Unlike 2010, when I was carrying a Ruger LCP in a pocket holster, I am now carrying a Kahr CW9 outside the wasitband. Why? After a while, carrying a small pistol in a pocket become extremely annoying — the weight of the pistol was always in my mind; the gun took up a pocket; and it was a bit uncomfortable. Further, I realized that I wanted a slightly larger caliber in a firearm with a larger capacity.

After some searching I settled on the CW9. A 9mm, the Kahr perfectly fit my needs. It is has a fairly thin slide width (0.90"), a greater round count (7+1), and a convenient barrel length (3.6"), perfect for concealed carry.

Occasionally I will choose to carry a snub-nosed revolver in a pocket holster, usually when I am not wearing a belt or have to quickly run some errands and would rather have a firearm with me than not. On the vast majority of days, however, I opt for the CW9 in a Regulator OWB from UBG Holsters. UBG produces high quality products See this video for a pretty comprehensive review of the UBG Regulator — I own three items from them — at a very fair price.

I had previously stated that OWB carry would not be feasible given Florida's hot and humid weather. I was wrong. OWB carry, with a proper belt (also purchased from UBG) and proper holster, is extremely comfortable. The weight of the firearm is distributed — after a while you forget it's there. Compared to pocket carry, and especially IWB carry, OWB in fact gave me a bit more breathing room, precisely what one needs during the abominable summers here. Because of the extra room, OWB meant the possibility of carrying a larger firearm

Things are rarely without drawbacks. Carrying OWB risks a brief exposure of the firearm (illegal in FL, though there are efforts to change that). Thus, clothing must cover the entirety of the holster and leave some space for normal movements. Thankfully this has not been an issue. Over the last few months I have lost a bit of weight and put on muscle, making OWB carry even more comfortable and less likely to be noticed.

The most recent change for 2011 was the purchase of a minivan. This pistol-packing papa is ready to hit the u2018burbs with the family!

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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I will not talk about the permit process, whether you should get one, or about any libertarian implications of licking the state’s boot to obtain permission to carry metals and chemicals on one’s person. You are on your own about that. Instead, I will simply, and briefly, go through the various trials and tribulations that I went through.

Because I live in hot and humid Florida, chances are I will (perhaps literally) never wear a jacket or any sort of second layer. And because at present I work from home, my daily attire is extremely informal: a t-shirt and shorts almost every day of the year. This eliminates OWB (outside the waist band) carry. Realistically speaking, this left me with two options. I could carry IWB (inside the waist band) or in a pocket.

For two reasons, the classic IWB method did not work for me. First, I am still working on losing a few more pounds. Thus, even a small firearm would have "printed" on a shirt, and become unconcealed. The state of Florida has declared — oh, the humanity! — that visible firearms are an abomination and a crime. The other has to do with comfort. Though not a firearms newbie, I am still quite a beginner at carrying concealed. I preferred to start off with something simple. While I am aware that IWB might in the long run be more desirable (a faster draw being an advantage), for now it would not do.

Pocket carry ended up being my choice, though I concede that it was mostly by default (where else could I hide a gun?). These days I carry a Ruger LCP. It’s a light pistol — perfect for the pocket. Initially I considered the back pocket. However, sitting on a gun did not seem like the best of ideas. Indeed, when I ran it past a friend, he said that back pocket carry would "scare the bejeesus" out of him. So front-pocket carry it was.

I tried a couple of pocket holsters before settling for a DeSantis Nemesis pocket holster. It fits comfortably in shorts or jeans pockets, and the trigger guard is well protected. I have no complaints about this purchase so far. Since my pistol of choice is fairly thin, no one can tell that I am carrying a concealed weapon. It just looks like I have a wallet in that pocket.

Besides the LCP, I have another gun that I plan on carrying: a S&W 638 (I must thank Dick Clark for his recommendation in "Buying Your First Handgun"). The 638 has a shrouded hammer. When looking at revolvers, I wanted something that would be safe when carrying. An exposed hammer might have risked getting snagged in clothing. To minimize the risk I went with the 638. Like the LCP, I will carry this gun in my pocket using a Don Hume holster. While it protrudes more than the LCP (it is a revolver after all), the S&W will not cause a stir in public.

Some parting thoughts

While preparing to start carrying, I spent some time reading books, web articles, blog entries and even watching YouTube videos. Many of those sources implied that people who carry guns have an extra responsibility to avoid escalating conflicts should they be involved in one. Failure to do so could literally have fatal consequences. Decent human beings already have such responsibility. Escalating a conflict can often be a form of aggression. To be clear, one has the right to defend oneself from aggressive violence but no right to start it (or to escalate it for that matter). The presence of a gun on you changes nothing.

I’ve been packing for a bit now. Let me share some impressions:

• I’ve learned to keep my hands out of my pockets; there is no reason to be reaching around in there.
• Keys, phone, wallet and pistol — they all come with me now. After years of putting everything in the same pockets I am instantly aware when anything is missing. Even after a few months, the same is true with the carry gun. Though I try not to forget to leave home without it, the lack of weight reminds me if I do.
• (Front) pocket carry is not intrusive when driving.
• Finding the correct holster is worth the investment in time, money and, if necessary, returns. Non-trivial amounts of effort went into finding the one with the right balance of comfort, functionality and material.
• Find and test self-defense ammo.

If you have decided to carry a gun for self-defense, do it every day. Even in cities with high crime, the chances of ever needing to use a firearm for self-defense are extremely low. However, it’s better to have it if you ever do need it.

Finally, be smart about it. Don’t go out there shooting yourself (or others) in the foot (or in other places). The last thing we need as an already-maligned group is bad press.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Take a look at the following recent blog posts and especially the follow-up comments and discussion:

• Happy We-Should-Restore-The-Monarchy-And-Rejoin-Britain Day!
• The Murdering, Thieving, Enslaving, Unlibertarian Continental Army (alt)
• Revising the American Revolution
• u2018Untold Truths About the American Revolution’ / Re u2018Untold Truths About the American Revolution’
• The Declaration And Conscription

One would expect a principled, radical libertarian to oppose war. Indeed, I’d say most tend to be solid on the war issue: they oppose the destruction of life and property by the US government and by various other governments across the globe, not to mention the constant deterioration of international affairs.

As expected, we saw some defections of the less principled, more moderate types at the beginning of the Iraq war (many of them recanted and crawled back when things went bad; we can only imagine that many of them would now be crowing that a pragmatic approach is best, had there been a quick American victory). What’s the shocking thing is that even hardcore antiwar types seem to have exceptions to their usual antiwar stance if the results are "worth it."

When it comes to wars of secession, and in particular the American Revolution, all bets are off. You see, because the war was heroic, the argument goes, that war is fine. Unlike every other war in the history of the United States, the American Revolution and the war it unleashed had as its objective the political separation of the colonies from the British Empire. And that’s fine, right? Such a view is virtually compelled if one is wed to the idea that the early American nation was a near-libertarian utopia, or the closest the world has ever come. But was it? And was the Revolutionary War justified?

As libertarians, we favor peace, property rights, and voluntary interaction based on contract and consent. We are therefore against the invasion or trespass of property rights; we recognize such actions as crimes and those carrying them out as criminals. It does not matter whether the person committing a crime is a thief wearing a ski mask or wearing a uniform of a county with a patch stamp on the shoulder. Bastiat calls state action against property rights legal plunder:

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Thus, we libertarians
oppose and condemn both "private" and "public"/government
crime. In many — if not most — cases, war is the most immediately
destructive force that a state can unleash not just on those beyond
its borders but also on those within.

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It’s hard to deny that war invariably requires a state, taxation, and even conscription. The Continental Army resorted to taxation and states often resorted to drafting. And when recruitment was down, slaves were drafted to fight in the war (to add insult to injury).

So let me get this straight. In order to fight that most evil of persons, the King, we must empower an aristocrat such as Washington (oh sorry — a local aristocrat … is this better now?) to lead an army composed of doubly-enslaved folks, and funded by theft. An army in which deserters were often held and executed without trials. And if you had the audacity to hide or protect them from searching officers, you could have been subjected to a flogging.

It looks to me like the war of secession was more of a traditional war for power than an act of secession from evil tyrants. The Revolutionary War did not even enjoy widespread support; the majority either did not care or was against it. Sure, some of the reasons for the war sound libertarian: freedom from monarchs, lower taxation, self-determination. But what about the means? War, as the saying goes, is the health of the state. We are told that George Washington was a war hero. Yet the same person, in collaboration with very evil Hamilton, would later on be ready to crush anti-tax rebels in Pennsylvania. Come to think of it, it’s almost as if the United States was conceived in tyranny! (See this article by William Marina for the not quite libertarian origins of the United States.)

Unlike war, secession is legitimate, libertarian and — depending on the circumstances — can be a bloodless or mostly bloodless way to separate politically. Take a look at India, the several former Soviet bloc nations, and East Germany. Granted, there were statist efforts here as well, but these did not involve mass murder and mass taxation. Both Lincoln and Davis, for example, were brutal — both resorting too all kinds of violations of rights. (My view on this issue is that I wish both sides would have lost, and that The Confederacy, like the Union was also an economic basket case. See Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation.)

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"But what if secession can’t succeed without resorting to war?" it will be asked. So what? War is war. And though libertarians are not generally pacifists, it’s one thing to favor self-defense and another to favor aggression. Otherwise we, too, would have to join the ranks of those who clamor for "war for peace." What if the free market "doesn’t work" to alleviate poverty or to provide health care? From the fact that something might not work if we leave it to the market does not follow that we should put aside charity and favor welfare, or that we should put aside true market health care and favor government action. Besides, laws can be changed without aggressive (and even defensive) violence. I’m not even referring to the political system but instead to things like civil disobedience, outreach, communication and other forms of activism.

To have to write this article is itself somewhat of a concern. If libertarians of all people are not good on war, taxation, conscription, and slavery, what good are they? What’s worse is that some of the more principled and radical libertarians have come to the defense of the Revolutionary War because it "allowed" a small government to protect our freedoms, turning the US into the best experiment* for liberty. Minarchy, after all, is the belief that the free market should be protected by a socialist monopoly. Go figure.

Libertarian warmongers! Amazing. What next, voluntaryists for taxation!?

*Even supporters of the Constitution should realize that, at "best," as Dale Everett puts it, "it was a noble effort, but the founding fathers were misguided to expect a magic scroll to protect their contrived republic." I’d say that this is perhaps a bit too optimistic still, for those "efforts" involved the creation of a (more powerful) state, supposedly controlled by the Constitution compared to the Articles. And at least the political aspect of the Revolution was not anti-state but pro-local state. Down with the king! Down with the republic!

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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As with the other books in the Politically Incorrect series, Murphy’s Guide is aimed for the common man. Aside from the main body of the text, every other page features various quirky and fun text boxes that provide additional information to the reader: from book recommendations to quick facts.

So OK — I said that the book was aimed for the common man. However, the content is not at all common. Indeed, far from it. In under two hundred easy-to-read pages, Murphy has managed to turn the mainstream view of Hoover and FDR on its head. Hoover was not at all a "do nothing" president. Nor was he much of a defender of the market. Indeed, it was Hoover, as Murphy shows, who sets the tone for Roosevelt’s devastating attack on the economy and on the property rights of millions of Americans.

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I was aware of a good deal of the shenanigans that Hoover and FDR imposed. Others, on the other hand, took me by surprise. When Roosevelt abolished the gold standard and began to manipulate its price in dollars, he would, according to stories, set the price of gold fairly randomly, picking numbers he though were "lucky."*

Murphy builds the case against Hoover by showing that he was in fact quite active, especially in his love for government/public work programs. FDR’s Sovietesque policies had a running start. And, of course, far from getting us out of the depression, FDR’s policies lengthened and deepened it.

Though the book analyzes policies enacted during Hoover and FDR’s regimes, special attention is given to that mysterious and supposedly independent entity: the Federal Reserve. This is the core of Murphy’s Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal. The Fed’s relentless control of the money supply and of credit was central to the crash and the depression. Murphy devotes dozens of pages to address the arguments raised over the years by various groups, especially the Keynesians and Friedmanites, convincingly rebutting them (or at least, it convinced me — I am an amateur after all: YMMV).

Imagine an average person reading this book. What would the reaction be? I read the entirety of the book on the flight. As I flipped the pages I would turn my head to the person sitting next to me and think "this book is for you." And no, I do not consider myself an elitist. On the contrary, I wished more people were aware of these accurate, though revisionist, views. Grab a copy of this for yourself or for your family and friends. Be an intellectual troublemaker once in a while. Because if George W. Bush is our Hoover, and Obama the next FDR, then hold on. The Newest Deal won’t be pretty.

*Even if the story above were false, I would remind the reader that when there is not a market to set prices, any price set by the state bears no resemblance to economic reality and though we might say that a government price of $2.49 per gallon of milk is reasonable or “correct” and a price of $19.99 is not, even here, the former amount feels right because there is more or less a freeish market/reference price for milk. Central planning could be seen as randomly selecting prices.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Yet every now and then I am called a "hater" for opposing most (if not all) government programs. Let’s go over some of the things that I supposedly hate.

