By Edmund Opitz, author of The Libertarian Theology of Freedom and Religion and Capitalism: Allies, Not Enemies. This essay was originally published in the December 1972 issue of The Freeman, and continues from his previous article.
Part One of this essay presents a diagnosis of the present malaise in terms of a loss of contact with six vital ideas. The ideas which keep us human may be summarized as follows:
- Free Will. Man’s gift of free will makes him a responsible being.
- Rationality. Man is a reasoning being who, by taking thought, gains valid truths about himself and the universe.
- Self-responsibility. Each person is the custodian of his own energy and talents, charged with the lifetime task of bringing himself to completion.
- Beauty. Man confronts beauty in the very nature of things, and reproduces this vision in art.
- Goodness. Man has a moral sense, enabling and requiring him to choose between good and evil.
- The Sacred. Man participates in an order which transcends nature and society.
It is no secret that a great many philosophers and scientists deny free will and affirm determinism; it is also a fact that no one can really bring himself around to believing that he is an automaton. A philosopher who announces himself as a determinist presumes to offer us a conclusion he has arrived at after observation, after marshalling the relevant evidence, after reflection, and as the end result of a chain of reasoning. Each of these steps reflects the action of a free being, and these free actions can never be pieced together so as to contrive an unfree result. Man’s will is free; it is so free that it can deny this freedom!
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By Edmund Opitz, author of The Libertarian Theology of Freedom and Religion and Capitalism: Allies, Not Enemies. This essay was originally published in the November 1972 issue of The Freeman.
Most people live lives of quiet desperation, Henry David Thoreau told us. If there was truth in that observation, in the pleasant, spacious old New England of Thoreau’s day, how much more truth is packed into those words in these melancholy days! Events have gotten out of hand and the world lurches into chaos.
Things have fallen apart faster than any of us would have dared predict, and we are seized by pangs of guilt and self-doubt. So many promising experiments have gone sour, from the New Freedom of Woodrow Wilson to the latest ukase of the present administration. The statesmen of this era talked peace and sought to outlaw war, but they let the twentieth century break down into the bloodiest period of all the twenty-five hundred years of warfare studied by Pitirim Sorokin. “We live,” wrote this great scholar, “in an age unique for the unrestrained use of brute force in international relations.”
The threat of protracted international conflict is bad enough, but there is also the well-founded fear of domestic violence and crime. And even if we are lucky enough to escape actual robbery, we know that inflation is steadily draining our wealth. We’ve seen the race issue go from integration to Black Nationalism; we’ve witnessed the emergence of the sex and drug cult, the rise of astrology, witchcraft and voodooism; V.D. has reached epidemic proportions among the young; and then there is abortion, homosexuality, the campus crisis, the environmental crisis, the inner crisis in man himself. For is it not true, as Yeats says in a famous poem, that “The wicked act with dreadful intensity, while the good lack all conviction.”
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Edmund Opitz,
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philosophy
G.T. asks a great question on the Christian Libertarian FAQ:
It’s one thing for adults to be left to make their own choices and live with the consequences, but when it comes to children, does society not have certain responsibilities for their proper care (if parents are unable/unwilling)? For libertarians who believe that education should be privatized, how does this practically work for these “forgotten” children?
Candidly, if I knew how a market in X works in practice, an accurate and comprehensive answer would be the most valuable proof that statism would work. Knowing how things work in practice ahead of time is impossible. We can guess and offer possibilities, but if education were privatized, it would probably look very different from what we now expect. At the same time, we don’t have just theories or principles of economics to look to for answers on how education could work without the state. We have a history of markets with millions of examples of how goods and services “work in practice.” We also have a history of markets that show us how the poor are provided goods and services that in prior decades on the wealthy could afford or have access to. While it will always be true that the wealthy will have access to the best, since the advent of freed markets the poorest have had access to reliable and quality substitutes for those products or services. In the early 1990s, “car phones” seemed to be the envy of the wealthy, completely out of reach to the poorest. Cellular phones are now ubiquitous and nearly universally affordable. A computer used to cost thousands of dollars in 1980s money, but now are merely a few hundred dollars in today’s money. These are but a few examples.
