Can we hope to explain the blessings of freedom to foreign people while we deny them the freedom to cross our boundaries?

Freedom of movement underlies the concept of private property rights. A person has the right to exclusive possession and use of that which he has assembled and improved without trespass against others—the right to the product of his own labor. Any move of a man might be deemed proper and beneficial when he acts to assemble, transport, or otherwise convert the free gifts of Nature so that they may satisfy human needs more readily. This involves no infringement on the equal right of others. It would seem to be the kind of movement that should not be discouraged by man or by government.

On the other hand, freedom of movement may lead to trespass. A person may move or act in such a way as to threaten the life, or to seize or damage the property, of someone else. His apparent personal gain would be at the direct expense of another person. Surely, government should lend no encouragement to such harmful actions or threats of harm by individuals.

The problem of society, then, is to permit and encourage individuals to move and act in a productive and beneficial manner, and to avoid harmful intervention or trespass. The founding fathers wisely depended upon voluntary exchange—freedom of trade in the competitive market place—as the automatic, non-governmental guide to productivity and progress among men. They delegated to government the power to restrict only those actions of individuals designed to circumvent the free market through fraud, deceit, or coercion. The penalty for violation was restitution for damages, or imprisonment, or some other restraint upon that person’s freedom to act or move.

The freedom of the individual to move toward greener pastures, wherever they may seem to be, has been a vital part of the freedom of commerce—the freedom of choice that has constituted the truly distinctive characteristic of “the American way.”

In view of our long experience of near-perfect freedom to move about as each might choose, some of us may not realize the limitations that confront people in many other parts of the world who might like to move toward something better. Many who might choose to enter the United States, peacefully observing our laws and paying their own way, are denied entry. Our community slogans now seem to read: “Welcome to all peaceful and productive newcomers—except foreigners.” And a foreigner here is an individual who has crossed a special political line, supposedly which bounds “the land of the free”!

If it is sound to erect a barrier along our national boundary lines, against those who see greater opportunities here than in their native lands, why should we not erect similar barriers between states and localities within our nation? Why should a low-paid worker—“obviously ignorant, and probably a Socialist”—be allowed to migrate from a failing buggy shop in Massachusetts to the expanding automobile shops of Detroit? According to the common attitude toward immigrants, he would compete with native Detroiters for food and clothing and housing. He might be willing to work for less than the prevailing wage rate in Detroit, “upsetting the labor market” there. His wife and children might “contaminate” the local sewing circles and playgrounds with foreign ways and ideas. Anyhow, he was a native of Massachusetts, and therefore that state should bear the full “responsibility for his welfare.”

Those are matters we might ponder, but our honest answer to all of them is reflected in our actions—we’d rather ride in automobiles than in buggies. It would be foolish to try to buy an automobile or anything else in the free market, and at the same time deny any individual an opportunity to help produce those things we want.

Our domestic relationships would be harmed seriously by restraints upon man’s freedom to migrate. But why shouldn’t the same reasoning hold for our foreign relationships?

Fear No. 1: The “melting pot” might fail to assimilate newcomers. This notion has as little merit as the idea that a third-generation Yankee’s digestive tract isn’t capable of assimilating a bunch of carrots grown by a foreign-born Japanese or Italian vegetable gardener. The assimilation of a foreign-born person is accomplished when the immigrant willingly comes to America, paying his own way not only to get here but also after he arrives, and peacefully submitting to the laws and customs of his newly adopted country. Freedom to exchange goods and services voluntarily in the market place is the economic catalyst of the American “melting pot.” Christian-like morality is the social catalyst—and if it has come to be in short supply among native Americans, the blame for that shortage should not be laid upon our immigrants.

Fear No. 2: The “wrong kind” of people might come to America. The danger that “a poorer class” might come from Asia or Africa or Southern and Eastern Europe and contaminate our society, undoubtedly seems real to any person who thinks of himself as a member of a superior class or race. Such a person, like any good disciple of Marx, is assuming the existence of classes and is convinced that he is qualified to judge others and to sort them into these classes.

Perhaps what is feared is the importation of a new idea of the relationship between the individual and his government. If that has been our fear, it very well might have been justified. For America has been rapidly substituting a socialistic State control for the traditional system of private enterprise. But let us not mistake persons for ideas; the ideas are the root of the problem. Migration of persons is not a reliable measure of the flow of ideas.