I hate the arts because I do not believe in using violence against people to make them pay for it (supporters of the National Endowment of the Arts and its various state and local equivalents no doubt have no love for me).

I hate scientific research. You see, according to the argument, without public funding (also known as taxation) there would be an underproduction of research and we would find ourselves back in the Stone Age. Thus, in order to remain civilized, we must threaten (in a civilized manner, that is) to fine, jail or execute people if they are not willing to part with their money. Makes perfect sense.

Transportation and travel? Forget it. I hate that crap as well. If the feds had not confiscated land, displaced people, distorted towns and cities and taxed the entire country, we would have no roads or means to move about the land. For only the government can carry out such projects, never mind the possibility that maybe — just maybe — there would be various entrepreneurs dealing with this demand instead of a monolithic agency.

Not a fan of safety (and apparently a lover of death and chaos), I oppose the control of firearms. That’s right: Uzis for grandma and Colts for Junior. Rivers of blood are always found when a government has relaxed firearms restrictions; everyone who comes into contact with a gun immediately becomes a savage killer. The same applies, I suppose, for people who have knives, rocks, power tools and knuckles.

Societal order is not also on my list of priorities, apparently. Lacking fraud, the complete decriminalization of the use, possession, marketing, importation, exportation of any substance that people want to consume should be allowed. I guess I am a "radical" for opposing that particular government-sponsored slavery program called the war on drugs. Prostitution, another victimless crime, is just a capitalist act between consenting adults. And yes, I am also a defender (but not a consumer, by the way) of the black market sex-for-money industry.

The poor of the planet think I am scum for opposing government-to-government welfare schemes, often referred to as foreign aid. Indeed, instead of markets and entrepreneurship, sound money, free traffic of goods and labor, and property rights for the world, I hate the poor with a passion for not desiring to be taxed by a tyrant to give money to the tyrant ruling others.

When it comes to health, I am indubitably your enemy. The owner of an establishment, due to being the owner (duh!) has the right to determine whether a particular behavior is allowed. Smoking bans represent a form of theft on behalf of the state, for it now has magically claimed a right to control someone else’s resources.

If you are retired, you ain’t gonna like me very much. Social[ist] [in]Security, a Ponzi scheme not unlike government-sanctioned central fractional-reserve banking, is a massive distribution of wealth from the young and working to the old and non-working. The fairness of this is beyond me. Don’t enslave me to pay for someone else’s grandpa. I guess this means I hate old people!

I hate minorities (though I am a "minority" myself…oh dear) because I oppose anti-discrimination laws, which are really laws against free association. In fact, I think it might be easier to deal with racism by abolishing racial quotas and preferences (affirmative action) and expose the racist owners and managers; right now, they have to comply and hide.

If you are a labor protectionist, I am in your sights. Since the state holds a criminal monopoly over "its" territory, and thus controls its borders, I oppose the INS. Employers should be free to hire anyone regardless of nationality or origin.

And what kind of market anarchist would I be without hating those damned children! Property taxes (a form of evil rent for the government coffers) tend to go towards government education (the more cynical ones would call that "daytime jails" due to truancy laws), regardless of your need. How on Earth is this fair? Moreover, to maximize my rug-rat hatred, I must come out in favor of the abolition of drinking-age laws. And while we are at it, let’s allow consenting humans of any age to voluntarily accept employment offers or offer employment to others.

And last, but not least, I hate America! There shouldn’t be a standing army (or, even better, any form of monopoly "defense"), military bases or soldiers in most countries in the world, a dominating pro-dollar regime, an imperial presidency, a compliant supreme court or those barbarians in congress. I hate the troops so much that I want them to come home and become productive members of society.

Actually, now that I think about it, my detractors could be correct about me on the last point. If by "America" they mean the totalitarian and potentially unbounded mega-state with its fifty-plus appendages, then yes: I do hate that!

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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When one walks into a business, most often you are greeted. As part of treating customers as their very livelihood, companies usually enact policies that make it a requirement for employees to acknowledge the arrival of a client or customer.

Imagine, however, if instead of getting a "hello" or "good morning," the manager of the store asks you to greet him. Further, imagine if the manager holds you at gunpoint and threatens you with imprisonment. Assuming you could escape, chances are that you’d never go back to that store. Yet this is what happens in the courts.

Virtually everyone in the courtroom has to rise when the judge enters. Failure to do so might result in contempt of court — you can get a fine or be sentenced to jail time for your audacity. This is, of course, absurd. First of all, government courts are financed through taxation. People who do not use the system at all, for example, still have to pay. This is a form of redistribution, also known as socialism. Aside from the fact that the resources to run the system are extracted aggressively, often the accused are victims rather than victimizers.

Laws and ordinances regulating peaceful drug or firearm possession or usage, municipal codes regulating assembly, zoning, prostitution and gambling, for example, violate no rights and therefore have no victims. Thus, when an innocent person is brought (violently or through the threat thereof) to one of those government courts, the last thing one expects is to be further humiliated by having to stand for the judge. If anything, the judge should be kissing the defendant’s feet and begging for forgiveness.

We should not be surprised that the state does whatever possible to assert its aggressive political power in every instance; the courtroom is not an exception. Perhaps in the old days it was customary to rise for the judge. So what? Today, however, I see this not as a gesture of respect but as a demand for obedience. The judge, a state bureaucrat, has no authority over anyone. Prove that the judge and the court deserve any respect. After all, they were the ones (along with the legislative and executive branches) to kidnap people from their homes, families and places of employment, only to be dragged to face "justice." Show that, especially in the case of victimless crimes, the defendant should stand for the judge. The concept of contempt of court, so long as the state holds a monopoly over this institution, is a farce. I believe it is the court, along with all the thugs it employs, who is in contempt.

Anyone willing to show the violence of the court by refusing to obey is a hero. Rising for the judge is bowing to the state.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Earlier this month I finished reading two books: Bill Kauffman’s Ain’t My America and a compilation of anti-war essays edited by Thomas Woods and Murray Polner titled We Who Dared to Say No to War. As someone who was not familiar with most of the writings and references featured on those works, I was reminded of just how eerily similar arguments for war (and other related interventions) can be. It is quite possible that, without fail, all wars that the United States has fought since the late 18th century have been wars of aggression.

Because the state unfortunately almost always moves towards expansion, the leaders in government must also support policies that aggrandize their image and the role of the state. Thus, there is a tendency (and, indeed, extreme pressure) to act without trepidation and enact progressive policies that serve political goals.

War, which is another government program, is not an exception of the rule of politics. The pro-war establishment consists of hawkish politicians and their sideline supporters, and of blood-thirsty lobbyists, both foreign and domestic. The books mentioned above offer plenty of historical anecdotes and accounts not just against whatever war was popular at the time but also against the lies and manipulation used to trick the American people into them. The U.S., always one to meddle in the affairs of others, is "shocked" when, after placing troops or ships beyond its border, said troops or ships are attacked. A "victim," it must retaliate by taking over entire nations and installing whatever form of government that the creatures from the swamp desire to impose.

The reasons that have been given (again, see the works cited above) through the centuries will sound familiar to modern ears: the intruder wants to destroy us; they threaten our way of life; they attacked us first (hah!); we must lead the world; we must make the world safe for democracy; our role in the world is to guide it, and so on and so forth.

Putting aside the carnage and the fact that national wars are really wars between states and not the citizens of the states, one must not forget that war comes at a cost. Because wars are carried out by governments, and governments obtain all of their resources through the plundering of producers, the cost of war is aggressively imposed on society — each individual bears the cost. There is the right, of course, to individually pay for security but there is no right to make others pay. Today, states provide "security" monolithically and collectively: one size fits all — take it or go to jail. So when a politician says war is necessary, one must pause, sniff the air, and smell the BS. Necessary for me? You? Everyone? And to what degree? Intervention requires domestic intervention as well.

Finally, war can never be isolated as an issue, for it requires major intrusion in the economy such as increased taxation, inflation, price and wage controls and a myriad other extremely socialist and fascist measures. Once we add conscription/slavery, the crushing of domestic liberties and the police state, the recipe for totalitarianism is complete.

People are fond of saying "history repeats itself." Well, I am not a historian but do have an alternate maxim to share: "Stupidity, ignorance and apathy tend to repeat themselves." The way I see it, politics have always been the same. Circumstances change. People change. So long as there is a state, however, politics will remain unsurprisingly similar.

My advice is to never trust or support presidential (or gubernatorial or mayoral) endeavors, to disregard of the idea of congressional representation and to realize that the robed ones work for the state and can hardly be impartial. My advice, in other words is to wake the eff up!

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Last weekend I made the drive from central New York to New Hampshire. Over three days, I quickly visited the Dartmouth area, Manchester and its nearby suburbs and towns, and Keene. A whirlwind trip, yes, but not one without successes.

I went to the somewhat freer state for two reasons. First, there is a chance — better every day — that my family will be relocating there next summer. Thus, I made the pilgrimage to "The Shire" to do a very cursory investigation of where we’d like to live. This meant driving through various neighborhoods and getting a feel for things. Because of our specialized employment requirements, it would seem that the greater Manchester area should prove quite satisfactory. A few more trips in the near future are will be required before actually moving but the first step is done.

The second reason for the trek was to meet some of the folks who have been active in the freedom movement. You see, I have a soft spot for activism. While many people, including libertarians, tend to distance themselves from those who would directly defy the state, this libertarian embraces such acts. Indeed, though there is a place for armchair theorizing, there is also a place for the triumph of the common (or should that be uncommon?) person to proclaim sovereignty and act like a sovereign, consequences be damned. After a Friday night visit to the Free Talk Live studios, we headed to a local pub where I met a number of the local heroes in Keene and had a pleasant, though short, evening. The previous night I had already had the pleasure of meeting Gardner Goldsmith, an author and talk show host of anarcho-capitalist and Austrian economics tendencies. We chatted about local politics and our plans for the future.

As much as I like the liberty movement in New Hampshire, there are other reasons to live there. Here’s a list of some the factors that I personally consider important. YMMV.

1. Quality of life. New Hampshire has been named the safest state, second healthiest, most livable, third for health care quality and best state for well-being of children, among others (see more here). I’ll be the first to admit that these are just statistics but nonetheless they are encouraging. Of course, the fact that New Hampshire is already freer than most other places adds to the quality of life consideration.
2. Nature. I love being close to a variety of terrains, changing seasons and sights. I have lived in Lima (Peru), New Orleans, Iowa and currently live in central New York. New Hampshire is a pretty small state but has a great deal of variety. In a couple hours I was able to go from the beach to the mountains and back down to the valleys. And in minutes I can go from a city of a hundred thousand (which itself is close to the Boston metro area) to rural town of a thousand.
3. Photography. Because of (2) above, this opens up year-round photographic opportunities without having to travel all day to discover them. Furthermore, as my family grows, I can have easy access to several kinds of activities for kids.
4. Political boundaries. The United States is now in a financial free fall and the bailout parachutes have holes. New Hampshire, with its Atlantic port, international border and its dwindling but still present sentiment of liberty, is positioned to take advantage for a possible secession from the Union. Granted, this might never happen but the chance still exists, especially if there is a cataclysmic collapse of the banking system. Perhaps a change in ideology is in store; the freedom movement must be ready to guide it. Secession at the state level is a good option — perhaps the only one remaining at this point. As time goes by it becomes more relevant. (I should point out that I also favor secession all the way to the individual level but recognize that political secession can be used as a means to move us further towards freedom and away from central government.)

As our gig in Ithaca seems to be coming to a close, we must soon start looking elsewhere to continue our careers and raise our family, a safe and prosperous place to hopefully permanently settle down in.

Today, New Hampshire rules. One day, however, it might not rule or at least not as much. Either way the ride will be fun.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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What follows are just a few of the July 4th lies and errors that we are supposed to blindly accept:

• The military is glorious, its heroes heroic, and our support is patriotic
• Freedom is about authority
• The police keep us safe and have a duty to protect us
• We are better off now than when the war on drugs started decades ago
• Continually increasing prices is a product of the market and thus the central bank must control credit and the money supply
• With proper reform, government can become efficient, especially if we elect the right leaders
• The Constitution gives people rights
• The government has been formed by the consent of the governed
• Without the state regulating/subsidizing/taxing/prohibiting activity or industry X, said industry or activity would be produced in quantities and/or qualities that are too high or too low; or would run rampant, cartelize and monopolize the market; or would not survive in a predatory competitive environment
• The more politically democratic things are, the better for everyone
• No matter what the cost to the public, protecting the children/our veterans/our senior citizens/our teachers is always the number one priority
• The free movement of goods and people destroys jobs and threatens our standard of living
• Businesses have no incentives to keep their customers safe; licenses ensure fair practices
• The law may occasionally be wrong, but it should nonetheless be followed always
• We must forever give up essential liberties to guarantee safety: it’s for your own good

The list can go on forever but you get the clue. What’s really telling about the so-called Independence Day is that most the reminders about July 4th are related to the state! You will see, almost without fail, photos of past tyrants, video of the various monuments magnanimously erected in their memory, and audio of their speeches. News segments and even commercials that use the Fourth of July as a theme will invariable feature the military, the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, the Washington monument or a close-up of the Constitution — usually the part that says "We the People." If July 4th is really about freedom, why is the District of Criminals the center of attention?