Education is one of the most complex social phenomena throughout history because of its rather fundamental nature of life. The bare minimum of learning is for mere survival, and so broadly speaking, education has always existed where survival was necessary! Just as there have always been many ways to learn, there are many ways to acquire education—apprenticeships, schools, labor market, reading, to name just a few. The first thing to keep in mind with education is that what we usually think of as “education” today is relatively new. Schools as we think of them are a recent historical practice.
The most difficult endeavor in proposing a society that operates completely on the foundations of peaceful interactions is to imagine a world nearly upside down from today’s experience. Examples throughout history are full of those who objected to social change. Certain industries may thrive in new conditions and leave old industries obsolete, yet life continued and humanity adjusted. It moves on. And most of us are the better for it. But social change is not without its hurdles. The biggest one is opening the imagination of others who cannot see what ought to be done. This takes courage and perseverance. It doesn’t happen overnight.
For most who question the privatization model of education, the children who will presumably be “left behind” (i.e. they fail to get adequate education) are the focus of concern. Add to this the Christian responsibility to concern themselves with the wellbeing of what Jesus calls “the least of these,” and the question becomes a bit more important. If Christians advocate something that leaves the poor behind, it might need to be reconsidered.
A Honda Civic will get me to work just as well as an Aston Martin. An iPad will send emails, but so will the cheapest tablet on the market that costs a fraction of the price. You can buy expensive cabinets made of exquisite wood shipped from exotic locations around the world, or you can shop at IKEA. Both add functionality to your kitchen. Markets have a proven track record of providing reliable and socially acceptable goods and services for those who have very little. In many areas, even those who were very wealthy could not afford such things a decade prior.
Once we keep in mind that education is not just “schooling,” we can begin to imagine ways that educating the poorest in a free society is not just a prediction but is feasible.
The question isn’t really about who owns and operates the school system. The question is, “What kind of ‘system’ do we need in order to see access to education to as many people as possible?” Do we even need a formal system, or does an emergent order of educational providers make more sense (the Hayekians among us would have plenty to say here!)?
It is often stated that it is the job of “the church” to assist the poor and not the job of anyone else. But for the same reason I reject the idea that “schooling” equals “education,” I would also reject the idea that “Church” equals “institutionalized Christianity.” Those who follow Jesus should be pushing the way forward that helps those in need, by whatever peaceful means necessary. That could mean starting a school funded by donations from those who have extra to give. That could mean starting a business that provides apprenticeships to the poor in exchange for inexpensive labor. That could mean working in the political system to privatize schools as we now know it. It could also mean working toward dismantling the current system so that it reflects a less institutionalized approach to educating.
A remaining concern to address is the neglectful parenting that can happen, leaving children “behind” the rest of society. What I would caution against is considering “society” as an entity with a purpose as if it were an individual. If by society you mean “the people living in society,” consider this: when a society is ready and willing to “go private” with education (face it, that’s a long way off!), that society will be ready to take care of those who are being neglected without a need for a federal or state institution to do so.
(UPDATE: Mises.org Wiki has a great page called Private Alternatives to Public Goods.)
Tags:
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economics,
education,
FAQ,
free market,
free society
There is no disputing the fact that gambling can be addictive and financially ruinous. In some cases, compulsive gamblers might even neglect their family, ruin their physical and mental health, and turn to crime to support their habit.
But even if these problems are not widespread and there is relatively little chance they would ever happen, some people still oppose gambling because they see it as a wasteful, immoral vice or sin with horrible odds of winning that takes advantage of those least able to afford it.
So Christians should support gambling laws, right?
Of course not.
Some religious conservatives must not have gotten the memo.
The Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the National Association of Evangelicals, and Focus on the Family all recently spoke out in opposition to a bill that would ostensibly legalize online poker.
The Internet Gambling Prohibition, Poker Consumer Protection and Strengthening UIGEA Act of 2012, which was never actually introduced, was co-authored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senator John Kyl (R-Ariz.). Time simply ran out to get the bill through Congress in 2012. "I am disappointed," said Reid, who served as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1977 to 1981, but "remain committed to this issue and it will be a priority for us in the new Congress."
A draft of the bill did leak out in September, and can be seen here, as well as a summary of the bill here.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission "steadfastly opposes your efforts," wrote its president, Richard Land, to Senator Kyl in a December 5th letter. Said Land:
We cannot support any effort that grants government sanction to any form of gambling.
