Federal Taxes under a Libertarian Government? NO!

Federal Taxes under a Libertarian Government? NO!

By

Martin L. Cowen III

                       Freedom is the protection of private property, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, by the rule of law. Freedom is not the right to vote. The right to vote is a (not very effective) tool intended to preserve freedom. Freedom has not been secured in America by the right to vote. Jimmy Carter said on July 28, 2015: “Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence…” Since we have suggested that the right to vote is an inadequate guardian of freedom, perhaps we should make clear that the best guardian for freedom is a Liberal Education, education for free people. A “Liberal Education” has nothing to do with the Socialists who claim the title “Liberal” today.

                        In Libertarian theory, freedom and responsibility are related. An able adult person is free precisely because s/he is responsible for his/her own life. In order to survive and flourish (i.e. to live), a person must be free. Human action in freedom is the human method of survival and flourishing. The social ideal for Libertarians is that all adult human relationships be voluntary. If both (or all) parties are not in accord, there is no personal, social, or economic intercourse. Most people understand the principle of voluntarism in their daily lives. If our would-be friends, colleagues, or associates do not want to relate or trade with us, there is no relating or trading.

                        Unfortunately, with the growth of Government, has come the creation of many laws and regulations that force people to interact in variety of ways. For most people forced relationships are a way of life. Thousands of regulations govern virtually every human economic transaction, rendering them at least partially involuntary. Just think of the regulations governing employment in America, minimum wages, elaborate benefits systems, restrictions on hours of employment, restrictions on termination, and restrictions on work conditions.

                        Most non-Libertarians readers of this essay will be happy about such regulations, because non-Libertarians believe in the “Little People.” The “Little People” are able adults who Non-Libertarian Elites think could not function without the intervention of the Government. One supposes that there are able adults who do not mind being thought of as the “Little People” by their Non-Libertarian Elitist “superiors.” Non-Libertarian Elites believe that the “Little People” would be working in sweatshops and picking agricultural produce for less than substance wages but for the Non-Libertarian Elites and their Government.

                       But we stray too far. This essay is directed to Libertarians. We are not trying to convert Non-Libertarian Elitists—a hopeless task in any event. Our topic is taxes. Taxes involve the involuntary taking of the private property of another by the Government.

                        Taxes are a violation of the voluntary relationship principle of Libertarianism.

                        It will come as a surprise to many readers, even non-Libertarian readers that direct taxation has not always existed. The ancient Greek polis, for example, did not start out with a system of direct taxation. A yeoman farmer in ancient Greece would not have tolerated a tax on his farm.

                        How, theoretically, might a Libertarian government function without taxes?

                        In America, we have multiple layers of government. We have the Federal Government, state governments, and local governments. The problems of running these various governments without a system of taxation are different at every level. Let us consider funding the Federal Government first.

                        For Libertarians, we need not demonstrate that the only legitimate functions of the Federal Government are legislation, police, courts, and the military. Government is defined as the agency invested with the sole right to initiate the offensive use of force. Individuals retain the right to use defensive force. Governments can “offensively” intervene to arrest people, to make and enforce judgments, and to project military power. Individuals cannot arrest people, make and enforce judgment, and project military power within a Libertarian society.

                        If these are the only legitimate functions of the Federal Government, it is easy to imagine that a federal budget might be 10% of a federal budget these days. The current federal budget is about 4 trillion dollars per year. A tenth of that amount is 400 billion dollars. National defense is currently about 570 billion dollars per year. Administration of justice is currently about 54 billion dollars per year. General government is about 23 billion dollars per year. The total current budget is 647 billion dollars per year considering only legitimate functions of government, legislation, police, courts, and the military.

                       No one reading this essay will conceive that the current defense budget is reasonable. America engages in too many proxy wars, all readers will agree. The budget for “general government” includes, one supposes, over 50 million dollars spent on Presidential vacations over the last 6 years. Libertarians agree that the War on Drugs, a large portion of the “administration of justice” budget item, is completely illegitimate. No one will doubt that Congressional pay and benefits, including congressional staff, are grossly excessive.

                        Correcting “waste and abuse” is a political bromide. We are not talking about that.

The Presidency

                        Not only should presidential vacations be completely eliminated as a government expense, the Presidency should be a volunteer job. The President should not be paid for his/her work. S/he should not receive an extravagant lifetime pension upon retirement from office. S/he should not be protected day and night by a small army. Government service at the federal level ought to be mostly voluntary. An individual is honored to be chosen to lead his/her nation, especially the United States of America. An individual who is mature enough and successful enough to warrant being chosen President should not need to be supported by the government during his 4 or 8 years in office. If s/he needs extra spending money, s/he can get a paper route.