You see, we live in a bizarro world where might makes right and government aggression is the apotheosis of liberty. Our rights are relative and whatever freedoms we have left are a vote and a signature away from being eradicated.

I ask: What rights? What freedoms? Today we celebrate nothing. Get over your patriotism-inspired nationalistic jingoism already. Instead, celebrate the market, not the politicians and their bureaucratic-regulatory army of destruction.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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A license is a grant of permission. The licensor grants permission to the licensee to do something that the licensee does not have a right to do. A rental contract, though usually called a lease, is a form of license. In exchange for money, the licensee (in this case the lessee/tenant) is allowed to occupy and live in the premises owned by the lessor (in this case the licensor/landlord). Notice that the owner of the property does not have a right to the (potential) tenant’s money until after the contract is signed. Similarly, the (potential) tenant does not have a right to enter the property. If the landlord takes the money without consent or agreement it is theft; if the tenant moves into the property without consent or agreement it is trespass.

Only those who have rights in property can grant licenses over that particular property. The difference between borrowing a car and stealing it is the license, or permission. Thus, it is clear that whenever a person owns a particular resource, only he or she can legitimately decide how to use or not use it. Yet this is not what we see in everyday reality. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Upon entering most establishments you are greeted not just by an employee or manager, but also by a barrage of government papers that are usually framed and hanging on the walls. Why, one asks, can this be? As we mentioned before, only the owner of a resource can decide how it should be used. How, then, can state governments demand permission from owners before they can engage in certain activities?

There are two solutions to this question:

1. The state owns certain things and thus has the right to license them
2. The state owns nothing but acts as if it did

Let’s quickly go through the ways that the state claims it can own resources:

1. Buying them. This is financed through taxation, which is theft. Because the state does not own the tax revenue, its purchases are invalid.
2. By decree (legislation, proclamations, executive orders, etc.). There is no connection here. The government merely claims ownership without a link to it. It’s as if I were to claim that I own a patch of forest without ever having worked the land, lived there, embordered it or other reasonable connection.
3. Conquest. Does this one really require an explanation?
4. Eminent domain. A form of theft.
5. By “homesteading” it. This is still not really homesteading as everything the state does is financed through taxation and backed by aggressive legislation. If a thief steals your money and uses that to build a house on virgin land, he does not get to own the land (or the house).
6. As the recipient of donations. Even this one is not safe, for the management of resources donated to the state requires taxation and an army of bureaucrats.

Having briefly gone through each one of the possibilities, we can definitively conclude that the state cannot coherently own anything because all of its methods are criminal; it is aggressively managing and/or occupying resources against the desires of the owners. (If anything, it should be the people who give the government permission to do things!)

Here’s a short list of peaceful activities that either require a license or are generally prohibited (i.e., no license is granted) or that are highly regulated:

• Produce and sell unpasteurized dairy;
• Create vehicles that run on alternate forms of energy;
• Install pool tables in one’s bar (yes, in some places there is a law against that);
• Hire anyone regardless of national origin or status;
• Sell food without nutritional information;
• Manufacture handguns without serial numbers, attach suppressors to them, and raffle them off at the weekly bingo night for local seniors;
• Become an experienced marijuana gardener and open a neighborhood kiosk;
• Run a brothel;
• Teach;
• Open a website for organ donations and sales;
• Gamble;
• Gamble online;
• Research, develop and bring to market life-saving medicines;
• Videotape, sell and broadcast pornography;
• Cut hair, arrange flowers, give manicures, fix roofs, become a beautician, drive a cab, install plumbing or remove teeth;
• Coin money;
• Build a house or expand said house;
• Build an airstrip (and use it of course); and last but certainly not least…
• Sell liquor.

The common thread across the examples above is that barring state interference (through licenses and permits), anyone should be allowed to create, buy, sell, lease, give away, destroy, transport, inherit or bequeath anything so long as no one else’s property is compromised. It’s that simple. Anything else is tyrannical.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Market failures are everywhere! Read a newspaper or web site and you’ll quickly find pundits saying that the market has failed to solve such and such problem. Most of the claims have to do with the market’s supposedly inability to provide the "correct" quality and quantity of a good or service. Let’s correct this misunderstanding.

The market is the sum of all of the individuals who are participating in exchange. When there is (free) exchange, A gives B something that A values less than what B is willing to give A in return. In this double inequality, both parties benefit.

There’s no need to call the market "perfect" or "imperfect." This is not because humans are perfect but because people engaging in voluntary transactions expect to mutually benefit. Thus, their expectation of gain is true every time, otherwise they would not trade. In this narrow sense, we can correctly say that the market is efficient. Buyer and seller are better off and thus are wealthier than they were before ("wealth" is used in the economics sense and not the financial or monetary sense — people become wealthier as they achieve their goals and these need not be financial).

A "perfect" market would imply that every participant is free of error. Every transaction would always be correct and no one would have regrets or would have preferred an alternate course of action. If that were true, however, then this would mean that preferences do not change; that buyers are never swayed to improve their lives by seeking different products or services (or refraining to purchase and save instead); and that sellers and entrepreneurs never change their product lines or seek to improve quality of products. In fact, the exact opposite is what we would expect from imperfect human beings who exchange in order to improve their state of affairs. The discovery of error after exchange is crucial for the advancement of society.

Notice that the market failure crowd tends to criticize specific sectors of the industry, mostly notably health care, education, transportation and sometimes agriculture. Yet these just happen to be some of the most intervened sectors of the economy by government. There is no free exchange and no real chance to opt for a different product. The government "customer" is forced to pay for it all. We see no crisis in the pencil industry, or the computer industry, or in the restaurant industry. Why? Because people in certain sectors of the economy are relatively free to choose, and entrepreneurs are free to search for opportunities to satisfy the needs of others.

Conclusion

Where the critics of the market ultimately fail is when they compare the market to a standard that does not exist. There are no flights to Jupiter or Mars or the Moon even though I want such a thing. Where is the failure? If we understand that the market exists only whenever there is exchange, there is no such failure to be found. Entrepreneurs and consumers have decided that resources are better invested elsewhere and these resources will be able to better satisfy consumer needs. The best way to efficiently make humanity better is to completely allow free markets in everything.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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The Causeway is the 24-mile bridge that spans Lake Pontchartrain in the New Orleans area.

Earlier this week, Jefferson Parish President Broussard proposed that the bridge should be leased or sold to an international consulting firm. The council, of course, is shocked by the idea. One councilman has called it “ridiculous” while another is “flabbergasted” because the Causeway is a “public bridge” and “it belongs to the public.” Finally, a third council member believes that it “is not in the best interest of the Causeway or the residents of Jefferson Parish.”

One must wonder how it is possible for a single human being to know with certainty whether a particular course of action benefits or hurts society. Yet this is exactly what is claimed when we hear that something is or isn’t in the “best interest” of everyone else. This is merely an assertion backed by economic ignorance and political pandering. Indeed, because public works are financed through taxation, it is not in the best interest of everyone; some would have preferred an alternate use for their money.

Dealing with the comment that the bridge belongs to the public requires resorting to libertarian principles. If the bridge (or anything else) was built with taxes, then I believe that the bridge should not* be sold to a company that does not have a better claim on the state-managed property. That said, however, that does not mean that I am against the de-socialization of everything. In fact, my libertarian view of this is simple: return the property to the victims to the extent that this is possible (there are various theories on how to do this but those are beyond the scope of this article).

The argument that the members of the council make is that because it belongs to the public, no one company or organization should be allowed to buy it. To be fair, this is not entirely objectionable. What is objectionable is their support for the creation and subsequent managing of public property (I prefer to call it state-managed property). Thus, their objection only gets it half right — they prevent the improper privatization of public resources on the grounds that it belongs to the "public" but it does not go far enough. For if they really and coherently believed that taking from the public gives the public a right to their tax-financed resources against a potential buyer, then it seems to me that they would have to apply the same at the individual level. That is, private property should give the owner the right against a potential buyer/confiscator.

Now it can be argued that the council does not have a problem with taxation in general and that would be true. After all, they form part of the parish’s executive branch and implicitly (and often explicitly) support socialism to some extent. But even here the council would have to resort to economic reasoning to support their claims. Thus, we are back where we started. Because of faulty understanding of human action, they are unable to realize that preferences are ordinal and subjective and can only be demonstrated through action. Since taxation is aggressive and one cannot demonstrate a preference for alternate uses of money, the council takes away freedom of choice and socializes policy in the name of "efficiency."

The Jefferson Parish council cannot know what is best for us. What they lack in understanding they make up in political machinations against property owners. I recommend reading works on praxeology.

*As a market anarchist I support no state action other than its disappearance. The council should manage no property. My case is simply against further victimization. The victims should have first right of rejection on state-managed property. If reasonable methods to return the stolen property fail, then it seems to me that the property in question is then up for grabs — it can be homesteaded. The state must control nothing at all.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Libertarians oppose aggression. They correctly believe that property rights cannot be coherently argued against and that violations of those rights are criminal acts. Theft and murder are widely recognized as crimes in a civilized society — everyone knows that theft and murder are wrong and that thieves and murderers are criminal. Where everyone else and the libertarian part ways is that we libertarians apply principles consistently. If a human being owns his own body and his legitimately obtained property through homesteading (i.e., original acquisition from a state of nature) or voluntary exchange, then trespassing or threatening to trespass against one’s body or property is, and ought to be considered, a crime regardless of who carries out that aggression. It does not matter whether that person is a next door neighbor, a hired sniper, a jealous ex-wife, a police officer, a tax collector, a president, mayor, council member, magistrate, prosecutor, executioner, or anyone with a funny hat claiming to have unconsented-to authority over you and your property.

Libertarians Are Victims

What is the relationship of the libertarian vis-à-vis the state? Because the libertarian rejects most state activities (minarchy) or all state activities (anarchy), the relationship is one of victimization. If taxation is theft then the state is violating the taxpayer’s rights — this is a crime. The same applies to every state department and program for they must engage in property rights violations to exist: taxation, legislation, confiscation, regulation, nationalization, conscription, etc. Thus, we libertarians are victims of state action.

Governments have monopolies or near monopolies in many industries, or at least require licensing and quite often arcane requirements for ordinary people to participate in these industries. For example, here in the United States the Federal Government has monopolized first-class delivery of mail. Does this mean one should avoid using the post office? And what about roads? Is it unlibertarian to drive to Maryland to visit your mother? The TSA controls airports, clearly a non-market entity — should one not travel by air? Alcoholic beverages are taxed. There goes the party! Because cell phones and communications are taxed and regulated, must we immediately cancel our contracts? Income is taxed as well — do we quit our jobs? Virtually every educational institution (even private) is controlled by governments at various levels; if we’re against such things, will we have to avoid education? Home schooling is controlled, too.

We can keep asking questions like those all day long yet if pushed hard enough, we’ll reach the inevitable reductio ad absurdum: the libertarian must cease to exist to fully avoid being a victim! Indeed, even if we were to stay home and live off charity, property taxes exist and the house is not "fully free" or 100% "legitimate." Further, even without property taxes, there might have been building permits. Look hard enough and you can find interventions everywhere. Also, what about the land? Maybe it was taken by eminent domain. Maybe it was taken from American Indians generations ago. Even standing on public property and begging for money poses problems because public property was financed through taxation and thus is not a "libertarian" place to be. And finally, because almost everyone in the world is socialist to some degree (they support state action of some sort) and therefore are not libertarian, then it seems that libertarians could only talk to other libertarians or forever live isolated from society! If this is the case, then libertarians should not exist and the world can continue being anti-freedom forever. I totally disagree with this view.

Libertarians Should Not Be Victims Again

When libertarian friends of mine told me that they have existential issues because they are planning on taking a job in an industry that is heavily subsidized, or when I hear that a particular friend of theirs is too statist to hang around with, I decided I needed to address this issue.

My answer is simple. The problems that libertarians face — some trivial and others quite serious — are moral hazards created by the existence of the state. Given that we do not legitimize state action we are not culpable of the aggression that it causes. State aggression does for sure limit the number and kind of options that in a free society would be available to us. Just because the state exists does not mean that you should alter your entire existence because of it. Doing this would imply that you not just acquiesce in the victory of the state over your freedom but that — and here’s the clincher — you must again reduce your choices from an already reduced set of options that the state has allowed you to keep (and would otherwise be limited only by voluntary exchange in the absence of the state).