Your bill not only does that but also creates a regulatory mechanism that is certain to be used to introduce other forms of Internet gambling in the future.
No amount of regulation or taxation could make such legalization a winning proposition for America.
We know all too well the destructive power of online gambling. It is ruinous not only to those who engage in the practice but also to their families and society as a whole. With its addictive lure, Internet gambling often leads to broken marriages, child neglect, and depleted finances, among other devastating consequences.
Land had previously written to Representative Joe Barton (R-Tex.) after he introduced a bill in the House to legalize online gambling.
"Pastors regularly see the destructive impact of gambling on families and children," said National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson in a Dec. 11th statement. "Those problems will increase if gambling moves from buildings to home computers."
"This is being disguised as a protective bill, if you will, that would limit gambling, but in fact … this is just a precursor bill" to opening the Internet to casino gambling a few years from now, said Chad Hills, gambling analyst for Focus on the Family, in a December 11th online interview.
The proposed Reid/Kyl bill would have legalized online poker in the sense that it reaffirmed the illegality of most online gambling in the United States and create a bureaucracy in the Treasury Department, the Office of Online Poker Oversight (OOPO), to assign licenses to online poker platforms and approve as "qualified bodies" to issue licenses states and Indian tribes. In other words, the bill would have further increased the federal government’s regulatory oversight of the gambling industry.
But that’s not all, one analysis of the bill said it was
a self-serving piece of legislation that protects large Nevada-based casinos at the expense of consumer choice. The bill in effect criminalizes just about any other form of online wagering, while providing a tiny carve-out for online poker companies in a way that protects Nevada against competition from any other state in the nation.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal described the bill as "a priority for several Nevada casino companies seeking a lucrative new and national market for their brands and for poker players seeking legal and federally regulated online games accompanied by consumer protections."
But let’s assume for a moment that the bill would have abolished all federal government restrictions and regulations relating to online gambling of any kind. Should Christians then have opposed the bill because it weakened gambling laws?
Of course not.
Note that I did not ask the question: "Should Christians support gambling?"
The nature of gambling and its negative effects are well known. And certainly every Christian is familiar with the biblical account of the Roman soldiers casting lots for Christ’s garments after they crucified him (Matthew 27:25).
The decision to gamble or not to gamble should always be an individual decision, made on the basis of culture, morals, religion, risk aversion, and financial status, and in consultation with family, friends, church leaders, and economists.
The decision to gamble or not to gamble should never be a government decision.
The question is whether Christians – individually, or collective through the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, or Focus on the Family – should support gambling laws.
There is a huge difference between opposition to gambling and opposition to gambling laws. It is the difference between paternalism and individualism, between statism and liberty, between the nanny state and a free society, and between compulsion and personal responsibility.
One can vehemently oppose all forms of gambling and yet at the same time just as stridently oppose all forms of gambling laws.
First of all, the Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government regulate or prohibit any form of gambling. Just like the Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to regulate or prohibit any other vice, immoral activity, sin, or bad habit. Christians who support gambling laws, at least on the federal level, are anti-Constitution, anti-Founding Fathers, and anti-American; that is, they are opposed to everything they claim to revere and hold sacred.
Second, it is not the purpose of government at any level to prevent people from wasting their money, taking excessive risk, having bad habits, engaging in vice, acting immorally, or making bad decisions. It is a perversion of government to do so. Laws that regulate or prohibit gambling are impossible to reconcile with a limited government and a free society.
Third, in the words of the famed nineteenth-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner, vices are not crimes:
Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.
But most importantly, from a theological perspective, there is no warrant in the New Testament for Christians to support gambling laws. There is no support in the New Testament for the idea that Christians should seek legislation to criminalize any victimless crimes. As I wrote in my article "Should Christians Support the War on Drugs?":
It is not the purpose of Christianity to change society as a whole outwardly; it is the purpose of Christianity to change men as individuals inwardly.