                       In a Libertarian government, the job of being President would not be full time. A Libertarian President has two jobs: approving legislation passed by the Congress and commanding the armed forces. Congress, as we shall shortly see, should not be in session for more than forty days per year. Given this job description, the President need be in Washington D.C. only time enough to sign next year’s budget.

                        The spectacle of the President’s interjection of him/herself into every social controversy, competing with Kim Kardashian for entertainment media face time, is disgraceful. A President would better serve his/her country by hosting tours for high school children at the White House.

The Congress

                        Congress people are representatives of their various states. Their salaries, if any, ought to be paid by those states. When a person hires an agent to represent him/her in a negotiation in a distance city, that person bears the expense of the agent. So it should be for Congress people. Furthermore, as indicated above, there is no reason for Congress to be in session for more than 40 days per year. The only routine business of Congress is to make an annual budget. Rarely, the Congress might be called upon to declare war. Being a Congress person or a Senator ought to be a part-time job, just as it is in many state legislatures.

The Federal Courts

                        The Federal Courts are engaged in the War on Drugs and in resolving disputes involving federal agencies, most of which will cease to exist in a Libertarian government. The work load of the Federal Courts is likely to drop to 1% of the current load in a Libertarian environment. If the current budget is 7 billion dollars, 1% of that amount is 70 million dollars.

                       Operating a court tends to be a full time job for judges and clerks. Contrary to popular suspicion, most lawyers are not independently wealthy and, therefore, cannot support themselves and be full time judges without pay. Therefore, federal judges may have to be paid by the Federal Government.

                       The only Federal Court that must exist according to the Constitution is the Supreme Court. The Constitution provides that judges “shall receive for their services compensation.” If the 9 (do we need 9?) Justices of the Supreme Court received salaries of $200,000 per year, that would mean an annual budget amount of $1,800,000. The Court will certainly need a Clerk. Thus the salaries of the Supreme Court might conceivably be less than 2 million dollars per year.

                        Under present economic conditions, living in Washington DC on $200,000 per year is no easy task. After the elimination of most of the Federal Government by the installation of a Libertarian government, Washington DC will become a veritable ghost town compared to its present bloated economic status. Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area is the 9^th largest MSA currently. After Libertarian government, Washington MSA might return to its original small town status.

                       A 2 million dollar Supreme Court budget could be paid by a 40 thousand dollar tax on each of the fifty states.

Federal Police

                        There is no need for a federal police force. All policing ought to be performed by the several states and local governments.

The Military

                        Thus far we have reduced the federal budget to two million dollars per year for the Supreme Court. The biggest budget item of a Libertarian federal government must necessarily be the military: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. How would a Libertarian government pay for its military?

  

                      A clue to the solution is the Second Amendment to the Constitution: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

                       Modern Americans have little sense of the meaning of a well-regulated militia. We must look back to the Ancient Greek polis for a better understanding of this concept. In Ancient Greece the yeoman farmer was the basic political unit. The yeoman farmers were also the hoplite soldiers who assembled, when necessary, to defend the polis from invaders. These hoplite soldiers were not paid by the polis. They provided their own weapons and armor. They left their farms, when necessary, and marched to war with volunteer leaders and their neighbors.

                       America, and many large countries, maintain standing armies. The soldiers are paid and their weapons and training are supplied by the government.

  

                      The greatest problem with our present means of waging war is that we do so with little psychological cost (except to those families whose children are killed or wounded, and, of course, the killed and wounded service members). The soldiers are volunteers. The Congress need not decide to go to war. (The last Declaration of War was made on December 8, 1941, a day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.) We do not pay for the wars. (We generally borrow money to finance wars, money that is never to be paid back.)

     

                   Under a Libertarian government we would return to well-armed and well-regulated militias. Military service would be opened to volunteers of all ages who might provide, by themselves or with the help of patrons, for their own support, training, arming, and insurance in case of death or injury. Such a soldier would cost nothing to the Federal Government. The cost of a soldier, according to the Pentagon, is about 1.3 million dollars per year. Of course, this number is ridiculous and includes the cost of the proverbial $600 hammer.

  

                      What we Americans fail to appreciate is the fact that America goes to war these days, not because our farms are at stake due to an invading neighbor city-state, but rather because our leaders think for reasons not necessarily related to national security that war is useful. (Blowing up an aspirin factory might help divert press attention from a Presidential sex scandal.) If there were a true need for war (Pearl Harbor attacked), most red-blooded Americans would rally to the cause and take up arms.

                       Consider this proposal: In order to go to war, a vote for war, whether by the Congress or by the people in the case of a national referendum must be accompanied by a pledge to go to war personally or to fund one soldier in the war for the duration. A Declaration of War would include a budget for the war. The Vietnam War cost America about one trillion dollars and 58,220 fatal casualties. There were 620,000 fatal casualties in the Civil War. There were 407,300 fatal casualties in World War II (a total of 60 million people total were killed). No war would be declared in the absence of sufficient pledges to fund the war as budgeted.