But my argument against libertarian martyrdom is not quite finished yet. Someone can claim that because the state murders people while enforcing drug laws, that it is therefore fine to support the war on drugs and become a DEA enforcer. This critique would be correct. What is missing, then, is the realization that as libertarians we have moral scruples and can distinguish between right and wrong. Faced with a very wide continuum of possible actions, as libertarians there are some that we simply should not be engaging it. What constitutes a libertarian action is debatable and can vary from person to person. For example, becoming a government school teacher might give you the chance to show children the values of freedom that they would not receive from other teachers. Yes, this means that your salary would be totally paid for by taxes but then again, while state education should be eliminated, I would personally like to see more libertarians in public schools. After all, if the job is going to be filled no matter what, then better to have a libertarian than an ordinary socialist. There are other professions, however, that to me seem mostly incompatible with freedom, such as becoming a tax collector. But even here there is some wiggle room. If my tax records are to be audited, let me have a libertarian tax bureaucrat!

Opposition And Consent

We oppose the state and are already victims. As I have tried to show, libertarianism does not require us to become hermits so that we can be as pure as possible. Nor does it require us to drastically reduce our already limited lives. Sure, we are not free. But liberty and the ideals of freedom, peace and voluntary exchange are just that — ideals. They are meant to guide our actions towards whatever ends we might chose in life. They are not necessarily ends themselves. Do not martyr yourself. Stay away from the libertarian sacrificial altar.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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"I always find it interesting that socialists treat government as a sort of supernatural entity: it affects all things without actually being a part of it. The money and actions they take have no (important) effects apart from what the socialists intend."

~ Robert Wicks

It takes a lot to surprise me these days. It’s hard not to be cynical when surrounded by uninformed opinions and comments based on ignorance of economics, and by a disdain for personal freedom. Thus, I was delightfully and honestly surprised when I saw this Mises.org blog entry about an editorial in the New York Times called “Charity Begins in Washington.” Having found it so incredibly laughable, I had no choice but to attempt a rebuttal.

In this brief article I shall point out the major fallacies, errors and misunderstandings in the editorial. I ask the reader to forgive my fisking.

Economic imbecility

The problems start right away:

The munificence of American corporate titans warms the heart, sort of. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that the top 50 donors gave $7.3 billion to charity last year — about $150 million per head. Excluding Warren Buffett’s $43.5 billion burst of generosity in 2006, last year’s giving easily beat the record set the year before.

I immediately must question the author’s “sort of” remark. Does it not warm the heart? I believe it does, at least most people’s heart. Maybe the Times employs heartless people or people so different from the rest of society that they are unable to relate to what others are feeling. This is a minor, non-economic quibble so on to substance:

This is great news for many worthy causes. Last year’s top donor, William Barron Hilton of hotel fame, pledged $1.2 billion to his father’s foundation, which supports efforts to prevent blindness worldwide, curb drug abuse among the young and help the homeless, among other things. Other donors targeted cancer research and children’s health clinics.

Yet we’d be so much happier about all the good things America’s moneyed elite pay for if the government made needed public investments.

Non sequitur! From the fact that billions of people donated money it does not follow that it would make us happier if the government took over the management of private charities. The statements are unrelated. Further, who is the “we” in “we’d be so much happier”? It just takes one person to not be happier for the comment to be false (or they could be indifferent). It also takes just one person to not be "much" happier as the rest for the comment to be false. Suppose that I wanted to donate $500 to a local church. If we were to socialize/nationalize charity, it’s likely that those $500 will no longer be available to me. Thus, my charity will not receive those funds and there will be little chance that I would be “much happier.”

The snide remarks made by this editorial are symptomatic of a deeper problem. The main assumption is that the state is less likely to make errors than the private sector and thus the government can and should allocate funds; to leave that in the hands of the market would be inefficient and many charities would suffer. These assumptions are wrong.

The assumption that the state is less likely to make errors and therefore this is a preferable arrangement to people donating money on their own is utterly nave. Free exchange is always ex ante beneficial. When two parties willingly enter into an agreement they both assume that they are each going to be better off otherwise they would not do it. If A buys a loaf of bread for $1.50 from B it means that A values the bread more than his $1.50. B, in turn, values the $1.50 more than the bread. Free exchange is always fair. The discovery of errors comes only after an exchange happens. True, it’s possible to expect errors and try to anticipate them, but the knowledge needed to make the calculus of error is based on previous experiences. Only by failing can we determine that failure did in fact occur.

Unfortunately, these insights are bad news for our philistine author. All government action is aggressive; there is no free exchange. Because there is no market, there is no way of knowing whether errors have indeed happened. When the state takes resources and puts it to other uses, it necessarily does so without the consent of those from whom the resources were taken. The conclusion is unmistakable: we are unable to know that the government is making the correct decision. Its decrees do not resemble what people would voluntarily do. Thus, it cannot be conclusively said that "we’d be so much happier" if the government invested in charity.

We now continue with the rest of the editorial.

The flip side of American private largess is the stinginess of the public sector. Philanthropic contributions in the United States — about $300 billion in 2006 — probably exceed those of any other country. By contrast, America’s tax take is nearly the lowest in the industrial world. Federal, state and local tax collections amount to just more than 25.5 percent of the nation’s economic output. The Finnish government collects 48.8 percent. As a result, the United States spends less on social programs than virtually every other rich industrial country, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Finnish government probably has money to build children’s health clinics.

Stinginess of the public sector? Last I heard the budget for the federal government exceeded one trillion dollars. The United States has the largest government in history. Tax collections are barely the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of expenses are financed through debt. I guess the author never thought about this "detail." What the author wants is a better arrangement of expenses. In other words, a typical socialist view.

I take issue with "spends less on social programs" as if this were a terrible thing. What is an appropriate level of spending? How should spending be determined? Who determines the amount of government spending? How do we determine spending relative to other government programs? How do we know if there is too much charity, or too little? These questions are solved by the market when individuals establish scarcity relationships between resources and, by assigning them relative values, prices arise.

Democratic plunder

We move on to democracy and government spending:

Critics of government spending argue that America’s private sector does a better job making socially necessary investments. But it doesn’t. Public spending is allocated democratically among competing demands. Rich benefactors can spend on anything they want, and they tend to spend on projects close to their hearts.

The private sector is composed of people who voluntarily invest resources where they think they should be spent. A mutually beneficial activity, this is called the market. As I mentioned earlier, the market does indeed do a better job of making the proper socially necessary investments because individuals act to improve their well-being. Their actions reflect a demonstrated preference (and such preference is subjective and ordinal) over other possible courses of action. In the case of monetary exchange — buying and selling goods and services at prices established in units of money — people will spend on things that they think are important to them. Once those needs are satisfied they will move to other things which are less important to them, and so forth.

The state, because it enforces tax laws (and any law, really) at gunpoint, is not engaging in a mutually beneficially manner. People are unable to express their preference. Yet our author contends that "public spending is allocated democratically among competing demands." To be fair, that much is true. What is not true is that democracy leads to a better allocation of investments. Democracy is simply a chance to cast a vote for a politician or for an issue; it cannot pretend to be, or do, more than that. It can’t allocate like people do every day when they buy any of the millions of products and services offered on the market.

Let’s imagine that you go to a grocery store where your shopping list is written by popular vote. If you’re lucky you’ll get things that you want. Most of it will consist of items you don’t need. And even if you do see what you need on the list, there’s no guarantee that you’ll have it in the right quantity and quality. To further complicate this scenario, there is only one grocery store available to the entire town. Anyone who dares to open another store or refuses to contribute towards the maintenance of the store will be threatened with jail time, fines or execution. That’s democracy in action.

Finally, the remark about the rich reeks of economic ignorance and contempt for the creation of wealth. Wealth is created in the market as needs are satisfied; when people achieve a goal they are wealthier than they were before — the resources used to achieve those goals were put to good use. The rich are people who obtained their money by serving others. This is no mystery about this. The editorial seems to imply that "because" they are rich, they can spend on anything they want. But so can the non-rich. I can spend my money on whatever charity I want, or on any product that I can afford. The implication of the author is that the rich are not choosing correctly and that charity should not depend on them and their whims. As was shown above, however, government intervention is unjust and inefficient.

Taxes and statism

The last part of the short but fallacy-laden editorial consists of a squalid call for further government aggression and a greater destruction of private investment.

A study last year of 8,000 gifts of $1 million or more to 4,000 nonprofits found that 44 percent went to higher education, 16 percent to medical institutions and 12 percent to arts and cultural organizations. Only 5 percent were dedicated to social service groups. Nonprofit groups that rely on the largess of the wealthy are doing fine. The Cincinnati Ballet met its 2007 target of $1.1 million in just five months, the Chronicle said. Giving is down at Lighthouse Ministries, which serves the needy in Florida.

The Cincinnati Ballet received donations of $1.1 million but the Florida charity that serves the needy did not receive as much. Is the author not aware of scarcity? There is a limited amount of resources to achieve our goals. Using a specific resource such as money or time necessarily implies that any alternate use is forfeited. The author assumes that government spending has no cost, or very little, and that the costs born by society have either no consequence or that the consequences are reasonable and fair. However, every penny stolen or extorted as taxation is a penny that could have had a better, more efficient use.

But what about the charity that does not see enough money? What’s so wrong with forcing people to be charitable?

Breaking news: charity requires freedom!

Charity is a virtuous act that requires freedom. Forceful charity does not and cannot exist. If A steals from B to give to C, C might be better off but became so at the expense of B. B is a victim and A is a thief. The exchange between A and B is not legitimate. Not everyone is "much happier."

A sordid conclusion

Observe the statist mentality:

Philanthropic contributions are usually tax-free. They directly reduce the government’s ability to engage in public spending. Perhaps the government should demand a role in charities’ allocation of resources in exchange for the tax deduction. Or maybe the deduction should go altogether. Experts estimate that tax breaks motivate 25 percent to 30 percent of contributions.

Government public spending is a parasite that destroys wealth. Deductions are islands of freedom and instead of being happy that they exist, this editorial calls for the elimination of tax deductions. Unbelievable!

And the coup de grâce:

In any event, social needs, like those health clinics, are not about charity. They are a necessity. America needs a government that can and will pay for them.

"They are a necessity." How was this determined? There are, after all, people who might value entertainment higher than health clinics and would rather have subsidized entertainment over subsidized health care. Who determines what a necessity is? Who determines the quantity and quality of the products and services needed? And finally, how will the factors of production be chosen from possibly many alternatives? Some would say that democracy answers those questions. As I show above, however, democracy is not Pareto efficient. On the contrary, democracy and income redistribution guarantees that there will be winners and losers — exactly the opposite of the market.

Ultimately, this NYT editorial is at best confused, and evil at worst. What the author describes is not charity but redistribution of wealth under the guise of charity.

The horrifying attitude exemplified here and, sadly, almost everywhere else, contributes to poverty and disrupts economic growth. Stop believing this nonsense. Charity does not begin in Washington. Washington destroys it.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Recently, world-renowned Christmas critic and occasional disruptor, The Grinch, has accused Santa Claus of exploiting thousands of elves and mistreating animals at Mr. Claus’s secretive North Pole compound.

Earlier this month, the Grinch, who normally commutes between his homes in Los Angeles and Milan, embarked on a multi-city campaign accusing Santa Claus of running a sweatshop. The charges have come as a shock to millions of children and parents around the globe. Retails groups have particularly been hit hard. A representative for Macy’s who wanted to remain anonymous expressed horror and disbelief. “In a shaky economy, this is the last thing we needed!”

The Grinch has made the following accusations:

• St. Nick has for centuries been exploiting innumerable elves, keeping them in inhuman conditions with little or no pay. The elves are worked to death and complaints will get them expelled into the bitter cold.
• Conditions in the North Pole are brutal and the reindeer are not being kept in adequate conditions.
• One reindeer in particular has not received proper medical attention, and its nose has developed a severe disorder causing it to bleed.

Milk & Cookies Corp., Mr. Claus’s company, has issued the following statement which is reprinted here in its entirety:

NORTH POLE, 25 DEC. 2007

The Milk & Cookies Company has learned about the accusations made by the execrable Grinch. Let a candid world know the truth.

First of all, our factory conditions follow the highest industry standards, and our safety record is exemplary. Over hundreds of years we have continually improved work standards; we are a leader in high-quality, high-volume manufacturing. Exploiting our workers would destroy our good name and reputation. Further, it would lead to a dramatic reduction in the quality and output of our employees.

To the charge that the reindeer are exposed to terrible conditions, we say: utter nonsense. The reindeer are arctic creatures that are able to withstand the coldest of temperatures. Indeed, they thrive when they’re outside. Nonetheless, we still provide them with spacious, heated stables and plenty of food. There is a veterinary on our premises around the clock.

The Grinch is being disingenuous when implying that one of the reindeer, Rudolph, has a medical condition. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though rare, his condition is genetic. Rudolph is perfectly healthy. And no, he is not bleeding; his nose is just bright red.

It is the opinion Mr. Claus and the board of directors of Milk & Cookies that The Grinch is once again debunked as an anti-Christmas farce. Incapable of understanding one iota about exchange, the market economy and charity, he has resorted to lies and smears.

Our solid traditions of high-quality craftsmanship, built over centuries of innovation, demonstrate our commitment to the spirit of Christmas and to our billions of satisfied customers. No amount of disparaging comments, especially from The Grinch, can take that away.

