MYOB - on the moral superiority of libertarianism

How dare somebody suggest that maybe people would be healthier, wealthier and happier if the government stopped interfering in their business.

‘And we haven’t the remotest notion of what they are for,’ put in Colonel Shelton, quite unnecessarily. But it served to show that he was among those present, paying attention, and ready to lend the full support of his powerful intellect.

‘I am only too aware of our ignorance in that respect,’ said the Ambassador, with a touch of acid. ‘They are maintaining a conspiracy of silence about their prime motivation. We have got to break it somehow.’

‘That,’ offered Shelton, unabashed, ‘is the problem.’

Taking no notice, the Ambassador continued, ‘They have a peculiar, moneyless economic system which, in my opinion, manages to function only because it is afflicted with large surpluses. It won’t survive a day when over-population brings serious shortages. This economic set-up appears to be based on a mixture of co-operative techniques, private enterprise, a kindergarten’s honour system and plain unadorned gimme. That makes it a good deal crazier than the food-in-the-bank system they use on Epsilon’s four outer planets.’

‘But it works,’ observed Grayder pointedly.

Back in 1951 British science fiction writer, Eric Frank Russell wrote a short satirical story about a planet run - if that is the right word, which it isn’t - on libertarian principles. Like a lot of Russell’s writing the story is filled with what the military would call insubordination but which might otherwise be called cussedness. And with the word ‘myob’ - mind your own business.

The idea that my business is none of yours unless I choose to make it so is a central idea to libertarianism and something that people struggle with. After all we live in a community and inevitably the business of others becomes our business, at least in our minds. But the idea in Russell’s story is that this too is to misunderstand the meaning of community and to replace it with authority, with the idea that somebody should be in charge of things.

Russell’s story was a thought experiment not a blueprint for the perfect society (just as his story ‘The Waitabits’ challenged how we think about time and speed), but rather the idea that authority is arrogant, offensive and often ignorant. And that bossing people around annoys them and leads to less good outcomes. The problem is that most of the people who are involved in government don’t believe this considering instead that they know better or else that things are better when they are controlled and directed by the state. Why else would anyone become a government official?

Ever since Liz Truss briefly became British prime minister the term ‘libertarian’ has been bandied around to describe ideas such less regulation, more free enterprise and a lighter touch government. We get sneering dismissal with arguments that free speech, free enterprise and free trade are ridiculous ideas only supported by a tiny group of weirdos who spend too much time on-line. There is no attempt to understand the idea of a free society, just the certainty that nothing happens without society being ‘run’ by the government. And how dare somebody suggest that maybe people would be healthier, wealthier and happier if the government stopped interfering in their business.

One of the most common arguments (alongside ‘who will build the roads’) is that the government somehow ‘runs’ the economy. And that, were it not for wise heads in treasury departments and central banks, the economy would crash. After all, who would set the interest rates, who would print the money, who would stop banks giving mortgages to strippers? This, like many popular ideas, is both nonsense and also actively promoted as the unchallengeable truth. The government does not, however, run the economy. More to the point, the government (as the poor Russians discovered and the Chinese are about to discover) cannot run the economy. Yet the hubris persists.

Actual libertarians and anarchists (the sorts who see that Eric Frank Russell story as a blueprint and who ramble on about Heinlein’s ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’) will tell you that government is entirely unnecessary and even that the existence of a state is the cause of problems never its solution. Ronald Reagan’s joke about the most terrifying words in the English language - ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’ - stops being a joke and becomes a mantra. We laughed at Reagan’s joke because it contains truth, all too often the state’s fussbucketry and fiddling makes things worse not better, but it was still just a joke. Because government is a thing of laws, its approach to problems, however, operates on the hammer-nail principle so we get another, usually sub-optimal, law. But this doesn’t mean that a government of some sort shouldn’t exist, just that it should do a whole lot less than it does right now. And above all it should mind its own business not mine.

In 1944 J R R Tolkien wrote to his son describing a sort of conservative anarchism (what a friend at university called ‘feudal anarchy’):

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to 'unconstitutional' Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could get back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the an and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people. If people were in the habit of referring to 'King George's council, Winston and his gang', it would go a long way to clearing thought, and reducing the frightful landslide into Theyocracy. Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men.”

We see some of the same themes as we saw in Russell’s story albeit expressed differently. The dominant ideology of government is “...bossing other men.” Tolkien, later in the letter, reminds us of nolo episcopari, ‘I do not wish to be bishoped’, where only those who do not wish for or seek high office are worthy of that office. “Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses…” says Tolkien. Yet our system demands otherwise by creating a class of professional politicians and an attendant (and aspiring to political power) class of professional advisors to politicians.