    

                    The military adventurism of America would come to an abrupt end.

  

                      The problem though of aggressive totalitarian regimes would not be solved by well-armed and well-regulated militias. America needs to be prepared as a deterrent against surprise attacks by wicked world powers. America needs a Central Intelligence Agency. America needs sufficient military capacity to act as a deterrent against aggressive totalitarian regimes.

      

                  A recent intelligence spending estimate was 71 billion dollars. The amount is undoubtedly grossly inflated. If the budget were 10% of that amount, 7 billion dollars is still a lot of money, about $220 per person per year or about 140 million dollars per state per year.

                        Intelligence is necessary, but military infrastructure is equally important. The cost to operate an aircraft carrier is reported to be 7 million dollars per day. The cost of an aircraft carrier is reported to be 13 billion dollars. America presently has 10 aircraft carriers in service. Aircraft carriers are only a small component of the infrastructure of a modern military force.

                       We suggested above that the current military budget is about 570 billion dollars per year. Undoubtedly, if America were not participating in 5 to 134 proxy wars (varies according to definition), this budget would be much less.

                        A Libertarian government might concede that some little, secret foreign military aggressions (without a Declaration of War) might be necessary. If, for example, a rogue nation were known to be making a nuclear bomb to detonate in New York City, a secret Navy Seal operation to eliminate the risk would be entirely appropriate. Intervention in various civil wars across the globe is much less likely to be undertaken by a Libertarian government. The touchstone for secret aggressions must be a clear and present danger to geographic America.

                       To fund the present annual military budget would cost about $2,000 per person. Assuming the budget is two times too big, that still is $1,000 per person, or about 320 billion dollars per year. The cost per four person family would be $4,000 per year.

                       So, how does a Libertarian government pay for a military that costs $4,000 per family per year? The Libertarian government asks the citizens.

                        Americans are not stupid. They realize that the world is a dangerous place. A major function of the President and the Congress must be to make a carefully reasoned case to the American people to fund voluntarily the military budget at the cost of $1,000 per person per year. Currently, the IRS collects about $9,000 per person per year in taxes.

                        One thousand dollars per year per person is a small price to pay for freedom from taxation and for safety from foreign aggression.

Conclusion

                        Enough of federal taxation for one essay.

                       We have asserted the basic Libertarian position that the only legitimate functions of the Federal Government are legislation, police, courts, and the military. We have suggested that the office of the President of the United States ought to be an honorary, unpaid post. We have suggested that Congress people, if paid at all, are paid by their constituent states. We have suggested that the Supreme Court budget be 2 million dollars be year and be paid by a tax by the Federal Government upon state governments. We have suggested that the military be manned, in large part, by voluntary well-armed, well-regulated militias. We have suggested that funding for international intelligence and military infrastructure be funded by voluntary payments from citizens in an amount about 1/9^th the current total federal tax burden. We have suggested that going to war be done by votes accompanied by pledges in manpower and funding sufficient to achieve the stated objective in the Declaration of War.

                       A future essay will deal with state and local taxes.

                       Most, save my Libertarian readers, will claim this essay is Utopian. We agree that getting to a Libertarian government is a difficult task. This essay sketches an outline of what such a government might look like at the federal level. Imagining a free America in which all relationships are voluntary may be Utopian, but it’s fun!

A Libertarian Speculation: Leave No Trace Behind

Leave No Trace Behind: A Libertarian Speculation

By

Martin L. Cowen III

                        Libertarian theory has two great problems: the tragedy of the commons and taxation. In Libertarian theory, the meaning of “freedom” is the societal condition in which property rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are protected by the rule of law. Property rights are the key because the goal of politics is human survival and flourishing. Human survival and flourishing is possible only by human work. All that is created or produced by individual human work is private property. Individuals work to secure their own survival and flourishing and the survival and flourishing of all that is necessary in his/her judgment to his/her life, including his/her family, friends, associates, and communities. All adult relationships in a Libertarian society are voluntary, that is, freely chosen by every adult participant to any intercourse.

                        The tragedy of the commons is difficult for Libertarians because, by definition, “the commons” is an asset to which property rights do not easily and obviously pertain. Taxation is difficult for Libertarians because “taxation” usually involves the involuntary confiscation of individual private property, thus violating the Libertarian rule that all adult relationships be voluntary.

                        We propose in this essay to address only one of these two great problems, to wit: the tragedy of the commons.