Fear No. 3: Immigrants might deprive our own workers of jobs and depress the wage scale. The fear that immigrants might take the jobs of American workers is based on the fantasy that the number of jobs to be filled within our economy is strictly limited. Individuals still do—and undoubtedly always will—entertain unsatisfied desires for more and more goods and services, which industrious and ingenious individuals constantly are producing in response to opportunities. If there is freedom to think, to trade, and to move, then opportunities for new, creative jobs are not limited to the wilderness or a spot of idle land.

The fear that heavy immigration of workers would depress the wages of native workers is an outgrowth of socialist doctrine. Socialism is so concerned with consumption and “equitable distribution” that it neglects the source of production. It fails to recognize that there can be more and more to consume only if capital and tools are first produced to give leverage to the productive power of man.

Can we hope to explain the blessings of freedom to foreign people while we deny them the freedom to cross our boundaries? To advertise America as the “land of the free,” and to pose as the world champion of freedom in the contest with communism, is hypocritical, if at the same time we deny the freedom of immigration as well as the freedom of trade. And we may be sure that our neighbors overseas are not blind to this hypocrisy.

A community operating on the competitive basis of the free market will welcome any willing newcomer for his potential productivity, whether he brings capital goods or merely a willingness to work. Capital and labor then attract each other, in a kind of growth that spells healthy progress and prosperity in that community. That principle seems to be well recognized and accepted by those who support the activities of a local chamber of commerce. Why do we not dare risk the same attitude as applied to national immigration policy?

Our collective abandonment of the economic system of the free market leaves for us the controlled communal life, where everyone wants to be a consumer without producing anything.

The Basic Problem

Our immigration policy merely reflects the existence of this serious internal problem in America. Our present policy toward immigrants is consistent with the rest of the controls

over persons which inevitably go with national socialism. But the controlled human relationships within the “welfare state” are not consistent with freedom. Great Britain once thought she could deny freedom to American colonists. And now, her own people have traded their freedom for nationalized austerity. Even a “prosperous” modern America can ill afford traveling that same course. If we do, our community, too, will lose its capacity to attract newcomers. Then we wouldn’t need an immigration policy. But who among us would want to remain in a community where opportunities no longer exist?

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The Freedom to Move

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Tags: economics, ethics, freedom, immigration

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Nevertheless, the US government continues to prop up this inefficient and unethical practice. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, many lives have been ruined by the bad side of corps, full of lawyers hunting for cash. We all know of the old ladies and teenagers who receive verdicts requiring them to pay obscene amounts of money for such non-crimes.

Well, some new rules coming straight from the Library of Congress are sure to help alleviate a few of these problems. Essentially, the Librarian of Congress must evaluate exemptions to the DMCA every 3 years, i.e. you cannot be prosecuted, period, if you do these things. Previously, there had only been one exemption recognized. Now, there are SIX exemptions, and the first three are quite significant.

The basics of each exemption:
1) You can rip your own DVDs. You can remix scenes for noncommercial use. So all those Hitler-plus-caption remixes from the movie Downfall no longer can be taken down. Teachers who want to use a movie in a class can rip it. No one from the DMCA can touch you.
2) You can jailbreak your phone, nobody can prosecute you. Big swipe at Apple/AT&T.
3) You can use software to unlock your phone for use on a different network.
4) You can use software to crack game SecuROMs or other game DRM for the purpose of “investigation” or research. The language is very broad, since even curiosity can prompt “investigation.”
5) You can use cracks to bypass a hardware dongle. This is significant for people like me who use lab equipment or any variety of peripherals with stupid dongles.
6) You can crack DRM encrypted ebooks to use text-to-speech capabilities. Convenient.

Gizmodo has a more thorough analysis here.

These new rules surely do not go far enough, but thankfully things are not becoming more restrictive in this arena. But we need to continue pushing back, so keep spreading the word!

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New Copyright Rules Released

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Tags: copyright, economics, ethics, intellectual property

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What is particularly awesome about LVMI in this regard is that they understand that material like this doesn’t have to be protected by the strong arm of the state through aggressive copyright law. Instead, they just completely circumvent it. All of it is provided at the grand old price of $0.00. How awesome is that? To have an entire library of knowledge at your fingertips for the cost of a few gigabytes of bandwidth.

