TLS Podcast Picks: Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist

Podcast Picks, Technology
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Recommended podcasts:

  • Matt Ridley on The Rational Optimist & “Ideas Having Sex,” Reason.tv (June 16, 2010): “Best-selling science writer Matt Ridley’s latest book is The Rational Optimist, which explains why the author is upbeat on the prospects of a planet and a civilization that seems to lurch from one pending political, economic, or environmental catastrophe to another. … Doomsayers have it all wrong, writes Ridley, who argues that prosperity and innovation have outraced even the visions of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.”

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Hoppe: The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years

(Austrian) Economics, Anti-Statism, Democracy, Immigration, Political Correctness, The Left, The Right, Vulgar Politics
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I was privileged to attend to the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society last week. It was held in beautiful Bodrum, Turkey at the Hotel Karia Princess, from June 3-7, 2010. The list of speakers may be found in the Program. This is my second, having also attended the inaugural meeting in 2006. I’ll put up another blog soon with more details about the event, but for now let me say it was without a doubt the best liberty related event I’ve ever attended. And two of my fellow TLS co-bloggers also attended–Gil Guillory and Juan Fernando Carpio.

Group photo2 from the Fifth Annual Meeting, June 2010, Hotel Karia Princess, Bodrum
Group photo from the Fifth Annual Meeting, June 2010, Hotel Karia Princess, Bodrum

Professor Hoppe’s opening address, “The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years,” is published here on The Libertarian Standard today. It’s a fascinating, informative, and perceptive overview of various libertarian paleo- and related alliances over the years.

Hoppe surveys the mistakes of former alliances, and lessons learned; and also devastatingly illustrates how the state has coopted even most free market think tanks into serving the state’s aims:

The strategy of Hayek and of the Mont Pelerin Society, then, had to fail. Instead of helping to reform—liberalize—the (Western) State, as they intended (or pretended?) to do, the Mont Pelerin Society and the international “limited-government” think-tank industry would become an integral part of a continuously expanding welfare-warfare state system.

Indicators for this verdict abound: The typical location of the think tanks is in or near the capital city, most prominently Washington, DC., because their principal addressee is the central government. They react to measures and announcements of government, and they suggest and make proposals to government. Most contacts of think-tankers outside their own institution are with politicians, government bureaucrats, lobbyists, and assorted staffers and assistants. Along with connected journalists, these are also the regular attendees of their conferences, briefings, receptions and cocktail parties. There is a steady exchange of personnel between think tanks and governments. And the leaders of the limited government industry are frequently themselves prominent members of the power elite and the ruling class.

Most indicative of all: For decades, the limited government movement has been a growth industry. Its annual expenditures currently run in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and billions of dollars likely have been spent in total. All the while, government expenditures never and nowhere fell, not even once, but instead always and uninterruptedly increased to ever more dizzying heights.

And yet, this glaring failure of the industry to deliver the promised good of limited government is not punished but, perversely, rewarded with still more ample funds. The more the think tanks fail, the more money they get.

The State and the free market think tank industry thus live in perfect harmony with each other. They grow together, in tandem.

As for lessons learned:

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The Coming Obamacare Healthcare Inequality: Concierge Medical Services

Health Care
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My wife and I have a great doctor. She has a small clinic nearby with a few other doctors, who are also all very good. Our doctor has a waiting list for people who want to be her patient. We have over the years recommended several people, even some who live 20 miles away, to her. She is very nagging–in a good way. She makes you promise to get a physical, eye exam, etc., intervenes to get you an appointment with a specialist if you need one, etc. Follows up by phone, and so on. She is great.

She recently announced to us that she is moving to some kind of “concierge” service–she figures she basically provides that kind of above-average service already, and this is a way to reduce her patient load (from about 4000 to about 400), and escape some of the regulatory burden that Obamacare is going to impose. So she’s picking a select group of her current patients–about 10% of them–and they will be allowed to remain her patients–for $1600/year each. Now, we love our doctor, so will probably do this. And 3600 of her patients will now lose their favorite doctor. Thanks, in part, to Obamacare.

So, you can see what’s coming. The affluent will have to pay more–in our case, $3200 a year more–but for even better service than we already get. And others will have increasingly slim pickings. Case in point, I mentioned this to some friends, and my TLS co-blogger Brian Martinez noted: “This is what my wife’s doc did, too. Went to a concierge system. Unfortunately we couldn’t justify the extra expense and pay for health insurance for the rest of the family. So my wife had to leave her doctor of 10 years and find a new one, and she hates to switch doctors.”