                        The “commons” usually refers to air and water. Even the boldest totalitarian theorist or grasping world monopoly does not yet claim ownership of the earth’s atmosphere or of the oceans, though to be sure they savor the thought. The 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger Sci-fi film Total Recall shows the Administrator of the planet Mars withholding company-owned oxygen from an oppressed population. The plot resolves with the creation of a previously non-existent Mars-wide atmosphere freely available to all inhabitants.

                        In formerly communist countries, the “commons” included more than the oceans or the atmosphere. (By definition of “communism,” all property is “commons.” Private property is forbidden.) Large tracts of land and parks can be the “commons.” The office refrigerator can be the “commons.” The tragedy of the commons is that everyone will use the “commons” and no one will care for it. Thus, the office refrigerator becomes uncleaned and useless after a short time. A “commons” park will be shortly covered in dog poop and other litter, the lawns overgrown with weeds, the flowers gone wild, every fixed structure defaced, the benches stolen or destroyed. The “commons” shortly become unusable by humans.

                        Beijing, China’s atmosphere is smog-filled because people and government-run industries dump pollution into the “commons” of the atmosphere. Environmentalists allege that there is a Great Pacific garbage patch containing mostly plastic debris discharged by human beings from land and sea. Assuming that the Great Pacific garbage patch is real and not merely enviro-propaganda, it is an example of the tragedy of the commons. (I have no doubt about Beijing’s atmosphere since my son has travelled there, experienced it, worn a surgical mask to mitigate the adverse effects, and photographed it. The Great Pacific garbage patch cannot be “seen” and must be “sampled.” Those of us who have not “sampled” it engage in act of faith by accepting its existence, even for the sake of argument.)

                        People of all political persuasions, Right, Left, and Libertarian, believe in clean air and water. The problem is how to achieve the righteous goal of clean air and water. To be sure, there are many people who do not believe in clean air and water, but they are not categorizable as Right, Left, or Libertarian. These are venal people. Venal people litter because it is easier to toss the beer can on the “commons” (roadway, waterway, public park) than to find a trash can. There are venal industrialists to dump pollutants into streams, rivers, oceans and atmosphere, because it is far cheaper than recycling or otherwise rendering safe their own waste products. There are venal politicians who, knowing full well that an unfunded and unfundable pension program is a long-range impossibility, nevertheless create the program to further their own immediate political ambitions. The bankruptcy of the city (Detroit), the state (Illinois), the country (Greece) will occur on somebody else’s watch. Libertarians lament that this form of governmental corruption is ubiquitous. This creation of unfunded pension programs is the tragedy of the commons carried to an extreme, where the “commons” is “other people’s money” and everything is ruined. Witness the news of the day.

                        So what is the Libertarian solution for the tragedy of the commons?

                        The first step is to privatize as much property as is possible. A privately owned park is preferable to a public park. A privately owned farm is preferable to a public cooperative. (In his book Fields without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea, Victor Davis Hanson proposes that the small family farm of Ancient Greece is the societal structure at the root of the Western idea of private property and the related ideas of individual freedom and self-responsibility.) A privately owned railroad is preferable to a government operated railroad (e.g. Amtrak). A privately owned package delivery company (e.g. UPS or FedEx) is preferable to a governmental monopoly (e.g. United State Postal Service).

                        Even after massive privatizations, the atmosphere, the oceans, seas, enormous lakes, rivers and streams will remain a part of the “commons.” Human beings live in the biosphere. The biosphere is the quintessential “commons.” How does Libertarian theory propose to preserve the biosphere in order that human beings can survive and flourish?

                        Libertarians believe in freedom and responsibility. These two are opposite sides of the same coin. In Libertarian theory, the individual should be free because he is responsible for his/her own life. Human freedom is the means of human survival and flourishing. Individual human life is the standard of moral and political law. Because human life is good, human freedom is good. The purpose of politics is to organize human society to optimize human survival and flourishing. Human survival and flourishing is optimized when individuals are free to exercise their minds and bodies to secure their survival and flourishing via the production of private property upon which to live and trade thereof.

                        In Libertarian theory, the individual utilizes his/her own self and resources, including trading with others, to produce a flourishing life for himself/herself. One uses one’s property in order to flourish. One trades one’s property with others in order to flourish. One does not use the property of another without the other’s permission (the voluntary association principle).

                        So, we combine a number of principles:

1)      Human beings live in the biosphere. There are exchanges between human beings and the biosphere, intakes (clean air and clean water) and discharges (human waste, exhaled breath, and home, work and industrial waste).

2)      In order for human beings to survive and flourish (the goal of ethics and politics), the intakes and discharges to the biosphere must be managed to maintain a healthy-for-human-beings biosphere.