And besides being an absolutely heroic gesture, it even benefits LVMI monetarily as well. Ever since LVMI started giving away everything in electronic PDF form for free, their book sales have skyrocketed – because it turns out many people (like me) continue to want hard copies in addition to the electronic editions.

Huzzah to the great Ludwig von Mises Institute!

Here’s the text of their blog post with the appropriate links:

———————

Mises Torrents 2.0 Available

June 15, 2010 by David Veksler

It’s been about a year early since the first public release of torrents containing all the document and media content on Mises.org. The Mises Institute staff adds new content frequently, so it is time for version 2.0.  Here are the 2010 torrents: Mises Media (132 GB), Books (8.6GB), Journals (4.1 GB), PDFs (324 MB), and ReasonPapers (1.4 GB).

For more files and details see the original announcement.  If you are new to BitTorrent, install the uTorrent client, open the links above, and you’ll be on your way.

If you downloaded an earlier version of this content, please do not re-download everything.  In both uTorrent and Vuze, you can get just the missing files.  In uTorrent,  start the download and let it create the placeholder directory, then stop it.  Overwrite the placeholder directory with your existing files, then “Force Re-Check.”  You can do the same in Vuze –  just enable the option to “Truncate existing files that are too large” under Options->Files.  Then resume.

By my best calculations, we seeded last year’s torrents to thousands of computers worldwide and served over 4 terabytes from our servers alone.  Please help us spread the word and make this release even bigger.

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Mises Institute Torrents 2.0 Released

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Tags: economics, free market, technology

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According to the Tax Foundation, Americans will spend about 30 percent of their income on taxes in 2008. For comparison, in 1900, it was around 6 percent. Put differently, for almost four months out of the year you work just to pay for government. In the current system most types of income are taxed, sometimes twice, and often progressively. These are just some of the taxes levied by government: federal and local income tax, sales tax, property tax, gasoline tax, cigarette tax, liquor tax, vehicle sales tax, utility tax, marriage license tax, inheritance tax, and capital gains tax, etc. On top of that, you pay to compensate for taxes levied on others. For instance, you, as a consumer, pay higher prices for goods and services because of the corporate income tax levied on businesses. The government, if it is to exist, should protect people from force and fraud. Therefore, at most, government should tax only to maintain a national defense, a police force and law courts. But instead, legislators seek to fulfill the so-called “needs” of the constituencies and special interest groups that put and keep them in office. So, the government has tasked itself with providing cheaper prescription drugs for seniors, improving education for children, supporting for farmers by keeping food prices high and paying them for any product they fail to sell, covering the living expenses of the poor, paying for medical research, and so on. The result is not a system that protects our individual rights but a system that provides benefits to some at the expense of others. Typically there will be concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, which makes organizing resistance difficult and leads to even larger government interference.

Taxes violate individual rights. Specifically, it violates your property rights. By using taxation to benefit some people, the government says that you have no right to keep what you have earned or how you spend it, as long as there is someone else who needs or wants it, and that it, the government, has the right to seize your property in order to provide it to the person or group they see fit. That’s damn close to making you a slave. As John A. Pugsley stated, “How does the IRS agent who collects our taxes differ from the gunman? He does not. You are forced to pay under threat of imprisonment (the gun). Your money is taken without your voluntary consent. It is used by other people who claim that their need is a just demand of your property. The process is justified because a group of people (voters) decide as a group that you should be robbed and that the money should be used for whatever purposes they deem proper.”

The current tax system creates winners and losers. The government does not create wealth, but only usurps and redistributes it. The winners in this redistribution are legislators and the special interest groups that pander to them. Also, foreign producers win because the taxes levied on businesses increase prices on domestic goods. Tax accountants win because they garner more business due to the complicated the tax codes. And, people who are the least productive win because their income tax is lowest; some do not have to pay income tax at all. The losers are clearly productive individuals, those who have created wealth by providing goods and services to others, who have chosen to voluntarily patron their business. But more than that, everyone who pays income tax loses because they have to spend time and money to complete complicated income tax returns. As Mark Skousen penned: “Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, ‘Taxation is the price we pay for civilization.’ But isn’t the opposite really the case? Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned and totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.” Taxes trample the idea of virtue. Forcing individuals via taxation to pay for the “needs” of others (often determined by a bureaucrat) does make them benevolent or charitable. What makes people charitable and benevolent is realizing that there are persons in true need and causes well worth while contributing to. Many people do realize this, which is why they give voluntarily. Moreover, excessive taxation discourages charitable giving because people have less money to give, or figure that their taxes already pay for helping the needy.