Expect to see more of this. I had never heard of it before and am still waiting to hear the details from our doctor (some information will be mailed later), but a google search revealed that this is indeed a growing trend; see Health care reform laws prompt surge in ‘concierge medicine’, Are Concierge Medical Services on the Upswing?, and Royal Pains: Can Concierge Medicine Coexist With Obama’s Healthcare Plan?

So, Obamacare will only exacerbate healthcare “inequalities,” and diminish the quality of care of many people. The government will then use this as an excuse to bash “greed” and “inequality,” and clamp down further, driving us closer to outright socialized medicine. As one of the articles above noted, “Critics say boutique medicine will only exaggerate the health insurance crisis. Many doctors may leave traditional family practices — widening the gap between the affluent and the poor.” As Martinez noted to me, “You know all the good doctors with wealthy patients will follow this route and as you say it will prompt the regime to crack down on this ‘greedy’ practice. [expletive deleted] Obama.”

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Private Discrimination, Rand Paul, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Political Correctness, Racism, Statism
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I’m no fan of electoral politics, and never did think Rand Paul was a consistent libertarian or even as libertarian as his father, Ron Paul–though his recent remarks on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 make me think he may be more libertarian than he feels he can admit publicly. I don’t agree with many of his stated positions, but of late he’s being attacked for what is most libertarian: his view that private businesses have a right to discriminate on their own property (see, e.g., attacks by the monstrous Paul Krugman and an editorial from the New York Times).

Libertarians can debate whether the portions of the CRA64 that prohibit states and municipalities from discriminating on the basis of race, gender, etc., are libertarian or constitutional. As for the latter, the Fourteenth Amendment was illegally ratified, making legislation enacted pursuant thereto, such as the CRA64, unconstitutional (for more on the ratification issue, see Gene Healy’s The Squalid 14th Amendment). As for the former: libertarian centralists naively favor the federal government having broad powers to supervise the states, while libertarian decentralists and anarchists fear the central state and favor decentralization (see my posts Libertarian Centralists; The Libertarian Case Against the Fourteenth Amendment; Healy on States’ Rights and Libertarian Centralists; The Heroic Gene Healy on the 14th Amendment: “If this be heresy—then make the most of it!”; see also the insightful comments of J.H. Huebert quoted here).

But there can be no doubt that the provisions of the law that prohibit racial and other discrimination by private businesses in employment or accommodation (such as hotels and restaurants) are manifestly unlibertarian and unjust. Sadly, however, some libertarians actually endorse the state’s infringement on property rights as embodied in this law. Most of the prominent libertarian defenders of the unlibertarian aspects of the CRA64 seem to be associated with the Cato Institute, and include Brink Lindsey (see Cato Scholar Scolds Rand Paul, Gives OK to Soup Nazi; Lindsay’s stance is perhaps not surprising given his pro-war views), David Bernstein, Richard Epstein, and Roger Pilon (see my post Libertarian Centralists–Pilon’s stance is not too surprising, given his defense of the Police America Act). (Julian Sanchez, in a somewhat maundering article, seems to weakly defend Paul, but I’m not sure.) I don’t know if such a major deviation from libertarianism arises from shaky foundations (such as utilitarianism), naivety about the ability of the central state to do justice, or fear of a politically-correct backlash, but it’s pretty sad that a leftist is better on this issue than some libertarians–I have in mind Robert Scheer, who gave a surprisingly good and quasi-libertarian defense of Rand Paul on KCRW’s Left, Right and Center last week–he tears apart the Rand-bashing of his co-hosts Ariana Huffington (who drops the PC racism junk) and Tony Blankley (who says he agrees “intellectually” with Paul but still calls him a kook); see also Scheer’s article Who’s Afraid of Rand Paul? (Even John Fund and Aayan Hirsi Ali, both who seem libertarianish, gave a decent defense of Paul on the latest Bill Maher show, if memory serves). See also the partial transcription of Scheer’s remarks here:

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Who Owns You? – A Documentary – Trailer

IP Law
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Here’s the first trailer for a promising new documentary by lawyer-philosopher David Koepsell and filmmaker Taylor Roesch (I was interviewed for it as mentioned here).

Who Owns You? – A Documentary – Trailer from Taylor Roesch on Vimeo.

Over the last 20 years, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has been issuing patents to universities and private companies on raw human genes. One company or university is given a legal monopoly over a molecule that is inside every human being and many other animals. This documentary explores the legal, ethical, and clinical ramifications of human gene patenting.

whoownsyoufilm.com

Taylor Roesch
taylorroesch.com

David Koepsell
davidkoepsell.com

Music by:
Carter Mahnke

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