3)      It is a scientific question as to the amount of human intakes and discharges the biosphere can naturally process. For example, humans take in clean air and oxygen and discharge carbon dioxide. For example, humans drink clean water and discharge urine and feces. Carbon dioxide, urine, and feces must be processed, somehow, by the environment or by human work in order to maintain a balanced and therefore healthy-for-human-beings biosphere. More problematic than these simple biological human discharges are the discharges from human work and industry, such as waste paper and gaseous discharges from coal-fired power plants.

                        Combining these principles we come to our Libertarian speculation: “Leave No Trace Behind.” The “Leave No Trace” principles are widely known in outdoor activities circles. The United States Forest Service promotes the seven “Leave No Trace” principles:

·         Plan Ahead and Prepare

·         Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces

·         Dispose of Waste Properly

·         Leave What You Find

·         Minimize Campfire Impacts

·         Respect Wildlife

·         Be Considerate of Other Visitors

                        Applied to the tragedy of the commons, the principle would be that each individual should discharge only that amount of waste that can be processed by the biosphere and not interfere with the intakes of another individual. So, for example, human breathing is not likely to be a problem, since, one presumes as a scientific fact, that the biosphere can easily process human exhalant. So, for example, human urinating or defecating at sea from a private sailboat is not likely to be a problem, since, one presumes as a scientific fact, that the biosphere can easily process one human being’s waste in the open ocean. (Imagine whale poop!)

                        Problems arise when the millions of inhabitants of New York City propose to discharge their collective human waste (urine and feces) into the Hudson River. Such a policy cannot work and is not the current practice (one presumes). Problems arise when a coal-fired power plant discharges untreated smoke upwind from a major metropolitan area. One supposes that this type of problem is among Beijing’s pollution causes.

                        The details of a “Leave No Trace Behind” solution are complex. The general solution is to allow a private cause of action by all individuals harmed by a polluter for monetary damages and injunctive relief to stop any individual or industry from discharging waste into the biosphere in such a way as to damage the complainant. Courts and perhaps legislatures will have to define, based upon scientific evidence, the amount of discharge that does not cause harm to individuals.

                        A starting principle is that each individual is entitled to receive from the biosphere clean air. A starting principle is that each individual is entitled to experience clean water in large bodies of water (oceans, large lakes) and water courses (streams and rivers) located in the “commons.”

                        Some examples may be helpful:

                        When one is enjoying his backyard hammock (on his/her own private property), one is entitled to clean air. Thus, a smoker in the vicinity of the property line may be violating the non-smoker’s rights if the smoker’s discharge wafts onto the non-smoker’s property and disturbs the non-smoker’s hammock nap. The non-smoker has the right to ask the smoker to move away from property line in order that the non-smoker can enjoy his/her right to clean air. The smoker retains the right to smoke on his own private property, just so long as his/her smoking discharge does not interfere with the non-smoker’s right to clean air.

                        On the other hand, if a non-smoker is visiting a privately owned motel and the policy of the motel owner is to allow smoking anywhere on the property, then the non-smoker must accept the unsanitary conditions of the motel as a condition of being permitted on the private property by the motel owner.

                        When one is driving to St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, one is entitled to clean air. Thus, the stink of a paper plant may be violating the traveler’s rights. The traveler would have a private right of action against the paper plant for violating his/her rights to clean air.

                        Some pollutants are odorless and colorless, but nevertheless harmful to human beings, for example, carbon monoxide. A polluter who discharges carbon monoxide in amounts harmful to human beings would likewise be subject to private rights of action by individuals damaged by the discharge.

                        When one is enjoying the ocean, he/she is entitled to clean water. Thus, a beachgoer who steps on a used syringe and hypodermic needle hidden in the sand previously discharged into a nearby river from an upriver hospital, the beachgoer would have a private right of action against the hospital for violating his/her rights to clean water. A court could award the beachgoer monetary damages and issue a restraining order against the hospital forbidding further discharges.

                        When one lives on a river or stream, he/she is entitled to clean water from the river or stream flowing through his/her private real property. Thus, an upstream dweller is not entitled to discharge any matter into the river or stream to render the downstream water unclean. Urinating, one time, into the Mississippi River, would not cause a problem for a landowner one mile downstream. Discharging household waste into a small neighborhood stream would be a violation of the downstream property owners’ rights to clean water. Between these two extremes, a court would have to decide those discharges which are not violations of rights and those which are.

                        These examples will suffice for our present purposes. As stated, the details of this “Leave No Trace Behind” solution will be complex. The Common Law will define the rules.

                        One can see that polluters would not long remain polluters with thousands of potential individual litigants chaffing at the bit to sue, to say nothing of the Sierra Club or Earth First! There would be no need for the Environmental Protection Agency in these circumstances.

                        The general principle is: “Leave No Trace Behind” on other people’s property or upon the commons. Each of us owns our own stuff, but we are not entitled to allow our stuff, including our waste products to interfere with another’s use of his stuff or of the commons (the biosphere).