Mr. Claus himself could not be reached for comment as the workload over the last few days has kept him superbly busy. Mrs. Claus, however, had a message: “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch!”

One of our journalists is reporting that Frosty had become so agitated and worked up about The Grinch’s declarations that he had began to melt. He has been given a mild sedative and moved outside. He is expected to fully recover.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Imagine a free world where there is no state. This is a society where security, the provision of law, contract enforcement, and courts and other institutions of justice are available on the market. In such a situation, almost everything we hear on the news would sound ridiculous, inefficient and even criminal.

As there would be no taxation, anyone standing on a podium promising handouts, subsidies, tariffs, quotas or anything of that sort would be considered a buffoon.

In a free society there would be no institutionalized politics that would affect every one; there would be no legislation and no legislators. Instead of politics there would be company policies and contracts that establish the relationships between groups. Thus, there would be no government lobbying. The state is like a piñata; those able to extract power and influence from it obtain a special advantage at the expense of everyone else.

Because education would no longer be managed by governments, there would be no district superintendent (or even a school district), no budget fights or voter approval on the budget. And of course, property tax would not exist.

Though the right of collective bargaining would be respected, unions would have no special "group rights" of their own. Employers would not be forced to deal with union representatives.

Giant conglomerate companies could probably exist, but would be unlike what we see today (think Big Oil). They would not have exclusive monopolies or special treatment. Any land that they wanted to use they would have to purchase legitimately on the market (say good-bye to the thievery called eminent domain). If they wanted to dispose of chemicals they would have to do it on their own land as there would be no state to grant them pollution permits. When externalities are reduced through the enforcement of property rights, resources can be allocated more efficiently.

In a free society there would be no medical cartels. Instead of having a government monopoly in medical education and certification, there would probably be a variety of decentralized organizations handling health care. Hospitals and clinics, for example, to attract customers, would want to hire employees with good qualifications and education. Further, because most hospitals would be insured, insurance requirements might mandate that professionals met certain criteria such as certification and experience. This would be handled by the market.

But best of all, there would be no such thing as a politician (much less a career politician). People who would propose wars and intervention; praise socialized medicine; support manipulation of the money supply and interest rates; control the layout of parking lots and the amounts of water that must come out of toilets per flush — all these people would be thought of as being out of their minds and potentially criminals. Indeed, in an environment when towns and cities are protected by patrol and restitution services, the thought of taxing society at gunpoint to protect them from people who would steal from them (also at gunpoint) would at once seem stupid. (Another advantage to getting the state out of the police business would be the dramatic reduction in police brutality and taserings. How long do you think a company would last if it killed its customers?)

Go to any major news web site or watch the nightly television news. Most of what is reported is directly or indirectly an act of the state. From wars and intervention to the global subprime crisis and inflation — these are nothing but horrible and evil acts of governments. It doesn’t stop there, however. Keep watching. Protestors and drug users and arrested are jailed and a happy prosecutor claims that he is cleaning up our lives. The censors pat themselves on the back for having kept dangerous content from the children (yes, it’s about the children every time!). Airport inspectors claim to keep us safe but reports say that bombs and guns go through security quite often. The various government agencies that control what can we eat suddenly reverse themselves! And so it goes on in an endless cycle of abuses, scandals, cynicism and corruption.

Though I am a "free marketeer" for ethical reasons first (the state is evil), sometimes I yearn for a free society just because the transition period would be a delight to watch. I can imagine world leaders scrambling to find honest employment. Directors of giant government programs might have to work for a living and actually produce goods and services that others want. Even the local police department will have to openly compete with new security companies. What fun that would be.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Cell phone bans are popular these days. The rationale is that too many accidents are caused by people being distracted by cell phones and because they are so popular they should be banned — everyone should have to use a hands-free device. But this is just another arbitrary dictate by the state, which has unfortunately taken over the management of roads and highways. The government has no incentive to be entrepreneurial. Whatever rules are enacted, they do not have to reflect the "customers" that it is "serving."

My question is simple. Because government-run roads are presumably safer with cell phone bans, should we not call for more bans? For example, it is possible that some people become more distracted by things other than cell phones. Some women put on makeup while driving and then steer with the knees. Parents can become completely overwhelmed by loud children in the mini-van. Then there’s the champion of them all: the fast food eater. This strange and mythical creature, often found commuting from suburbia to downtown, has been spotted doing any or all of the following: wolfing down a double whopper; seasoning fries with ketchup and extra salt; wiping off spilled chocolate milkshake from his shirt; and watching a movie on his iPod. With enemies such as those, I am shocked — shocked! — that the government has not cracked down on makeup, children and food…or at least not yet (let’s not give them ideas).

Why is there a battle against specific distractions? Should it not make more sense to instead target reckless driving as opposed to the causes of the problematic driving? If you can listen to ear-piercing hip hop and still drive carefully and not hurt others, there is no problem. And the same goes for drive-through maniacs, women who pretend they are at the beauty parlor, and, yes, even drivers who are high (or low). Moreover, who is to say that a fifteen-minute conversation on a hands-free device has to necessarily be more distracting than a one-minute conversation with a regular cell phone? Finally — and this is important — driving skills are not uniform. It’s possible that driver A is much better than driver B even if A is on a cell phone or eating.

Let me make it clear that I am not recommending any particular policy. I would love to see roads de-socialized and all government barriers in the transportation industry abolished. Let road entrepreneurs, communities and neighborhoods figure out the details of highways and roads. So long as bureaucrats are the ones establishing road policies there shall be madness. That said, it is true that privately controlled and managed roads would have rules. The difference between private rules and those set by the government is that the managers have an incentive to come up with a set of policies that aim to please their clientele, for otherwise they will lose customers, credibility and could face increased competition. Still, there will be those who would never be completely satisfied about a particular rule. In fact, it’s quite possible that on certain roads, the owner might impose rules that are as restrictive as what the government does today. Even here, however, there is at least the option of opting out and finding another way to get to your destination.* In a free society you would not be forced to pay for the building and maintenance of roads, much less for the enforcement of its rules.

Where there’s no aggression or threat of aggression against others, the government should just stay away.

*Acceptance of an offer is rarely ever an all-or-nothing event. Usually there is a pros & cons analysis. Individuals act on the overall benefit that accepting the offer entails. Therefore, whenever there is free exchange it is only necessary that parties consider the officer good enough. This means that, for example, we don’t have to like everything about a restaurant or a store or a private road; it matters that we like it more than other options. It goes without saying that one of the options in free exchange is to be free to reject offers.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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There was a time when I used to believe that the police had a duty to serve and protect, to care for our property and to keep criminals away. Over the years, however, I have come to realize that though real crime exists in society, it is the cops who commit most of it.

This was not a very easy decision to make. Whenever I saw injustice and brutality, I would brush it off as a sporadic episode and move on. Having seen (and this is another reason why it’s very important to keep the internet free) video after video of people being tasered, shot, beaten, executed, roughed up, fined, ticketed, jailed, harassed, insulted, and being subjected to an infinite number of abuses, it’s hard to stay optimistic about the police and the system that runs it.

Government police is subject to the same ethical and economic analysis that is applicable to other government functions. Given that the state has no incentive to protect; that it can always count on taxes; that it is institutionalized aggression; that it legislates and therefore steals and plunders — given all these things, I had to change my tune. What I had thought to be random incidents of abuse were nothing but the normal, symptomatic function of the government at work: a series of inefficient and unethical monstrosities committed against society, allegedly for its own good.

I understood, then, that police departments are just another government program. Government programs, because they rely on taxation and legislation, are not wanted by society. And we know this is true because by resorting to taxation and regulation we have eliminated competitors who in the market would otherwise be free to meet the demand for security with a supply of such a service. Therefore, it is impossible to know that the quality and quantity of defense that is offered by the government reflects what people want. We cannot express our preference.

So far I have talked mostly from an economics perspective and determined that since there is no choice, there is no real efficiency to speak of for one cannot decide how to best spend money and allocate scarce resources for defense. Now I shall continue to develop the idea that started this short essay: most crimes are carried out by the police.

When I refer to "crime" I don’t mean crime as defined by state legislature but seen as the violation of property rights. Things like taxation and eminent domain are clearly theft. And so are conscription and minimum wage laws because the former constitutes theft of the use of one’s body while the latter violates the right to contract freely.

We are now in a position to recognize that most crimes are committed by cops. Since cops are the enforcement arm of the state, they are the ones who must physically interact with citizens. And what do they do? Well, it’s business as usual: raids, searches and seizure, the war on drugs, on immigrants, on various "inequalities" and the list goes on and on.

The amount of "public crime," crime carried out by the government is overwhelmingly larger than "private crime." Indeed, there are probably not many people alive who have not been forced to pay some sort of tax or been subjected to regulation. And taxation and regulations are ultimately enforced by the police or another police-like executive authority. The existence of the state (even a minimal one) guarantees that the amount of public crime will always exceed the amount of private crime because while one can chose not to be a criminal, the state is nothing but a criminal entity.

There is one last point that remains to be said, and that is whether the police can respect your rights and act legitimately in the occasion where they prevent a true crime from occurring. At first it would seem that this would be an exception of the criminality and inefficiency of the police. But let’s not forget that state-based defense is essentially socialist — you pay for it regardless of your need and often the cost is the same no matter how much you use it. Thus, one can be glad that in some instances the police do protect you against private criminals, but it would be unlibertarian to forget that your defense was financed by aggressing against everyone else. Sounds a little bit like welfare doesn’t it?

And what about the rights of the pacifist? To the extent that pacifists are taxed to support the police, they are being forced to support something they don’t believe: any kind of violence, aggressive and defensive. Here, too, we see inefficiency and unjustness (this is similar to the vegetarian who must still pay for government-mandated meat inspections and regulations). Finally, even the Supreme Court has ruled that the police do not have a duty to protect you.

Unlike juries and judges and unlike legislators and prosecutors, the cops are the ones ultimately doing the dirty deeds. The judicial and legislative branches must count on someone to carry out their edicts. Of course, that implies that they are also guilty in the causal chain of criminality and are not exempt of guilt. The reason why I am picking on cops is because they are the most visible branch. Almost every interaction between the state and serf occurs through the executive branch — police officers, tax collectors, the various inspectors, regulators, confiscators and so forth.

Police officers technically must enforce all laws. Given the number of laws out there, let’s be thankful that they are incapable of doing that. Let’s also be thankful that we don’t get all the government we pay for. If the state is institutionalized aggression, then the last thing we want is an efficient government, or, for that matter, efficient cops.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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In order to remain competitive, entrepreneurs and other business owners and managers must constantly strive to predict future conditions in the market. They do so with a variety of means — surveys, statistics, industry forecasting, etc. Financial success depends on being able to allocate resources today so it matches future demand or supply. Let’s assume that Walter runs “Block by Block,” a road construction company. Walter has been keeping track of the price of the materials needed to make concrete and believes that it is going to go up soon. As a good businessman, he orders more. It turns out that he is correct; his decision has lowered his costs of operation. To the extent that he outsmarted his competitors, he has gained an advantage in terms of profit margins, allowing him to lower prices, give raises, invest more in equipment, or save. At any rate, his decision is correct. Had he erred, he would have incurred a relative loss against other players in the industry and would be at a disadvantage.

But the price of input factors is merely one of the many issues that must be considered. Conditions in the market vary according to customer preference. There are changes in fashion and technological advances, for instance, and successful entrepreneurs are those who can best keep up with the changes. Then there is the choice of where and when to start a business, who to hire, whether to partner with other businesses, and literally hundreds or thousands of other factors to balance and consider.

Today, the role of the capitalist is mostly ignored or undermined by the bureaucratic mindset found in politicians and court intellectuals. Capitalists, like all human actors, take risks when they put their own property at stake. They try to maximize their success rate and reduce their losses. Robert Kiyosaki said that “it’s not your knowledge that makes you rich, it’s your abilities.” So even if politicians or “system managers” read up on all of the business and marketing gurus out there, they wouldn’t still be able to bargain, sell, assess risk and perform the other abilities that a true entrepreneur develops. One summer running a lemonade stand as a kid will do more for your entrepreneurial skills than a lifetime as a politician or government bureaucratic manager.

Now on to prices. What about them? Prices are records of past exchanges which reflect both real scarcity and subjective valuation of goods. Prices can motivate and guide the entrepreneur in terms of better information. That said, their main task, the one that the state and socialist endeavors in general lack, is to allow us to make economic calculation. The kid running a lemonade stand will easily know that he is doing something valuable to others because he’s turning a profit. That is, the price that people actually pay is high enough for the kid to obtain a profit. Thus, he knows that his time and other scarce resources have been invested efficiently. He has combined various resources (cups, lemon, ice, napkins, labor) and turned them into something more valuable to the customer than the sum of the parts. It is clear that when the purchase was made, the customer at that moment preferred the lemonade over another product and also to the individual products and resources that would be necessary for the customer to make the lemonade himself.* This is how the market works; it is simple and a win-win situation for both parties.