I believe that Christians have for the most part failed to fulfill their calling. Instead of making converts and instructing them in the biblical precepts of Christian living, they turn to the state to criminalize what they consider to be immoral behavior. Instead of changing people’s minds about what is and what is not acceptable in society, they seek to use the state to change people’s behavior. Instead of being an example to the world, they want to use the state to make the world conform to their example. Instead of educating themselves and other Christians about what is appropriate behavior, they rely on the state to make that determination. Instead of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, they want the state to assume those roles. Instead of minding their own business, they mind everyone else’s business.
I referenced above Leith Anderson of the National Association of Evangelicals. He opposed the legality of online gambling because "pastors regularly see the destructive impact of gambling on families and children." He believes that "those problems will increase if gambling moves from buildings to home computers." But if Anderson were just as concerned about the destructive impact of divorce on families and children and how divorce has increased among Christians over the years, then perhaps we could take him more seriously.
It is unfortunate that many Christians look to the state to enforce their moral code. One need not teach his children not to gamble when it is much more expedient to clamor for laws that make it illegal to do so.
Originally posted on LewRockwell.com on January 7, 2013.
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gambling,
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This article originally was published at the Future of Freedom Foundation on December 26, 2012.
Some of the most terrifying words the parents of a newborn will ever hear are “there is a problem with the baby.” Sometimes the dreadful news comes later after a tragic childhood accident or disease. When such children grow to adulthood they are joined by an even larger number of those who lived perfectly healthy lives as children only to become disabled in some way as adults.
Adults with a disability of some kind are many times unable to work or unable to make enough money from working to support themselves or their families, especially during periods of economic downturn like the past few years. They usually have less education and fewer assets than the general population. The question, then, is, Who should support the disabled?
This is not a question that has a definite legal or moral answer. In the case of children, the answer, legally and morally, is obviously the parents. And the same is true in the case of adults who have been unable to care for themselves since childhood. In the case of most adults, though, the party ultimately responsible for their support is themselves. If someone is unable to provide for his own support, then the case might be made that it is his family who bears that responsibility. But that is a moral, not a legal, issue.
Outside of someone in one’s immediate family, it cannot be said that any person is legally obligated to support another person. Whether someone is morally obligated to do so depends on his religion, spirituality, ethics, or moral philosophy.
Charity is therefore a personal and private matter. The decision to provide for someone’s support is a decision entirely up to individual persons acting alone or collectively through families, employers, professional associations, civic clubs, relief networks, churches, religious groups, humanitarian institutions, or charitable organizations.
Until the advent of the New Deal, that was the American way for generation after generation, beginning even before the founding of the Republic. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his Democracy in America about the American spirit of voluntary association and voluntary effort for the common good after his visit to the United States in 1831-32. More recently, Marvin Olasky, in The Tragedy of American Compassion (Regnery, 1995), has documented the extraordinary service rendered throughout American history by charitable organizations. And as Acton Institute president Robert Sirico explains in his new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case of a Free Economy (Regnery, 2012), the rise of Western civilization brought with it the most extensive network of care for the vulnerable and needy the world had ever seen.
But to some, reliance on private philanthropy, benevolence, and charity is not enough. Indeed, to the paternalist, the statist, and the government bureaucrat looking for job security, it is never enough. The government must set up a safety net, so they say or imply, to ensure that the disabled and disadvantaged are not neglected and pushed out into the street to fend for themselves.
One such safety net is the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Although this program is administered by the Social Security Administration, it is neither part of Social Security nor connected with it. According to a new report (“Supplemental Security Income: An Overview”) issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO),
In 1974, the federal government established the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program to provide cash assistance to people who are disabled, aged, or both and who have low income and few assets. SSI replaced several state-run support programs that had been partially financed by the federal government. In fiscal year 2013, the program will make payments to more than 8 million people at a cost to the federal government of about $53 billion.
Currently, about 60 percent of SSI recipients are disabled adults (ages 18 to 64), about 15 percent are disabled children (under age 18), and about 25 percent are aged adults (age 65 or over) with or without disabilities. SSI recipients generally are eligible for health insurance through Medicaid, and many also participate in other income-security programs that provide federal support to low-income people.
Beginning in early 1990, participation in SSI among people under 65 increased substantially, not because more people became disabled, but because of changes in the eligibility rules. And more recently, participation has increased again because of the recession.