                        We do not wish to imply that anything goes on private real property (land) so long as there is no impact on adjacent landowners. One must consider later landowners in the chain of title. No one lives forever. Real property is bought, sold, gifted, transferred, and inherited.

                        A person is entitled to buy a brand new automobile and destroy it immediately, provided the residue is properly disposed. Such is the nature of private personal property. We own it. We can destroy it. Of course, who would want to? We can imagine that the new car owner is a movie producer who wants to use his brand new car in the chase scene of his/her action-adventure movie.

                        Land, though, exists forever and is limited in quantity. It strikes one as bad public policy to allow a private land owner to permanently render unusable “his/her” land, since it will not be “his/her” land for eternity or even beyond his/her lifetime. The most obvious permanent ruination of land is the storage upon it of nuclear waste material. Even if the presence of nuclear waste material on a plot of real property is not a threat to adjacent property owners, one supposes that the destruction of the plot of real property for any other use for 240,000 years is bad public policy. (Greenpeace claims that Plutonium 239 has a half-life of 24,000 years and will remain hazardous for 240,000 years.)

                        Technology may well solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal. An obvious, though expensive, solution is to blast the nuclear waste by rocket into the Sun. Other less expensive solutions are almost certainly to be discovered by science.

                        The general principle ought to be that the use (and abuse) of private real property has no bounds except: (1) the use cannot threaten adjacent land owners, and (2) the abuse can be mitigated for a price less than the value of the land. The principle for exception (2) is that a landowner ought not to destroy forever the value of “his/her” land on the grounds that it will not always be “his/hers.” In this sense, viewed from the perspective of centuries, real property (land) is in the commons. Therefore, a large tract of land might be used for a junk yard as the “junk” has value and can be removed from the land and sold or recycled, returning the land to its “unabused” state. More problematical is a landfill. While a landfill might be mitigated and returned to its original state, the cost to do so is likely to be much higher than the value of the land. The “half-life” of a landfill is likely to be millennia. The landowner might collect a storage/mitigation fee to permit the use as landfill and avoid litigation.

                        This solution to the problem of the commons vis-à-vis land viewed from the perspective of centuries is radical. No one save the most radical enviro-nutcase will approve. (I do not count myself as a most radical enviro-nutcase. I notice with some surprise that my Libertarian Speculation: Leave No Trace Behind leads me, logically, to conclusions I suppose a most radical enviro-nutcase would approve.)

                        In summary, Libertarians believe in both freedom and responsibility. Part of responsibility includes not allowing one’s exercise of his/her freedom to impair another’s exercise of his/her freedom. Recall the freedom is simply the protection of private property rights by the rule of law. The radical conclusion we draw from this Libertarian assumptions is that one ought not to despoil the biosphere or land in the commons. Even private real property (land) when viewed from the perspective of centuries is in the commons.

                        Wow!

The Elephant Whisperer: This is how reason works

The Elephant Whisperer:

This is how reason works.

By

Martin L. Cowen III

“A person cannot change his own elephants. Why would he want to?” This essay will explain this claim.

The context for this essay is our two-months-long project: “Does Reason Work?” As the Fellowship of Reason® we have a more than passing interest in the question. We are enjoying a series of meetings to address the question. At our first meeting we brainstormed for issues about which people have differing opinions to discover an interesting issue to resolve among ourselves using reason. We identified a topic. Our next meeting we will discuss strategies to resolve the issue. Our goal is to change the hearts and minds of one or more participants. Our first effort is to collect facts and other information that might have a bearing on the issue. Once we learn some facts about the issue, then we will determine how to proceed to a resolution of the issue. We want to determine whether, in a single case—one issue, one changed mind—whether, in fact, reason can work.

A member suggested that a new book, The Righteous Mind, might have bearing on our efforts.

This essay continues our work with the ideas of Jonathan Haidt from his new book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012). Professor Haidt tells us that there are six evolutionarily derived moral modules: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, sanctity/degradation, authority/subversion, and liberty/oppression. These moral modules are emotional centers that are, on the whole and for the most part, permanently set (after reaching stable adulthood) in each of us and very difficult, if not impossible, to change.

Haidt calls himself a Humean. The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) famously claimed that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” David Hume’s skeptical view is rather lamentable for a person who hopes to change the hearts and minds of others from error to the truth. (A skeptic would have put truth in quotes thus: “truth.” A skeptic blithely states: “It is True that there is no “Truth.”) Jonathan Haidt, who is not as skeptical as David Hume, holds out hope that science, as an institution, can, using reason, move people toward the truth.

