes had fallen from an airplane into her front yard.
Seriously, does Scott really believe this? If so, then don't let him into your house or watch your kids (he might sell them into slavery if his calculation comes out that way). And what' with putting "chosen" in quotations marks, Scott? OK you don't believe people really choose; they can't help but throw money at the pretty girl, fine.

But more important, what's with putting "millions of individuals" in quotation marks?! Presumably you still believe in numbers, so I take it that you now question whether individuals really exist?



Comments:
Bob,

Hopefully you get what I'm saying here and realize my angst isn't directed at you but... to take a page out of a "great economist's" book (this means I don't believe he's a great economist, not that I don't believe in great economists in general):

Um, I rest my case about Scott Sumner. The man has just admitted far more than my continual bitching about him could ever reveal. Now, does he believe theft is good because he's stupid, or because he's evil? Or is he a Republican, in which case it could be both.
 
I think he said he votes Libertarian, although he's not as radical as most libertarians and would like to have something like the German FDP, or whatever its acronym is.
 
Bob, this isn't that surprising if you take a kind of hardcore stance of positivism and monetarism and reduce all of economics, all of the "real" economy, to just a bunch of money moving around.

He's really just taking hardcore positivism and monetarism to its logical conclusion.
 
Taylor, I thought of you when I first read Scott's post.

Tallon, you're right. Scott is consistent in his views, which is a mixed blessing.
 
Singapore and Hong Kong have by far the lowest tax rates in the developed world. And no one goes without health insurance in Singapore (although most people "self-insure" and pay their doctor out of pocket, which is what I'd like to do if I was allowed to.) I said we could benefit from some aspects of Singapore's economic system. That's why I call myself a pragmatic libertarian. Most of the progress since the stone age has come from pragmatic (classical) liberals, hasn't it?
You'll never convince the public that billionaires have a "natural right" (whatever that is) not to share their wealth with kids who are starving. But you may be able to convince the public that high MTRs are counterproductive. That's what I am trying to do.
 
Scott,

You're an intellectual embarrassment, and I'll say it if no one else will.

Who are you to predict the future in such an absolute manner? Did you look into your crystal-ball of godlike omniscience and know that everyone else's plan will fail but yours?

You think "the public" will never buy a relatively simple concept like natural rights, but they'll have no trouble swallowing "high MTRs"? Is that before or after you explain to them what an MTR even is?

Get your pragmatic hand out of my pocket, buddy.

"Hey, someone's gotta be the [insert name of historical tyrant figure], might as well be me!"

Of course, that 'logic' is exposed as a fallacy by the very diversity of cultural, political and social experiences around the world. If your pragmatic worldview is so inevitable, how are there even significant enough differences amongst the world's countries for you to draw comparisons in your unorganized, dissembling essay? History should be over, with all the world's cultures and systems integrated into one indistinguishable, amorphous blob by now. After all, we've only had tens of thousands of years to suffer the inevitable.

Shoddy philosophy leads to shoddy ideas. Again, get your pragmatic hand out of my pocket and your pragmatic gun from out of my ribcage.
 
"You'll never convince the public that billionaires have a 'natural right' (whatever that is) not to share their wealth with kids who are starving."

I think this is especially true if we all use the Scott Sumner approach and don't bother trying.

That said, I agree that some pragmatism is fair enough. (For example, it's probably more worthwhile at the moment to argue against corporate welfare than it is to argue for the legalization of "hard drugs".) But, such pragmatism should never let us justify a direction that is anti-libertarian.

Which, ultimately, means that I disagree with Sumner on a fundamental level. It seems that Sumner likes classical liberalism because it "works". I like it because it's right.
 
Sumner is a fascist, plain and simple.
 
The Blackadder Says:

I'm inclined to agree with Scott on this one. The argument that theft is wrong, taxation is theft, therefore we are all morally required to be anarchists has a nice simplicity to it, but it relies on a wildly implausible minor premise. And once you concede the legitimacy of taxation, it's hard to see what objection one could have in principle to, say, imposing a 99% wealth tax on Bill Gates and using the money to feed starving kids in Africa.
 
@ The Blackadder:

Out of curiosity, what definition of "theft" are you using? It seems to me that any reasonable definition must establish theft as a moral (rather than simply legal) category. And, I have a very difficult time thinking of a definition of "theft" that captures it as a fundamentally moral (and therefore universal) thing, but still leaves "taxation" out.

So, I'm curious what you think a proper definition of "theft" is.
 
Blackadder, sounds like too much roundabout. As long as there are starving people in the world, solidarity commands us to deny any life pleasure to anyone in rich countries until they eventually repent their productive and enterprising ways.

Newsflash: it's part of human nature to have a soft heart for people in dire circumstances. The difference is that some of us focus on how we can help such people, not our neighbors.
 
Clarification: ... how we can help such people, not how we can make our neighbors.
 
"I think rich people should keep what they earn if and only if trying to take it away from them it will do more harm than good."

I agree with Scott here. However taking money people earned will always do more harm than good.
 
I think Scott Sumner makes too much money. Let's all go over and take some.
 
I`m not sure why everyone is so upset; hasn`t God already determined what Scott will do? Scott`s simply following God`s plan.
 
Tom wrote:

I`m not sure why everyone is so upset; hasn`t God already determined what Scott will do? Scott`s simply following God`s plan.

That's not my position, Tom, but if it were, my answer would be: "Right, and we were preordained to call Scott a thief."
 
To Anonymous:

There's nothing "wildly implausible" about the premise that taxation is theft. When my property is taken without my consent, then it is stolen, and the perpetrators are thieves. When those who take my money do so via the threat of violence, then I have been robbed, and the perpetrators are bandits.

Indeed, "theft" may be too gentle of a predicate noun.
 
This shouldn't be surprising. You can't be a macroeconomist if you think what people decide to spend their money on is important.
 
"Right, and we were preordained to call Scott a thief."

I realize I was stretching things.

My point is that it`s absurd to keep attributing everything to God`s planning when it`s perfectly obvious we`re making our own choices and are perfectly right to treat Scott as if he is making his as well.

IOW, in the real world, God`s preordaining anything is irrelevant for decision-making, from paramecium on up the evolutionary ladder.
 
I think Blackadder cuts to the heart of the matter- once you concede that taxation is legitimate, then principle is mostly out the window. The closest fallback principle is that taxation should be equal in terms of percentage of income/wealth, but, even then, you have no principle on which to determine an "appropriate" percentage.
 
LOL, what a boob. How can a rich American write that, while apparently not realizing he is Nicole Kidman to the vast majority of the world. I'm sure he would change his tune if an army came in and took 99% of everything he and his rich neighbors have, and will ever make, and hauled it over to kids with swollen bellies in Africa.
 
Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance of Scott Sumner's "work", but I'd like to know what theory he uses for for comparing the "harm" and "good" that result from "taxing" "rich" people.

Seems like it would be hard to avoid interpersonal comparisons of utility etc.
 
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