Taxation is frequently “progressive.” That means that individuals who earn more are forced to pay more. But why? They do not derive any greater benefit from the government by doing so. The underlying assumption of progressive taxation is that wealth is a like a fixed pie from which some people get to take a larger piece, thereby decreasing the share of others. Accordingly, income inequality is the expression of unfair wealth distribution and should be decreased by reallocation from the top to the bottom. Hence, those who make more should pay more because they have to give back in some way what they have taken from others. This depiction of the economy is inaccurate. More production generates more economic progress which leads to an increase in wealth for everyone (at least in a free market system), so that the pie does not remain a fixed size.

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Tax Slavery Sucks

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Rent-seeking refers to the behavior of individuals or groups expending resources to achieve public policy decisions that transfer wealth to them at the expense of others. Some examples:

• A nonprofit organization might seek for the government to spend taxpayer money on their pet cause, such as protecting the environment or researching a disease.
• A workers’ union might want the government to force employers to provide higher wages, more benefits and greater job security.
• A corporation might seek subsidization to support an unsustainable business model instead of working to become more profitable.

While the rent-seekers should be faulted for the behavior, it is the government granting rent-seekers what they want that is the real problem. As it shells out more benefits and privileges, government has to collect more taxes to administer and pay for them, thus vastly increasing its size and scope.

Rent-seeking is theft. A rent-seeker wants to achieve a wealth transfer in his favor without having to provide value in return. In a mixed economy, companies and organizations find it more effective to petition the government for protection (i.e. subsidies, tariffs, entry barriers, regulations, etc.) than to compete by providing goods and services that consumers want to pay for. Since in a free market the choices of other individuals might not go in his favor, the rent-seeker would rather have the government initiate force against those individuals. The free market, on the other hand, is predicated upon and respects individuals’ free choices. Rent-seekers hinder the dynamism of the free market. When you and I trade in the free market, we each give the other something the other wants more than we want it, relative to what we receive in exchange. By contrast, when the government initiates force in favor of a rent-seeker, it makes everybody but the rent-seeker worse off. It leaves the rent-seeker’s competitors worse off, because the rent-seeker now has a government-enforced advantage, whether in the form of a government-approved monopoly, or stifling regulations faced by would-be entrepreneurs. Because market forces and signals are hindered and distorted, this leaves consumers worse off. They are forced to pay higher prices for poorer quality goods and services.

Rent-seeking harms economic growth. Instead of companies investing their money in new technology, new jobs, offering consumers better products and better prices, or increasing their employees’ pay, the money ends up in the pockets of lobbyists and the politicians able to grant favors. Consumers are forced to pay more for goods and services and taxpayers have to foot the bill for the rent-seekers’ government-enforced advantage. So, over time, as government arbitrarily favors one group over another and expands in size in order to pay for rents, rent-seeking erodes the mechanisms that make economic growth and wealth creation possible: the impartial rule of law, limited government and individual rights.

Statists, whether out of distrust of individuals or faith in the ability of the government, prefer that the state controls people instead of people controlling themselves; they opt for government intervention rather than individual liberty. Statist policies can include regulation of the economy, provision of social goods, and control over personal behaviors. Many political ideologies can be subsumed under the label “statist” — communism, fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism. Even a democracy can become statist if it does not create or does not follow constitutional safeguards against the majority imposing its will without regard for the individual rights of the minority.