Haidt has two useful metaphors. The first metaphor: Our emotions are like an elephant whose rider is reason. The rider’s influence over the elephant is very limited. The second metaphor: Our emotions are like the client of a lawyer. The lawyer represents reason. The lawyer (reason) can advise the client (emotions), but in the end, the client (who is the boss) can do as he wishes despite the lawyer’s advice.

Reflective people who have experienced low blood sugar can appreciate the power of emotion (chemical processes analogous or identical to emotions) over reason. During a period of low blood sugar one can experience anxiety. The feeling of anxiety might be attached to an otherwise meaningless event. The brain can connect the feeling of anxiety and the meaningless event in a cause/effect way. Reason can assure the person to a 100% certainty that there is no relation, yet the anxiety remains and the sense of a causal relationship between the anxiety and the meaningless event remains. Only the passage of time and the restoration of normal blood sugar (by eating) will cure the anxiety and the false sense of cause/effect relation between the anxiety and the meaningless event.

While scientific progress and history move human beings toward the truth, members of the Fellowship of Reason® might be impatient with the pace of change. Even science has huge problems with change within a single generation.

A common idea regarding scientific “paradigm shift” is that when a new theory is discovered the believers in the old system do not usually change their views, rather the “old believers” die out and the believers in the new system live on. After the “old believers” are dead and gone, the paradigm shift is complete. Examples of paradigm shift include the change from the geocentric view (the earth is the center of the solar system) to the heliocentric view (the sun is the center of the solar system); the change from the Newtonian view of physics to the Einsteinium view of physics; and the change from the Einsteinium view of physics to the quantum view of physics.

On January 12, 2015, National Public Radio performed a great segment on Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865). In his book Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever (1861), he explains that hand washing in hospitals can save lives. Doctor Semmelweis was a baby-delivery doctor in Vienna. He was alarmed by the mortality rate of birthing women at the hospital and the different outcomes in the clinic attended by doctors versus the clinic attended by midwives. The doctors were killing five times as many women as the midwives. Doctor Semmelweis conducted a number of scientific experiments to determine the cause. He tested for whether laying on the side or on the back was a cause. He tested whether the ringing of a bell by the passing priest was a cause. Finally, he determined the cause: doctors were performing autopsies of deceased women and then delivering babies and that the midwives were not. The doctors were not sterilizing their hands between the autopsies and the births. Doctor Semmelweis (knowing nothing about germ theory) chose chlorine to clean the hands. Eureka! Childbed fever decreased dramatically.

Doctor Semmelweis’ colleagues were not happy. The theory made it look like the doctors were causing the deaths of their patients (as in fact they were). A Sacred Center for doctors is: “I save lives!” Doctor Semmelweis lost his job and doctors gave up chlorine hand-washing. Semmelweis was committed to a mental asylum and died at age 47.

Even today, the struggle to ensure hand washing in hospitals goes on. (Anyone who has been in a hospital will have seen the signs encouraging the medical professionals to wash their hands.)

We hold science and scientists (and doctors) in the highest esteem. The point of these stories about paradigm shift, though, is to lament the fact that scientists (and doctors) are human beings, “all too human.”

In the previous essay, we used the Sacred Center of Science as our first example of Sacred Centers precisely because scientists (and doctors), who hold most explicitly to rational thought as a guide, would be least likely to be offended by the suggestion that Science is a Sacred Center. (We will recall that the prior essay suggested that we all might “Know Thyself” better if we identified our Sacred Centers. Sacred Centers activate the sanctity/degradation moral module. Other Sacred Centers identified were Children, Parents, Secularism, Jesus, Mohammad, Obama, the individual’s Honor and Reputation, Philosophy, Ayn Rand, and Vera Norman. There are certainly many Sacred Centers. We claimed in the prior essay that our Sacred Centers are the largest elephants in the room, always to be treated with respect and great deference, on pain of serious, even deadly, consequences.)

Combining the skepticism of David Hume and our faith in science, tempered by the problems cited above concerning paradigm shift (it takes generations), is there any hope for the impatient among us that reason might work in a matter of years, rather than having to wait for the “old believers” to die out? That is the question this essay hopes to answer.

There is a song lyric (Omina Sol by Z. Randall Stroope) that indicates the widespread acceptance of the importance of emotions/passions:

Let courage be your oar,

Let passion be your sail,

Wisdom and truth will guide

Your deep heart’s yearning,

Through all travail.

We began this essay by claiming: “A person cannot change his own elephants.” And by asking: “Why would he want to?”