The SSI program uses the same disability standard for working-age adults as the Social Security Disability Insurance program, but the two programs differ in several respects. Social Security is available only to adults (and their dependents) who have a sufficient work record, but SSI has no such requirement for eligibility. Social Security places no limits on beneficiaries’ income or assets, but SSI recipients must have low income and few assets. Social Security is funded primarily by a payroll tax, but SSI is funded out of general revenue.
To qualify for SSI, recipients must demonstrate that they have a disability preventing them from participating in “substantial gainful activity.” For 2012, that means work that results in earnings of more than $1,010 a month. Those who are 65 or older don’t have to be disabled; they can qualify for SSI on the basis of low income and assets alone.
The current maximum monthly SSI payment is $698 for an individual or $1,048 for a couple. The average monthly payment is about $500. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia supplement federal payments for some or all recipients. The average state supplement is about $120 a month. States also can choose to provide payments to those who are ineligible for federal SSI because they have too much income.
SSI recipients often participate in other welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, TANF, and food stamps. However, the value of any benefits they receive from those or other forms of assistance from state or local agencies is considered “not countable” in determining total income.
There are two problems with the SSI program that the government itself recognizes: it discourages work and it encourages fraud.
As acknowledged by the CBO’s new report on SSI,
Any program that provides benefits only to low-income applicants who have few assets will, to some extent, discourage work and saving. SSI is intended to provide income to adults with limited financial resources who cannot perform substantial work, but the dividing line between those who can and cannot perform substantial work is not always clear.
And as explained by Special Assistant United States Attorney John K. Webb in the United States Attorneys’ Bulletin,
Millions of dollars are lost each year from fraud perpetrated against SSI by unscrupulous claimants and/or their representatives, and prosecution of SSI fraud remains one of the most important priorities of the United States Attorneys’ offices in cooperation with the Social Security Administration Office of Counsel to the Inspector General. The opportunity for fraud is enhanced because SSA is an agency that has, historically, made extraordinary efforts to ensure accessibility to its benefits programs by qualified Americans.
Fraud is an inherent risk in SSA’s disability programs, and abuse in the SSI program is particularly prevalent. Some unscrupulous people view SSI’s disability benefits as money waiting to be taken. A key risk factor in the SSI program is individuals who feign or exaggerate symptoms to become eligible for disability benefits and those who fail to report changes in resources or other circumstances that would make an SSI recipient ineligible to continue to receive SSI benefits payments.
But even if SSI didn’t discourage work and encourage fraud, even if it didn’t “crowd out” support for the traditional institutions that once cared for the vulnerable and disadvantaged, and even if it didn’t foster dependency on the government, it still suffers from three fatal flaws — flaws that libertarians see as insurmountable.
First, because SSI is a federal welfare program, it is unconstitutional. The Constitution simply doesn’t authorize the federal government to operate a welfare program. Period. End of story. Why is it that conservatives — who profess to revere the Constitution — have so much trouble understanding that it doesn’t allow for any federal welfare program of any kind, while libertarians — who don’t share their admiration for the Constitution — have no such trouble understanding that?
Second, forcibly taking money from one American and giving it to another American — even because the other American is underprivileged, disabled, could put it to better use, or just simply “needs it” — is not charity. It is coercion, theft, and wealth redistribution.
And third, even if authorization for SSI were in the Constitution, and even if it were voluntarily funded by donations, it would still be an illegitimate function of government to operate a welfare program. Republicans who talk about limited government and disparage entitlement programs, but then make an exception for children, for the disabled, for the sick, for the homeless, for the needy, or for the “truly poor,” show just how little they care for the principles of free markets, volunteerism, privatization, and limited government that they claim to hold so dear.
One of the glories of libertarianism is its consistency. As Future of Freedom Foundation president Jacob Hornberger recently wrote,
Freedom for us is defined by the absence of government paternalism.
No government welfare programs under libertarianism. No income tax and IRS. No confiscation and redistribution of wealth at all. No mandatory charity programs. A total separation of charity and the state.
But if there is to be a total separation of charity and the state, then who should support the disabled? The answer is the same as the question of who should feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, and help the poor — anyone but the federal government.
Tags:
charity,
disabilities,
economics,
free society,
government,
socialism
Norman Horn is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the 