Statism is anti-liberty. Individuals have property in themselves, also called self-ownership, which entails they should be free to control their bodies, their minds and their lives. The only way to interfere with that freedom is by means of physical force. The job of governments is to defend individual rights by protecting individuals against the initiation of physical force. However, when governments institute statist policies, they initiate force against individuals who are not infringing on the liberty of others and thus violate individual rights. For instance, regulations, tariffs and subsidies for businesses violate the rights of entrepreneurs and consumers, who both are prevented from voluntarily determining the terms of their interactions with others. If I choose to not give my money to a certain business, government has no authority to overrule that decision. It violates my freedom of choice and deprives others of the property they would have gained in the absence of government interference. Immigration restrictions violate the rights of individuals, since they are prevented from peacefully living and working where they choose to. Bans on smoking and the use of other drugs, speed limits and seat belt requirements, and laws preventing the sale of organs violate your rights since you are prevented from making decisions about your own body.

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Stop Rent-seeking

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The current Social Security (aka “socialist insecurity”) system is designed as a pay-as-you-go system, in which current workers’ tax dollars pay for the benefits of retirees. And the system is in serious trouble. With increased life expectancy and a declining birth rate, there are fewer workers to support a greater number of retirees. In 1950, there were 16 workers paying for the benefits of one retiree. Today, there are about three workers per retiree, and by 2025 there will only be two. According to the Social Security Administration itself, if unreformed, Social Security will begin running a deficit by 2017, and by 2060 Social Security and Medicare combined will make up 71 percent of the federal budget.

Social Security violates individual rights. It is predicated upon two ideas. One, that the strong should support the weak: in this case, the young should support the old financially when the old cannot do so themselves any longer. Two, that life entails certain basic risks that people either encounter at no fault of their own, such as economic downturns, or simply fail to prepare for. Now, while these ideas might be true, they miss an essential point. Your life belongs to you. Since it is you living your life, and you have the most interest in it, most likely you know your financial situation much better than any politician or bureaucrat. Therefore, as long as you are not violating someone else’s rights, you should be free to control your life and to make the choices that affect your future, even if you end up making mistakes. You are not violating anyone’s rights by planning for your retirement. So, you should be free decide whether you want to save for retirement and how much risk you are willing to take in investing, reaping the rewards or incurring the losses. As for helping the less fortunate, since Social Security is a bad investment with a poor rate of return (see below), it actually disproportionately hurts poor people because they cannot afford to invest additional funds for retirement privately.

Social Security negates choice. By forcing individuals to contribute to Social Security, the government takes away important choices they should be able to make about their own retirement. If you work, you are forced to pay into it but have no choice about how the money is invested. In fact, your Social Security taxes are not even invested at all; they are paid out to current retirees and to loan the federal government money for other government programs. You have no choice over how many years you work or when to retire in order to collect any benefits. You have no choice about what happens to the accumulated money after you die; you cannot pass it on to your family or your favorite cause.

Social Security is a bad investment. According to the Congressional Budget Office, if you are in your late twenties today, the most optimistic projection for your Social Security return is 0.7 percent! By contrast, historically returns on private investments have been much higher: stock market returns 6.8%; corporate bonds 3.8%; treasury bonds 3.3%; a balanced portfolio (50% stock/30% corporate bond/20% treasury bond) 4.9%. If you were able to invest your money privately, you could choose which type of investment you prefer. Stock markets might be riskier but involve higher returns than money market or plain old savings accounts. And, if you invest your money privately, you have a legal right to any returns on that money.

You have no legal right to Social Security benefits. In 1960 the Supreme Court ruled in Flemming v. Nestor that, “a person covered by the [Social Security Act] has not such a right in benefit payments as would make every defeasance of ‘accrued’ interests violative of the due process clause of the fifth amendment.” Hence, Congress can change or rescind those benefits at any time. For instance, before 1983 Social security benefits were not taxed. Since the 1983 Amendments to the Social Security Act, up to one-half of the benefits received are taxed if the recipient’s yearly income exceeded a certain threshold (generally individuals making more than $25,000 and married couples making $32,000). So, not only does the government forcibly take part of the money you earned out of your control, you also are not guaranteed to derive full benefits. That is legalized robbery.

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Social Slavery

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Tags: economics, memes, money, social security

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Many members of said group, I imagine, are pretty innocent in this regard. But what exactly does it mean to stop the sale of someone else’s property? Really?

The description of the group reads: “Petition against the selling of KFUO Classic 99 in St. Louis. The 85 year old radio station, one of only 20 commercial classical stations in the country, is up for sale. Classical stations are getting gobbled up across the country and need to be preserved.”