Politicians have no way to do even the simplest of things like the above. Nobody buys their services; they impose them. They learn very different abilities during their “careers,” such as bootlicking, backstabbing, and pretending to be busy. They serve no consumer and indeed none can be found unless you count pundits, bureaucrats, leeches and lobbyists. As the ancient Chinese saying teaches us, “One cannot serve two masters at the same time.” The politician has to spend more than half of his time making his “internal clients” happy while at the same time keeping others from looking better than him. What a terrible waste of time. That’s an awful lot of R&D for new products, efficiency gains and product improvement that never took place. The larger the public sector, the smaller the space for true production for human well-being. In fact, because choice is taken away from the consumer — that is, from the rest of all of us — we are stuck in a win-loose situation with these parasites.

While companies spend billions in product development, the state resorts to taxing billions. And while it is true that the market is dynamic and businesses do fail, making room for a better allocation of resources, the same cannot be said for government production (redistribution really). Ask yourself why the FDA or CIA for FAA or any other agency — why they do not go away having failed over and over? On the contrary: they exist in perpetuity. Of course, when there’s a constant supply of money, we just hear about “reform” or “putting the right people in office” or, even worse, calls for “better funding.” The problem will remain the same so long as free entrepreneurs, not blind socialist mice, run the game.

Finally, it boggles the mind how ordinary people place so much trust in politicians. How is it possible that a bunch of political parasites, who usually live far away, magically have the ability to know what is best for you? They are just guessing. Further, even if they were somehow able to know what is best for you in a certain aspect or two, why assume that they know everything about every imaginable subject? In fact, why assume that they know anything at all? If an official has a degree in law or engineering, for example, most of the time they debate and vote on issues that they have no idea about. Sure, they have panels, discussions, experts and all kinds of “debate” takes place. But so what? They still impose the decision at gunpoint and they make the taxpayer pay for it. Horrendous!

Businessmen have one master: the consumer. Politicians aim to serve all of society yet they end up destroying it, usually under the motto of “for your own good.” We wonder why we let them manage or design precisely the things we consider most critical to our lives such as education, health care, food and personal interactions. We’d rather have the state run the lemonade stands, and let the kids (especially the most ambitious ones) take over the roads, schools and hospitals, so they turn a profit and we know something good is actually going on.

*This is the reason why one cannot really run the government as a business. We often hear, especially at the municipal level, how the local politician plans to run the city or town as business. What is meant here is that they will attempt to cut waste and to run it efficiently. Yet this is economic ignorance. The government cannot do anything efficiently so long as it continues to tax, legislate and monopolize services. The mere fact that the government taxes, legislates and monopolizes shows that people would prefer something else instead. If a politician disagrees with this statement, that is, if they do not believe that people would prefer something else instead of what they are being “offered,” they would have to support the abolition of as much of the state as possible and see where people would freely spend their money.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog. Juan Fernando Carpio [send him mail] lives in Quito, Ecuador. He is finishing his Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurial Economics from Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala and is the founder of the Movimiento Libertario del Ecuador, a young libertarian movement in his country.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2007

State Governments Recalled By Free Marketeers

Free marketeers around the world, in cooperation with hundreds of liberty-minded groups, have issued a recall of the following non-good/non-service. Subject/slaves (often referred to as citizens) should stop using, supporting and/or legitimizing the recalled "product" immediately.

Name of product: State governments.

Units: Thousands, with varying degrees of complexity, tyranny and hierarchical structure.

Distribution: Aggression and criminal violence.

Hazard: State governments cause war, poverty, inefficiency, systematic violation of rights and ultimately the destruction of society.

Incidents/Injuries: Billions hurt; too many to individually count and classify.

Description: Failure to pay tribute or follow the edicts, often referred to as legislation, results in fines, imprisonment, torture or death (or any combination thereof, or all).

Sold at: Product not sold but imposed at gunpoint.

Manufactured in: Every nation.

Remedy: People must refrain from initiating violence against others and their property and espouse the principles of liberty and the goodness of the market and other voluntary associations.

Replacement: Market and other peaceful institutions and organizations can address the problems and needs of society; there is no need for the state and its violence.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Around the world there are many academics who make a living from Austrian economics. They write books, publish articles, organize conferences and are the people at the forefront of the movement. By constantly critiquing themselves and others, they build upon the Misesian framework, enriching, developing and deepening our understanding of praxeology. This group of people could be referred to as the producers of Austrian economics.

There is another group of course: the consumers of Austrianism. Though the producers of economic theory often write to other producers and peers, it is nonetheless true that people like myself and other non-academic/non-professional hobbyists enjoy and support what Hans-Hermann Hoppe calls the "anti-intellectual intellectuals." Indeed, organizations such as the Mises Institute and the Instituto Juan de Mariana not only promote the creation of more theory but also its consumption and enjoyment outside of the inner core of economists, ethicists and philosophers.

The market for Austrian economics is growing and potentially huge. As people wake up from their dogmatic socialist slumber, correct epistemology and methodology must replace the debunked yet still popular positivism, scientism and historicism that are found in the mainstream media and academic thought.

Government intervention in the economy causes poverty and corrupts the peaceful social order. Almost everyone on this planet hates some part of their government yet the statist mentality remains. They do not reject statism but instead usually call for more funding (taxes), more regulation or some sort of "reform." This seemingly insurmountable barrier to freedom requires a principled look at ethics and morality (property rights) and its implications and conclusions (market anarchy). But that is not all, however. Rights and property are, in my opinion, only a necessary component but not sufficient.

As I previously pointed out, economic education is extremely important. In a perfect world, for example, the masses would be able to point out how wealth is created, what interest is and what determines its rate, and be aware of the consequences of intervention. But it’s not a perfect world; not everyone will know this. Also, division of labor tells us that not everyone should be an expert on the same subjects. Thus, the best alternative is for socialist/statist mentality to be replaced by market/anti-state mentality via a new generation of intellectuals. Thanks to the internet and other advances in communication, the consumers of economic theory — always eager to satisfy their craving for alternatives — can and hopefully will continue to demand more of it

Becoming a consumer of economic theory is easy. Download and read the many books, journals and articles that are available free online. For those who can spare some change, buy the print versions. Going further, many of the economics institutes and foundations hold events throughout the world; they would be happy to have one more in attendance. And finally, become an official supporter of Austro-libertarian organization.

Today, the state interventionist apparatus holds captive most educational institutions. Private, pro-market and pro-freedom groups seem to be the only way out of intellectual stagnation. Throughout most of his life, Mises was marginalized and it was thanks to private groups and donations that he was able to continue his work. A travesty like that must never happen again. Join the Austrian revolution and heavily consume economic knowledge.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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This nation is filled with obese people. Highways and city streets are littered by a cesspool of greasy spoons. Everywhere you turn there is a fast food franchise. How on Earth can our society shape up when it’s oppressed by temptation?

It is not at all easy to pinpoint the causes of obesity and the many factors that perpetuate it. But I do know one thing: competitive eating ain’t helping our cause at all. I am having a terribly hard time understanding pie-eating contests and hot dog binging. I mean, really, what’s the point of it? There is no point. In fact, I argue that the opposite is true. These kinds of activities are detrimental to civil order for they glorify eating. Since civil order is the reason why governments exist, they must intervene and take action.

Eating contests must be closely watched by a regulatory agency. I propose the following pieces of legislation:

A) Participants must be licensed. If we license automobile drivers, why can’t we license competitive eaters? Some of them often receive monetary and in-kind prizes and as such they are employees subject to regulation.

B) Participants must be insured. Because the eaters might have a higher than average incidence of heart burn and other complications, it makes perfect sense for them to have primary and secondary insurance otherwise hospitals will have to bear the cost of the eating fetishists.

C) Competitive eating organizers shall be required to provide to audiences brochures and other instructional material about healthy eating. Children who witness these monstrous spectacles could very well be disturbed, their lives forever changed. Society must do whatever possible to prevent damaging the children.

D) Whether it is pies or hot dogs, organizers must provide nutritional information to eaters and the public. This way everyone can see the insane number of calories that they are consuming. Perhaps a “shock and awe” campaign is what we need to eliminate obesity once and for all.

If these proposals seem controversial, they need not be so. There is precedent. Indeed, in the UK, there has been pressure to cut back on calories and pie-eating contestants are heeding government warnings. Other contests are allowing vegetarians to compete. A BBC blogger is also questioning the legitimacy of eating contests. And even CBS news is asking how safe these contests really are!

A civilized society is one in which the repercussions of action are totally accounted for. Only by enacting such progressive policies can we curtail the damage imposed on society by competitive eating. Let’s act now. The world has spoken. May the grassroots campaign about excessive eating begin!

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

~ A famous troublemaker

I made you look with that title, didn’t I? Seriously, though, it’s time for liberty lovers to take a step back and re-think a few things about these 18th century aristocrats.

The reason why libertarians cling to folks like Washington, Madison and Jefferson is because of their views about liberty and how the government is the opposite of liberty. Hey, I share that view as well. My beef with them is not their theories so much as their actions. Let’s suppose that for a long and uncomfortable time a group of thugs called The Faraway Mafia controlled many aspects of our neighborhood. This persnickety group of busybodies had been imposing all kinds of taxes and a growing number of regulations. Having had enough, our local militia decides to take action and ends up kicking the Faraway Mafia out of our homes and lands. Liberty has arrived! Or has it?

Imagine that the very same “heroes” who opposed the Faraway Mafia had conspired all along to create the Domestic Mafia. They believed that evil (oh, just a little bit of evil, the kind you can chain down with ink on parchments) was necessary to keep each other from…being evil. And they did just that. A central state they did create, and with great alacrity. The founders, in their infinite wisdom, imported tyranny and planted the seed of totalitarianism. Forgive me if I am unable to understand how this is libertarian, much less worthy of praise or yearly pyrotechnic rituals.

Let’s take a brief look at the historical setting. The several states had banded together under a loose (and thus relatively free) union under the Articles of Confederation. When a convention was called in 1787, it was to propose amendments to the Articles. It turns out that the framers had other plans. Instead of changing the Articles, they conspired against them. In what really should be called a coup, the founders dumped the pretty libertarian AoC and wrote the Constitution, exceeding the mandate from the state legislatures. The founders should have left the old institutions of the monarchy wither away. But no! As Hoppe notes in Democracy, the God that Failed (p. 272), each of the independent states already had taxing and legislative powers. Why on Earth, then, would there be a need for another state, one to rule the rest heavy-handedly?

From there being a tiny, almost nonexistent compact between the colonies under the Articles of Confederation, the so-called defenders of liberty established a greater government. Why would anyone do such a thing? And further, why would we support them? Granted, the point can be made that if liberty-friendly theoreticians had not been involved in the inexorable creation of the new government, that other, perhaps more tyrannical thinkers would have taken their place. But so what? There is still no right to create a government, no matter what you think. Though I would prefer a state that taxes me 1% instead of 35%, the point is that taxation itself is theft. The amount and kind of taxation does not change its nature. Theft is theft. Thus, anyone, then and now, who supports the Declaration of Independence but also supported the Constitution (or, by Zeus, signed it), has blood on his hands.

It’s as if Henry David Thoreau, a hardcore anarchist, ran for Congress and called for higher taxes. Or if Lysander Spooner, another champion of freedom, had wanted to ban smoking. To earn respect one need not be perfect of course, for such a thing is not humanly possible. Yet if one is truly committed to liberty, it is completely inexcusable to then turn your back on it and become part of the state. That this was symptomatic of those we called the founding fathers is good enough a reason to believe that they were part of the problem.

The conclusion is simple: Georgy “This River Is Cold!” Washington, Tommy “Self-evident” Jefferson, Benny “Watch Me Fly Kites” Franklin, and the rest of the clan are not heroes of liberty. History has given them a free pass. Libertarians must stop revering these men immediately.

So, OK, fine — the founding fathers were not really commies after all. A republican form of government is what they aimed for.

But they were still pinkos.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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A couple of days ago I was talking to a Peruvian friend who works for a U.S.-based internet company. He was telling me about the incredible amount of bureaucracy and paperwork that he and the company have had to take care of so that he would be able to get paid. The PATRIOT Act further complicates what was already a procedural nightmare. Failure to comply with all regulations, however burdening and impossible they are, can result in many an uncomfortable situation both for the local company and my overseas friend. "Thanks, Bush!" he said, for signing the PATRIOT Act.

Though there is truth in the claim that the presidency is the one that ultimately enforces the laws, one must never forget that the executive is just but one of the branches of evil, and that the president, king or prime minister is never alone in the enforcement of legislation. If only that were the case!

The reality is that when the executive says that it’s time to kill, jail, fine, sentence, tax, regulate, inflate or steal, he is not acting alone. Far from it. There is a support structure that makes this happen. From cops to jurors, from judges to legislators — all of these people play a role in the causal chain of state aggression. Indeed, the very army of government bureaucracy is composed of serfs who mindlessly follow the dictates of their superiors. They are accomplices. (Is this too harsh? Not at all. If they really objected they would find other employment.)

The state is not an abstract entity that exists outside of people’s minds, nor is it one person in particular. No state decree, even in the case of a monarchy or a dictatorship, can be carried out without the immediate help of others. Ultimately a mental condition (and not a very good one), the state is a series of actions against person and property perpetrated by those employed by the government.