Because there is a powerful class of professional politicians with attendant courtiers, our system has developed a built-in preference for that capitalised Government and State Tolkien disliked so much. Presented with any problem, the only solution this class can conceive is to have more government. Despite the evidence that human ingenuity and genius is best fostered in a free society founded on free interaction, governments always opt for (and are pushed towards by that courtier class) new regulations, new state organisations and new rules. And when the new rules, regulations or institutions fail to deliver the outcomes desired, governments add further rules and regulations administered by favoured courtiers.

We see this imperative in Britain’s current and future governments where there is a view that the key to unlock future economic growth - to make us wealthier, healthier and happier - is “by placing an Industrial Strategy Council on a statutory footing”. This, for the courtier class, is plainly a sensible policy because who else but government can plan the direction and development of industry? Of course, as we all know, this approach is founded on the organisation having access to ‘funding streams’ and ‘regulatory oversight’, which means well-paid jobs for courtiers and an appealing source of rents for the grant farming friends of those courtiers. Yet everybody except ‘libertarians' applaud this planning approach and ignore the evidence from sixty years or so of industrial, regional and regeneration policy and planning - it doesn’t work. This time, we’re told, it will all be different as proposals are put forward that look exactly like the programmes that failed all the times they were tried before.

The worst argument used by opponents of a free society is that such a society is unpopular - ‘look at our opinion polling’ they say, ‘only 6% of people support libertarianism’ so therefore it is wrong and stupid. I don’t know if this is true or the basis on which Phillip Blonde makes his repeated claim about ‘libertarianism’, but I am sure that if I ask people whether they support lower taxes and less government interfering in their business there’ll be a goodly chunk of the population who say ‘yes’. This is what might be called the ‘Matt Goodwin Fallacy’ (or the ‘Onward UK Fallacy’ because that think tank suffers from the same problem) where opinion polling is used as the entire basis for understanding people’s political preferences and lifestyle choices. The result of this polling approach is the repeated claim that there is an unserved majority that can be reached by ‘leaning left on economics and leaning right on culture’.

To illustrate the nonsense of this we can look at polling on housing where a good majority of the population agree with the statement that Britain needs to build more housing while, at the same time, a majority also opposes any form of planning reform that would make building those houses possible. So it is with the ‘lean left on economics’ claims. Under the Matt Goodwin Fallacy, the polling asks about a series of ‘left leaning’ economic policies, each presented to the respondent without context. When majorities are shown supporting these policies (and that they match a broad demographic), we get the argument that most people support left wing economics.

The libertarian response to this nonsense is not to trash the polling but rather to observe that, not only are people inconsistent in responding to polling, but that revealed preferences (what people actually do) are a far better guide. People may tell you they support utilities nationalisation or council housing but they queued up to help privatise utilities and buy their council house. What people want is betterment - to be happier, healthier and wealthier. And libertarians - what we used to call liberals until that word was stolen by communists - know that the best way to deliver on that betterment is through a free society.

And we have a hint as to where the problem sits because we can look (another benefit from a free society) at the price signals from sectors of the economy subject to state control or extensive regulatory controls. When we do this we find that, in broad terms, the more an economic sector is regulated or controlled the more prices for that sector have risen. Obviously not all of that price increase rests with regulation but we cannot ignore the relationship between the degree to which the government messes about with something and how much it costs ordinary consumers.

“Regulation has particularly negative impacts on lower-income households. A study from the Mercatus Center found that regulation costs as much as six to eight times more as a share of income for lower-income households compared to higher-income ones (Bailey et al., 2019; Thomas, 2012). More regulation has also been associated with a ‘robust, positive and statistically significant relationship’ with poverty: a 10 per cent increase in regulation associated with a 2.5 per cent increase in the poverty rate (Chambers et al., 2019b). Regulation has also been found to increase inequality (Stanley and McLaughlin, 2016). Regulation tends to express the preferences of higher-income households while the costs are felt by lower- to middle-income earners. Lower-income households spend a greater proportion of their income on highly regulated goods such as housing, transportation, utilities, and food and alcohol.”

When presented with this evidence, the response of the courtier class is to claim that ‘libertarians’ want to abolish all regulation and that people will die from food poisoning, the planet will become a burning ball of fire, and rapacious businesses will rob consumers blind. But this is a bad faith argument because libertarians are not using Eric Frank Russell as a blueprint but, instead, presenting evidence that too much regulation (and especially rules directed at controlling prices or supply) tends to be bad for the economy. Plus that free markets and free trade, everything else considered, tend to make everyone wealthier, healthier and happier.

All this, however, is too utilitarian for my tastes. The point about freedom isn’t simply that it delivers on making people happier, healthier and wealthier far better than non-free systems, but that freedom is morally superior to non-freedom. To return to Russell’s little story, the most important lesson from his libertarian satire is that it is not morally justified for the government to interfere in your business simply because that government thinks it knows better (or that it has, by virtue of a badge, authority to boss you about). ‘Myob’ seems a glib thing to say but it really does represent a fundamental moral principle - your business is not my business unless you choose to make it so.