That’s nice that they want it preserved, but what will a petition do?

One person has told me that this is just how the free market works, with the public pressuring companies to do certain things, “whether it be cleaning up their waste/runoff or using fair trade cotton for goods, adopting a new item to the menu, or not selling their radio station.”

But there is a big difference between saying to a company “Do the right thing” or “We’d like to see this on the menu,” versus “Don’t use your property the way you see fit, because we say so.” Each sends an entirely different message. The former is a moral or consumer appeal, and this is good. The latter, however, is more akin to how unions with exclusivity contracts coerce companies into doing what they want. Except in this case the protesters aren’t even employees (but thankfully there is no exclusivity contract either). Of course, a silly Facebook group has no resort to force, but if they really care then they will support Classic 99 with their pocketbooks, and not with electrons. Indeed, donations are frequently how these kinds of radio stations are run anyway, just look at KMFA 89.5 in Austin where I live now. Petitions mean nothing unless they are backed with something. And what is the point of private ownership of property if you cannot use it, non-aggressively, how you see fit?

Interestingly enough, the sale has already taken place.

And actually I’m glad to hear it, because without the sale, only one of three things could happen:
(1) A private firm or individual could run the business as a loss for charity’s sake.
(2) The business could slowly go under and eventually be sold off in pieces to pay off debts accrued.
(2) The government can take it over, and operate it via revenues taken at the point of a gun, i.e. taxation.

Option 1 would be great, but is very unlikely, especially when you have a government that is taking more and more money from everyone. Charity always decreases when the government takes more off the top. Option 2 is not good either, since it’s completely inefficient and diminishes economic recovery. It is distinct from Option 1, however, since Option 1 functions from savings of the charitable but Option 2 functions from credit alone. That’s bad news, and very undesirable. But Option 3 is the worst possible scenario, not only because it is completely immoral but also because this is always the least efficient means of allocating resources. Anytime the government gets involved, operating costs increase simply because extra middlemen are always involved.

In a recessionary economy like the one we have now, capital must be reallocated to more efficient means for a recovery to occur. The sale of Classic 99 is just one of those instances. This is not only a normal function of an economy, it is the desirable outcome, otherwise recovery does not happen.

We should not buy into the idiocy of governments everywhere, which think that they can bail themselves out – or worse, bail out other countries like Greece – by printing more money and increasing the same credit that got us to this point in the first place.

Thank goodness that despite the inevitable ineptitude of government, the free market can make corrections and everyone is made better off. Remember, the market is always a win-win endeavor.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is support your local classical station, if you want them to exist in the future…

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What is the point of private property if you cannot use it?

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Smoking bans have gone into effect in many jurisdictions, mostly indoors (bars, restaurants, workplaces, casinos, even apartments and condos) but also outdoors (beaches, in front of public buildings, parks and stadiums). Under the auspices of “protecting people” the government tries to discourage individuals from smoking by levying “sin taxes” on the cigarettes they buy and prohibits smokers from lighting up in places they share with non-smokers. To dissuade people—especially young folks—from starting to smoke, the government has banned cigarette advertising from TV and radio.

Why we oppose anti-smoking legislation:

Smoking bans violate property rights. By legislating against smoking, the government initiates force. It initiates force against property owners—owners of bars, restaurants, private workplaces, apartments and condos—by prohibiting them from deciding whether to allow their employees, customers, guests and tenants to smoke. By contrast, none of these people are violating anyone’s rights because they are not initiating physical force. Smokers are not forcing anyone to endure their smoking; people are free to leave a smoky environment. No employer is forcing anyone to work in a place where many people smoke. More importantly, those who choose to work in establishments where smoking is allowed did just that—choose. There is no right to a job, and the employee freely weighed the pros and cons prior to taking the position. The government also initiates force against cigarette manufacturers and broadcasters by banning them from advertising on TV and radio even though an advertisement does not force anyone to smoke. So, the government is unjustly violating citizens’ rights by legislating against smoking.

Smoking bans violate self-ownership. The government does not have the right to protect you from doing what you want with your own body. Smoking may be unhealthy, but acknowledging and taking that risk is your choice. The government uses a gun to prevent you from harming yourself—now that is irony!