But we’re not done. The state cannot continue to carry out its deeds without the explicit or implicit consent of the vast majority of people. If this were not the case, then government actions would encounter infinite roadblocks from the citizenry. Therefore, to the extent that people support the systematic and institutionalized violation of the rights of their fellow human beings, they are partly responsible. Mayors, governors and presidents have power because others want them to have power.

Who is to blame for the PATRIOT Act? The government for sure, but also those who support it. The solution cannot be a coup or a rebellion. It must take place in people’s minds and hearts. I hope that one day we shall see taxation, and the state itself, as we now see slavery, murder and theft. If people make the connection, there will be liberty. Until then, withdraw your consent.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Bureaucratic management, as distinguished from profit management, is the method applied in the conduct of administrative affairs the result of which has no cash value on the market.

~ Ludwig von Mises

When it comes to our health, one would assume that the government is there to protect us through reasonable and sensible regulations. This is, however, far from the truth. The FDA in particular has been the cause of misery for those who have been unable to legally seek cures and treatment, the result of which ranges anywhere from health complications to death.

Millions Hurt, Billions Wasted

Imagine that you are critically ill, terminally perhaps, and a new experimental treatment has just been discovered. The doctors say that it’s still very new, barely tested, but it shows early signs of promise. You have tried every mainstream treatment available. None of them have worked. In a fit of complete desperation, you decide that, since you’re going to die anyway, you might as well go out swinging. You ask for the new treatment. Your doctor is aghast! Not only will he not be “party to someone preying on you,” he knows the new treatment is expensive and your insurance won’t cover it anyway. Even if you can pay, the answer is a resounding, “No.” You’re stuck. But hey, at least they’re looking out for you.

By the way, there are some who would say that this is exactly what happened to Coretta Scott King. Regardless of the somewhat dicey background of the “alternative medicine practitioner” she went to see, it seems rather clear that the decision should have been hers, not some government agency, no matter how well-intentioned. They and people like them protect you from yourself, but unfortunately, no one is available to protect you from them.

These appalling incidents are not, as many would think, exceptions. They are indeed how the FDA works. It holds a state monopoly on the ultimate decision-making ability when it comes to drug and treatment approval. In other words, it’s health socialism. Instead of the patient making a decision (with the help of doctors and other specialists), the one who gets the final word is a group of government “experts” who, through their decrees, have your best intentions in their selfless hearts. Just a glance at some of the recent behavior from the FDA reaffirms the point. When the FDA removes a senior scientist for voicing concerns about the safety of a product, one has to wonder what their real purpose might be.

When it comes to attacking private property and forcefully preventing peaceful exchange, the FDA is not a newbie. On the contrary, they are quite experienced in the crackdown department. For decades, the FDA has raided healers, vitamin shops and supplement companies. Here we have people who are engaging in mutually beneficial exchange and in comes the almighty state to destroy it all. Regardless of one’s position on “alternate” medicine, what matters is that those willing to sell products have found others willing to buy them. No one should have the right to impede that relationship.

In terms of its effects in the health industry, the FDA slows down the adoption of new technology, creating a chilling effect on development of potential life-saving treatments. Instead of the new drugs, treatments and medical devices being immediately available to hospitals, physicians and patients, they have to go through a lengthy and expensive bureaucratic process. This hurts patients, the ones who would otherwise be able to consume these new products and services. And though companies are sometimes precluded from being unable to develop and sell their technology, they often benefit from intervention. This is because only those who can afford to stay in business long enough to survive the FDA approval process are likely to receive such an approval. Bigger companies, therefore, are able to marginalize smaller ones.

When we combine the nefarious Food and Drug Administration with other policies enacted by the national and local governments, the panorama is not quite a glorious one. Medical patents, corporate welfare, subsidies, tariffs, quotas, regulations and a highly litigious legal system have established barriers that increase the cost of doing business. As usual, we find high prices and low quality. For some folks things are so bad that, just as foreigners travel to the U.S. for treatment that their FDA equivalent has prohibited, some locals are starting to travel to other countries to seek treatment that has been banned here.

If the above wasn’t bad enough, what’s worse is that since this is a government program financed through that pesky practice called taxation, the victims of the FDA are actually contributors to the very system that kills them. The charade is over once we realize that the FDA, far from protecting, is actually victimizing its “customers” by forcing them into a closed set of choices (and sometimes no choice at all). Withdrawing one’s consent exposes this agency’s true criminal nature.

Capitalism: Cause or Cure?

Looking at how insurers tend to influence health care in the U.S. one might reach the conclusion that the free market is the reason why people can’t obtain any type of care they wish. While it is definitely true that insurers can negatively impact how one is treated, the real problem — as expected — extends from the interaction between the state and those who use the state to close down the market. Regulation drives the market to take a certain shape and that shape precludes many of the choices that consumers would otherwise have. Let’s examine a couple of working cases.

Case 1: Person A is sick and he knows exactly what it will take to cure him. He knows both where to obtain his cure and he knows that it will be effective. He decides to obtain his cure from Person B. How is this situation normally handled in a regulated market?

First of all, Person B must be licensed to provide a cure of this type or likely any related services. Based upon the laws in the locale, Person A or Person B, or both of them, could be breaking the law if they were to interact! Consider the lunacy here. A person with knowledge and desire is prevented from exercising his free will, and prevented from making a decision in his own self-interest simply because another organization — an organization only peripherally interested, if at all, in his health — has succeeded in controlling access to the market. Make no mistake, licensing requirements are about little else but control of who can enter a market.

Conversely, how would the free market react? There would be no licensing (state-enforced) requirements. Membership in any professional organizations would be voluntary. While the consumer could take advantage of the recommendations of such a body, no outside influence could require it. Those who wish to consume make the choices and those who wish to provide items for that consumption would be subject to market backlash if what they provide proves to be less than satisfactory.

Case 2: Person A is sick and has no idea what it will take to cure him. He has heard of a cure that has promise, available from Person C, but the possible cure is expensive, due simply to high demand and small supply — that is, because of the market — and this price point will preclude him from obtaining it without help. How is this situation normally handled in a regulated market? This situation would be handled exactly the same way as Case 1, with licensing requirements, artificially smaller markets for cures, etc. Person A is stuck. What about the free market?

Even in a truly free market, it is still possible that Person A’s insurance company could decide that certain treatments are “outside the norms” that would be automatically covered. However, in all probability, there would exist insurers that specialized in “risky” or “experimental” treatments, versus the case now where all insurers’ hands are tied by statist regulation. These insurers could charge a higher premium from their customers, in exchange for allowing them to seek out the “latest-and-greatest” approaches to care. In fact, purveyors of experimental cures would seek insurers out to get on their list of options! Again, with no state to artificially shrink the supply, the “pull” of the market — demand for the treatments — would automatically require insurers to cover more options or risk losing customers. It’s also possible that the drug manufacturers and other health specialists, eager to show insurers (as well as hospitals and doctors) that their treatment is safe, would pay for and publicize their latest test results. Like today, they might also pay for the costs of this experimental treatment.

What these two simple examples are intended to show is that capitalism, sometimes reduced to “the profit motive” does not, by itself preclude any option for which there is a market. In fact, it is only mechanisms intended to reduce choice and implemented with the help of the state that can do this. Without intervention, choices rise to their highest natural level and poor choices are weeded out automatically. With intervention — in the manner of licensing requirements, regulations, etc. — choices fall to the level most appropriate to make those “pulling the strings” the most wealthy, and shield those responsible from the costs normally doled out by the market.

Errors

The FDA intervenes in the economy by being the only organization with the power to determine which products can be bought, sold, imported and used. As such, any errors that it makes impact everyone. There are two kinds of errors that the FDA can make: Type I and Type II.

Also called a “false positive,” a Type I error, in the context of the FDA’s testing system, means not approving a drug or treatment that should be approved. Conversely, a Type II error, also called a “false negative” in the context of the FDA’s testing system, means approving a drug or treatment that should not be approved. Setting the criteria for efficacy too tight means that tests that should be allowed to be sold are not. Setting the criteria for efficacy too loose means that tests that are either ineffective or dangerous get through. So besides having to arbitrarily determine the criteria for testing and coming up with a metric to determine safety, the FDA also has to gamble a bit, for it is simply impossible for it to assume that every drug it approves will not have a detrimental effect on anyone who uses it. Nor can it guarantee that drugs it prohibits would not have worked on some.

At this point we would like to point out that errors do exist in the free market. The difference, however, between the market and the state is that the latter lacks a negative feedback mechanism. In the market, if a company makes a mistake, it can be severely punished by the customers. With the government, no such thing happens. When the FDA makes a mistake, it doesn’t go away or downsize; it cannot be boycotted or legally bypassed; one cannot seek alternate quality control and certification systems. In fact, we are perpetually tied to the FDA and any state agency through taxation. The state has no incentive to be more effective by controlling cost or increasing quality because it can always rely on a constant influx of funds. Private enterprise, on the other hand, has to rely on the repeat satisfaction of its customers for it continue to stay in business and prosper.

Again, the problem is not that errors exist, but rather that when you have a monopoly on drug and treatment testing, when there are errors, some of the key people responsible are unfairly insulated from the backlash. Responsibility without negative consequence always breeds inefficiency and corruption. Imagine that instead of a monolithic FDA we had a myriad of competing agencies. It is the purpose of the testing agency to offer comprehensive and reliable reports on new technologies and to offer insurance companies, hospitals, physicians, and the public in general, an idea of the risks involved with treatments. Therefore if an agency states that drug X contains significant risks (let’s say an above number of severe side effects), it would make this information available. Other agencies, whose clients depend on them for accurate information, would almost certainly jump on this and either corroborate or rebuff the report about drug X.

The FDA has implanted a one-size-fits-all regimen, eliminating choice and crowding out potential advances in the health care industry. Our recommendation? Abolish the FDA.

Conclusion

Medical treatment socialism is but one of the many ways that the state makes our lives less livable. In their magnanimous quest to keep us safe from ourselves, they ultimately close many critical avenues that would have saved thousands (maybe millions by now) of lives.

The state kills. But do not despair. It’s For Your Own Good.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog. Wilt Alston [send him mail] lives in Rochester, NY, with his wife and three children. When he’s not training for a marathon or furthering his part-time study of libertarian philosophy, he works as a principal research scientist in transportation safety, focusing primarily on the safety of subway and freight train control systems.

Manuel Lora Archives

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Uncle Sam Needs You!

The tax police* are now seeking lowly qualified applicants to fill a range of positions around the nation.

Applicants must show proficiency in the following skills:

• Lack of conscience
• Ability to follow orders without question
• Ignorance of economics
• A desire for death, destruction, misery and poverty
• Show eternal faith in the state
• Propose new ways to increase profits

Perks include full federal benefits, immunity from prosecution, a guaranteed job as long as the government exists, free audit protection for all employees and unlimited access to your fellow citizen’s financial information.

The tax police operate under a meritocratic rewards system: the more you collect, the higher your salary gets and opportunities exist at all levels — from Tax Return Inspector to Regional Confiscator all the way to Global Plunderer.

If you are clueless and are seeking a parasitic existence, act now! Call today and request a free application packet. Bureaucrats are standing by 24 hours a day. For more information stop by your friendly tax office or visit our web site.

Take a stand and do what’s right for your country.

*The tax police are an Equal Opportunity Exploiter.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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"The ultimate result of protecting fools from their folly is to fill the planet full of fools."
~ Sir James Russell Lowell

The war on (some) drugs is slavery because one party, in this case the State, imposes what many might think is the “will of the people” or the best approximation of what could be described as the “common good” upon all parties, without regard to the individual decisions each of those parties might have otherwise made. In fact, as Spooner already opined, "Vices are not Crimes" and cannot be, unless the wishes of some can trump the wishes of others when those whose wishes are trumped infringe upon no one.

Just as it would be lunacy to allow the drug user to require drug usage by everyone, it is similarly an infringement for those who do not use drugs to impose their choices upon those who do. In its war on (some) drugs, the State does just that. While that point has been addressed by others who have opined about why the war on drugs is an infringement on the rights of those who wish to use drugs, another question remains. Does the war on (some) drugs hurt even those who are not users? The answer is a resounding "Yes!"

We already know that so-called victimless crimes are crimes against no one but the state. What about those whose only infraction is to live under this pseudo–police state, those who have not actually been targeted by the State for prosecution? They are also victims. The war on (some) drugs hurts non-drug-users in at least three areas:

• Economic;
• Societal; and
• Emotional.

Economically, the drug war causes one commodity, the illegal and supposedly illicit drugs, to be inordinately expensive. This generates disproportionate spending from those who consume this commodity. These people are not "islands" and their spending habits affect those with whom they interact.

In a family where one or the other parent is a drug user, the lifestyle is negatively affected, simply because a vice, a free choice, costs much more than it should. While one could argue that this person could simply change his lifestyle, we are talking here not about the user, but those who do not use whose lives are worse off for no other reason than that the war on (some) drugs skews the market.