Smoking bans only further entrench the Nanny State. Anti-smoking legislation is a blatant example of the government using force to arbitrarily prevent people from doing things that the government deems harmful. Consider, for example, that the government does not prevent you from consuming alcohol, bungee jumping, becoming a fireman or a coal miner, or sky diving all activities that are potentially damaging to one’s health.

Smoking bans distort the free market. Many people realize that smoking can be a nuisance to nonsmokers. Hence, many restaurants had voluntarily become smoke-free absent of government coercion simply because of customer demand. Many workplaces had already made rules about where to smoke to address the needs of their nonsmoking employees. Many home owners ask guests not to smoke in their homes, and many smokers do not smoke in their home because they have nonsmokers living there. Many parents, even those who smoke, are perfectly willing to limit their children’s exposure to smoke if they believe it is harmful; no law is needed when a mother’s protective instinct is already operative.

Smoking bans aren’t supported by science. As for the dangers of second-hand smoke, while it is unpleasant, most studies investigating its effects looked at people who are exposed to it on a daily and prolonged basis, such as individuals who live with smokers, not people who go to bars, restaurants or are outside in the immediate vicinity of a smoker. Those studies did not always find that second-hand smoke harmed anyone.

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Smoking is Healthier than Fascism

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“Progress” is an abused word these days, especially by bureaucrats and the special interest groups that cater to them. Yet such groups, in the name of progress and social justice, support government intervention through intervention in the market, minimum or living wages, and universal healthcare. We find neither progress nor justice in government actions that advance one group at the expense of another. Don’t get us wrong: we are for progress — for economic growth, wealth creation, and the elimination of poverty — but we understand that progress grows from voluntary interactions and respect of individual rights. That which violates the rights of individuals cannot be progress.

Why we oppose “Progressives Against Progress:”

Opposition to free markets is the antithesis of progress. If one thing unites progressives it is their hatred for free markets. Yet it is free markets that can best provide for all the things progressives advocate — the elimination of poverty, quality education, a clean environment, etc. Blanket opposition to free markets is a strange idea indeed. What sense does it make to use the force of government to prevent willing buyers and sellers from engaging in transactions? This simple act, done with someone from across town or across the ocean, creates wealth. And done billions and billions of times, it’s what lifts whole societies from poverty. By turning to government, progressives not only ignore this engine of wealth creation but hinder it, as government must steal the wealth it redistributes from someone that has first created it. Progressives are correct in one related area — objecting to businesses obtaining special privileges from the government. But they are wrong in where they lay the blame. Rather than singling out these businesses, progressives should realize that these special favors were obtained only due to the large size and scope of the government. If progressives take issue with businesses using government to their advantage, perhaps they should reexamine their own tactics and realize that they engage in exactly the same thing — imposing their will on others through the government. Not too progressive.

Support of public education hinders progress and is immoral. As free markets have proven over and over again, when competition is introduced to any industry, consumers are met with more choices and higher quality, less expensive products and services. Education is no different. We all want the same thing — for our children to be educated — but what is the best way to go about making that happen? Progressives would have you believe that schools just need more funding. Perhaps they are unaware that the amount spent per pupil in the U.S. has risen over 300% in real dollars over the last three decades with no improvement in test scores. That may be because much of that increased funding has been siphoned off by the all-powerful National Education Association to create more administrative jobs, increase teacher pay based not on performance but seniority, and fight any bill that threatens their hold on government schools… schools which are sometimes so bad that many parents pay for their children’s education twice — once, when the government takes their money to support public schools, and again by paying for a private school to ensure their child actually receives a good education. Unfortunately, it’s often those children receiving the worst education — those in inner cities — that do not have the means to escape from government schools, which means that attempts by progressives to stop the introduction of competition into the education system actually harms those worst-off. That doesn’t seem like a good ideal to strive for.