Further, the seller of this commodity is rewarded at a higher level than would otherwise be the case. The war on (some) drugs actually takes extra money out of the hands of both users and their families and places it in the hands of those who facilitate the illegal trade. To top it off, the State spends inordinately trying to enforce this attack on freedom, the funds for which, not surprisingly, also come from us. At least the user is getting something for his money! The rest of us pay extra for almost nothing.

From a societal standpoint, the drug war increases the amount of random violence present in the noise level of any community. In the inner city, where (frankly) the career opportunities to distribute drugs present a viable economic option, the attendant violence rises as a direct result. Again, if drugs were legal, the violence goes away. If drugs were legal and the State left the distribution of them to the individual, these same gang-bangers would go from villains to entrepreneur heroes in record time. As Walter Block states so eloquently in Defending the Undefendable, anytime the State makes illegal an item for which there are already willing and plentiful consumers, the amount of violence around the consumption of that item increases inexorably. Unfortunately, but as expected, the State makes bad matters worse!

This violence occurs in several ways. First of all, we have violence from dealers. These people are facilitating the trade of drugs. Secondly, we have violence from the State, i.e., “crackdowns," police state actions, prohibitions, and raids. Simply put, the people causing the large bulk of the drug violence comprise two groups: agents of the state, seeking to control the market and agents of the drug culture, seeking to profit from it. The bulk of society, comprising neither group, is caught in the middle.

Seldom does a week go by when there is not a report of some person whose home is raided by armed thugs — otherwise known as DEA agents or police — seeking to “crack down” on some user or supplier. More often than should be the case in even the most charitable analysis, these agents infringe upon the rights of innocent bystanders as well.

Emotionally, the drug war tears families apart, but not so much because of the vice itself. In fact, history is full of successful, even famous drug users. The use of opiates dates back to the 1800′s. Again, Block’s “Defending” provides context. The illegality necessitates a lifestyle that breeds secrecy and requires interaction with the rancid underbelly of society. This necessary lifestyle negatively impinges upon the non-user and user alike.

If drugs of choice were legal, no one need prowl the slums looking to “score.” Erstwhile gang-bangers could deliver “servings” of crack to the suburbs in minivans! Previous crack houses could become urban recreation centers with all the extra income. We'd have midnight basketball at one end with drive-thru windows for suburbanites picking up a little pot for the weekend at the other! Certainly, we overstate for effect, but the point has hopefully been made.

Finally, let’s not forget the devastating effects around the world. In Latin American countries the artificially high price of drugs and the nefarious U.S. policies have led, over decades, to the formation of local (and often national) guerrilla and terrorist groups, whose funding comes from drug exports. Though there are often many reasons why groups turn to terrorism, if there were no anti-drug policies, they would not have the money necessary to fund their violence.

It is precisely because drugs are illegal that groups such as the FARC and the Taliban in Afghanistan must devote so many resources to the protection of their trade. Indeed, the illegal drug trade is worth $400 billion. Take away the illegal part and these violent groups would have to make a living. The war on (some) drugs creates the drug-terror link, not the other way around.

And What About Freedom?

A particularly illustrative example of how the drug war hurts the non-user occurred not long ago in Thibodaux, La. when narcotics officers barged into the wrong home. From the article, we have this particularly telling passage:

Mike Lefort said he was lying on his sofa when officers broke his screen door Monday night and announced, “Police! Police! Get down!”

“They were apologetic afterward,” said Lefort, 61. “They realized they had made a mistake.”

Lefort added his mother, Thelma Lefort, had a tough time overcoming the initial shock of the police entering her home. The 83-year-old’s blood pressure rose, her son said.

Clearly these people were victimized. How would you respond if a similar event occurred at your home? How would you respond if something like this happened to one of your neighbors? And please, let's not assume, for one minute, that most people — except for these two — are somehow immune from such behavior by the police.

This case begs for a little deeper analysis from the libertarian perspective. Many freedom lovers own, carry, and “enjoy” guns. Few of the loyal readers of sites such as LRC would have a problem with that. What we find, however, is that the inner city, or any place similarly situated to places like Thibodaux, has been systematically purged of weapons.

Generally, the law-abiding in these environments face heavy “advertising” against gun ownership. Many propagandize to them in this way, even those ostensibly most concerned about the safety of the inhabitants. Consequently, and as we already stated, only two groups are armed: the bad guys — gang bangers, druggies, etc. — and the cops.

The inevitable result of this situation on the behavior of the “law givers” is all too predictable. The cops can be much more cavalier about barging in willy-nilly, as this case illustrates. Most mainstream anarcho-capitalists — if there were such a thing — would suggest that people in the inner city should be armed. However, the pragmatist might question that suggestion with good reason.

Clearly, if either of the people in this home had been armed, or sought to defend their home, they’d both be dead or at least wounded. That is exactly what happened in a very similar case only a little while ago. The dead 92-year-old woman was simply defending her home against an unexpected entry of those imposing the drug war on any in their path. As such, those who dwell in some neighborhoods can legitimately be called prisoners of the state, able neither to defend themselves from the cops or the bad guys!

Conclusion

Do not be fooled. Prohibition never ended, although there are a growing number of ex-police officers — members of a group called LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition — who also realize that it should end. Instead, the State just found something new with which to exert command and control. Those who used to be called bootleggers are now your corner dealer; instead of rum-running we have folks delivering trunk-loads of nickel bags.

Worse yet, the exact same scenario that played out during the times of Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel plays out all over America weekly, with almost identical results. Those ostensibly sought by the agents of justice continue to enjoy relative freedom and high income from supplying a rather pedestrian commodity while the police state grows and grows. The virulent roots of that police state weaken the foundations of freedom for all while barely causing discomfort for those it supposedly seeks to control and penalize.

And for what?

Wilt Alston [send him mail] lives in Rochester, NY, with his wife and three children. When he's not training for a marathon or furthering his part-time study of libertarian philosophy, he works as a principal research scientist in transportation safety, focusing primarily on the safety of subway and freight train control systems. Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Let’s take a trip to a parallel universe.

On planet Earth of the parallel universe, two thinkers are born in Denmark and Holland, instead of the highly influential — in our history line — France and Germany. We are talking about Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. Being born in less influential countries, they did not have as big an impact as they did in our world.

What could be the result of that simple change? Quite astounding: nobody would be involuntarily poor. We’d have a world of wealthy countries, where no country would be poor because of state intervention (forcibly making them poor). Is this seemingly fantastic outcome possible at all? We think it is.

Poverty could be eradicated worldwide in less than two generations if the ideas that Rousseau and Marx popularized were defeated and replaced with a proper understanding of means and ends, the creation of wealth, and realizing what exchange is all about.

But there were other, lesser thinkers also. John Maynard Keynes, although of tremendous importance in the West, wouldn’t have been able to hamper the wealth creation process with his ideas if the 400 million people that the anti-life, anti-market, Marxist Soviet Union isolated in our world had never happened. Moreover, we contend that social-democratic regimes such as Nehru’s in India, and all CEPAL-oriented governments in Latin America and other parts of the underdeveloped world, would not have been as devastating had Rousseau and Marx not provided the foundation for “mixed economy” policies that has haunted those countries for a hundred years. “We are socialists,” Hitler once said, and as a socialist he extended his socialism to include state management of body ownership, with catastrophic results.

What about corruption and decay? Sure, the natural tendency of states to grow and cripple economic life would still be present if Adam Smith or even Ludwig von Mises had become the dominant intellectual figures for mankind. But then it could have been possible for people to rally against such things in the same spirit that led the American revolutionaries against state aggression. With the Rousseaunian-Marxist consensus in place in our universe, a big part of our societies is actually working against itself. If what they hope to achieve is prosperity and peace, the means are erroneous and will only bring about poverty and misery.

The state reduces the amount of wealth because it extracts resources from private producers and re-allocates it in manners which are less efficient (or not efficient at all). It is inherently less efficient because these goods and services are not being allocated according to what people want and therefore their needs are not satisfied in the most expedient manner. Had they preferred to spend the money exactly as the state decides, then there would have been no reason at all for the intervention in the market. It is not a coincidence that the greater the state intervention, the worse off that people are.

And finally, let’s not forget that some professions have prospered from the fact that there are poor people in the world. Stiglitz, Chomsky, and a myriad of ThirdWorldists (the intellectual current that sees other’s wealth as the main cause of poverty and not as an opportunity), along with dozens of paternalistic regimes in the world, need poor people or will surely loose their support. Will they ever allow the marvel that capitalism is, to be replicated worldwide?

It’s time to completely abandon the malevolent “social contract” ideology where we surrender our humanity. While we’re at it, let’s just say WORKERS OF ALL LANDS BE FREE!

And so, to the followers of baby Jean-Jacques and baby Karl: grow up!

Juan Fernando Carpio [send him mail] lives in Quito, Ecuador. He is finishing his Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurial Economics from Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala and is the founder of the Movimiento Libertario del Ecuador, a young libertarian movement in his country. Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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The state makes us pay for things that we either do not want, or do not want as much of as we are made to finance. Examples of this are oh so plentiful that we could fill pages, so I’ll just mention a few.

If you are a vegetarian, then the mandatory meat inspections are useless to you. If I do not ever buy organic food, regulations on organic products are also useless. What about non-drivers? Their taxes subsidize drivers: the money goes for building roads and enforcing drinking and traffic laws. The same thing happens in a socialized ("universal") healthcare environment, where healthy (and healthier people) subsidize for the illnesses and unhealthy lifestyles of others.

In education, those who opt for private schooling or no schooling at all (when this is even legal) are forced to pay for others.

Non-gamblers and non-smokers suffer the same fate. At gunpoint, they are made to pay for anti-gambling and anti-smoking laws as well as even the ridiculous state-financed PSAs urging people not to smoke or gamble.

Trans-fat bans must be enforced and since state enforcement is financed by taxation, it violates the rights both of vegetarians and also of non-vegetarians who nonetheless do not consume trans-fat.

Let’s not also forget those who avoid flying. They finance the TSA though they receive no benefit.

Then there’s public media and public support for the arts. What if I simply do not give a s__t about art? Don’t make me pay for it!

And, finally, what about law and law enforcement itself? If I am a pacifist and oppose all force, even defensive, against a criminal that might have harmed me, the state will generally still intervene on my behalf. Who are they protecting if I have not consented to this?

Contrast all of the examples above with the market, where people truly benefit from that which they purchase. They peacefully seek products and services that they desire, in the quality and amounts that they want, and freely pay for them. Imagine going to a grocery store where everyone is given the same list of products that they must buy. A few might be good for you, sure, but the rest would consist of items that you do not want to consume. This is terribly unjust and inefficient because it rewards free riders and punishes net taxpayers.

Socialism attempts to centrally impose order and to shape society according to the mandates of politicians, who claim to know what is best for you. This special group of people can change your life and take your property with just some votes and some signatures.

Oppose politicians, yes, by withdrawing your consent, but also oppose the system that allows for the widespread violation of rights to happen: socialism, especially of the democratic kind.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.

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Millions of people in the U.S. do not get enough exercise. This precarious situation causes many grave problems such as escalating health care costs and reduced lifetime. Thus, it is the purpose of this short but informative essay to propose a new and progressive method to eradicate laziness and promote a healthy and productive lifestyle: mandatory exercise.

Well, why not? No one can seriously deny that working out is good for you. Cardiovascular exercise, as well as a balanced diet, is a very important part of keeping healthy. The more we have of it, the better.

Surely the opponents of this proposal would say that it is a “violation of rights” to make people exercise. Yet I find that logic faulty and also very dangerous. For if something is done for your own good, then how can it really violate rights? A healthy society is a functional society. The whims of a recalcitrant few should not override the wishes of the majority. In fact, if this majority wants to be in shape, then so be it.

My proposal would call for all men and women (and children over the age of 10) to be entered into a federal gym database where their progress towards health could be monitored and accounted for. The system would be devised by the best scientists and physical education specialists of the country and would probably include a required number of completed credits per month as well as demerits issued for anyone falling behind their required workout quota.

Now, let’s be realistic. There’s no way that this is going to work because there will be some who simply refuse to exercise. Our world has always had societal parasites; this is no exception. Not all is lost, however. My National Exercise Initiative (called also “NACI” for short) would account for the lazy, the sick and the very old. Under my plan, the IRS would be entitled to access the NACI database and remove tax breaks and credits. The additional funding will go into building new exercise facilities. It takes a village to mold our young ones into tomorrow’s workers, and no child should be left behind. Those who are unwilling or unable to participate should bear the costs and pay their fair share. May their dereliction of duty serve the more important greater good.

I urge our legislators to pay attention to this humble servant and enact the policy hereby suggested as soon as possible. The survival of our society, indeed the survival of our species, depends upon this. Do it for the children … for our future. Do not let us down!

Of course I don’t really advocate any of the above, but some politician out there has already thought about it or will think about it. Reject the “For Your Own Good Mentality” for only the individual can really know what’s best for him.

Manuel Lora [send him mail] works at Cornell University as a TV and multimedia producer. Visit his blog.