The backing of social welfare programs is empirically and ethically wrong. Progressives support social welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare out of concern for their fellow man. Apparently they don’t realize that that money was stolen from productive individuals by government actors who first take a cut for themselves. A less rights-violating and more efficient method of helping those in need would be for those willing to give of their money to do so. Do Progressives not trust in their fellow man enough to believe others wouldn’t be taken care of? Historical examples show that before government intervention, civil society functioned very well — striking a balance between providing assistance and ensuring that access to help was not abused. And militant support of Social Security and Medicare by progressives (programs that will together account for 71% of the federal budget by 2060) is not just alarming but dangerous. Moreover, entitlement programs invite moral hazards; those who don’t want to take care of themselves will simply find a way to make themselves look needy enough. Medicare fraud alone costs taxpayers an estimated $60 billion dollars! Or consider welfare recipients who have several aliases or claim to support numerous children. To be sure, most people abhor suffering and are willing to give to starving children or the local food pantry voluntarily. But no one has grown more benevolent, more virtuous or more charitable by having his hard-earned money redistributed by government.

Progressives oppose progress by demanding universal healthcare. Universal healthcare is based on the false claim that everyone has a right to healthcare. But saying I have a right to healthcare places a duty on others to provide it to me; it means I can force others to serve or pay for my medical needs. In contrast, saying I have a right not to be interfered with when I need medical help simply means that the government cannot prevent me from choosing whose medical services I purchase, or from obtaining medicines and treatments. As occurs in countries that have socialized healthcare, when the government pays for your healthcare, it will tell you what doctor you can go to, what treatments you can receive and what drugs you can buy. This is so because when a resource is “free,” people use it without regard to whether the resource will replenish, so government has to be in control over how it is dispersed, which leads to rationing, long waits, and premature deaths. Further, universal healthcare is not free — it’s paid for with your tax dollars. As with any other good or service, the quality of healthcare will decrease as its costs increase, due to a lack of competition. Progressives should consider just how terrible a job government has done administering other programs — the drug war, the military, the post office, Fannie Mae — and then re-think their stance on government-provided healthcare.

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Progressives Against Progress

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Tags: economics, free market, interventionism, memes, public schools, universal health care

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Thanks in large part to misinformation, protectionist legislation passed with the support of Big Labor and other rent-seeking groups, and rhetoric accompanying these actions, immigration has become a divisive topic. As was seen between East and West Berlin decades ago and between the United States and Mexico today, this controversy sometimes results in the construction of physical barriers to prevent the free movement of individuals. Yet, fortunately there are some reasonable voices in this discussion, helping to point out how immigration restrictions further entrench governments and negate individual rights, in addition to severely hampering the economy.

Why we support free and open immigration:

Immigration restrictions violate the natural rights of each individual. Restricting where a person can live or work based on the geographical location where they were born hearkens back to the days when governments imposed similar restrictions based on another factor outside of an individual’s control—their skin color. We should be concerned about the welfare of all persons, not just those who happen to be born within a certain arbitrary political boundary.

Immigration restrictions violate self-ownership. An individual has the right to reach an agreement with an employer, whether he happens to be born 50, 500, or 5,000 miles away. To allow the government to prevent such a contract violates each individual’s rights; if the government has the authority to determine who can work for whom, we are slaves.

Immigration, like free trade, improves the economy. Robust immigration helps to raise the standard of living. Any limit on the potential pool of mental and physical labor only diminishes the market’s potential for wealth creation. Free and open immigration allows for the dynamism and entrepreneurship of the market to be more fully realized as individuals are free to specialize in areas that they excel, to found businesses, and to innovate. In turn, this creates jobs and improves goods and services. A rising tide raises all ships.

Allowing for immigration is a peaceful way to pressure tyrannical states to shape up. Rights are not granted by the government. Individuals born in North Korea, Brazil, the United States, Germany, and Nigeria all have the same rights. But, since governments usurp rights, those living under the most repressive regimes often move to less-restrictive areas, seeking a better life for themselves and their families. If the best and brightest from a particular country are emigrating elsewhere, even the most authoritarian of governments realize the loss of talent and are forced to become less burdensome—something that helps individuals still living in those countries.

Immigrants internalize the ideas of freedom. They know firsthand the stifling effects of burdensome, corrupt governments. By uprooting their family and moving to a new area, they have demonstrated that they value individual liberty, personal responsibility, and markets. They have, quite literally, voted with their feet. They remind each of us of the importance of liberty, and of the importance of preserving that liberty. Immigrate? No. ImmiGREAT!

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ImmiGreat

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