Now we can understand this claim. It means that an individual cannot change his own Sacred Centers or any of his other moral modules. (As a reminder the moral modules are: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, sanctity/degradation, authority/subversion, and liberty/oppression.) The reason is the rhetorical second sentence: “Why would he want to?” There must be passion/emotion in order to initiate action in the individual. A person’s elephants are his passions/emotions. Unless there is another elephant with a competing passion/emotion, there can be no change of the first elephant. Change can only come from outside an already emotionally stable individual, i.e. an adult whose ideas are well integrated, an adult who does not harbor competing elephants, an adult who has all his elephants in a row.

That, then, is our job as would-be changers of hearts and minds. We must avoid offending existing elephants and begin to build new elephants in the person whose heart and mind we hope to change.

Doctor Semmelweis offended the elephants of others. NPR explained that Doctor Semmelweis was not tactful. He publicly berated people. He made influential enemies. Doctor Semmelweis’ downfall provides immediate guidance for us would-be changers of hearts and minds.

The secular movement called Brights is a great example of what not to do, if we are to avoid the mistakes of Doctor Semmelweis. Do not offend your correspondent. “I am bright (i.e. smart, intelligence, perspicacious) and you are not,” is not an effective way to begin a persuasive argument.

Those Libertarian candidates who begin their campaigns with “Legalize Drugs” are not likely to go very far. While it is a consequence of the Libertarian philosophy of individual freedom and responsibility that people should be free to make even self-injurious choices and take personal responsibility for the consequences, it is not with the uncomfortable consequences of Freedom with which the argument for Freedom should begin. To do so gives a traditionally civilized person the impression that he is dealing with a wide-eyed crazy person.

Atheists who protest Prayer Breakfasts by local government bodies are a little more difficult to analyze. In the realm of politics (“a civilized substitute for war”), “giving offense” may be necessary and appropriate. We all oppose the creation of a Caliphate or any Theocracy that will dictate our personal, social, and civil lives (assuming the Religion being established by the State is not our own). Traditional Americans, who love the First Amendment (Freedom of Religion), support a general separation of Church and State even when the Religion being “separated” from the State is their own. We must separate out two approaches to the problem of separation of church and state. The first approach is persuasion. Changing the hearts and minds of the individuals who attend a Prayer Breakfast will not be accomplished by protests. On the other hand, stopping them from attending (without persuading them that as a government official their behavior might be inconsistent with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) can be accomplished by political force. Political force can be mobilized by protests. In this essay we are not interested in force. We are talking about changing hearts and minds. Force as a technique is illegitimate for our purposes. We are seeking to change hearts and minds by use of reason.

So our first rule is: Do not offend other peoples’ elephants. Avoid this at all costs.

Our friend tells the story of how he changed from being a Liberal to a Libertarian. In college, our friend was a committed Socialist. After college, our friend got a job with a person who was a Libertarian. Over time, by example and conversation, our friend’s conversion from Liberal to Libertarian was completed. It is a banality that many people in college are communists or socialists and that after they get out into the real world and get a job they become more conservative or libertarian. Of course, this outcome is not true for everyone.

We know of our friend’s conversion in only the broadest of outlines, but some behavioral guidelines emerge from the outline.

The change occurred from the outside. Our friend had a new boss. Every employee cares about her boss, at least as the provider of the employee’s livelihood with whom good relations must be maintained or perhaps even as a friend. We have examples of this from speeches within our Fellowship of Reason®. One of our beloved members is a healthcare professional and she is intimately familiar with the problems that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) “ObamaCare” was designed to solve. She has given three very well received Oratories on healthcare matters. The talks were carefully researched, well delivered, and fact based. The views among our members about Obamacare are varied. Given confirmation bias (the tendency to interpret, to seek out or to retain information supporting one’s view), some of us might not have “heard” the information communicated in the absence of our love for the speaker.

Our second rule: Establish good relations with our correspondents.

Wicked, the Broadway musical that premiered in 2003, presents a radically different perspective on the moral landscape of the classic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Familiarity with the 1939 movie is essential to an appreciation of the musical. For those who know the 1939 film, we cannot imagine that Glinda, the Good Witch, is anything other than perfectly good. We cannot imagine that the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba in the musical, named after Oz originator/author L. Frank Baum) is anything other than perfectly evil. In two and a half magical hours, the musical Wicked, completely changes our classical view. Wicked is an emotional masterpiece.

As an aside, thorough exegeses of Wicked would reveal exploitation of all of Professor Haidt’s moral modules. A few examples follow: care/harm (Elphaba is a disabled child with repulsive green skin); fairness/cheating (the Munchkin Boq pretends to love Elphaba in order to please his true love; Galinda, later Glinda); loyalty/betrayal (Glinda and Elphaba are loyal to one another; Fiyero is faithful to Elphaba); sanctity/degradation (friendship/goodness is/are sacred); authority/subversion (there is regime change from the reign of Oz to reign of Glinda); and, liberty/oppression (The Wizard of Oz is an abusive dictator).

Of course, the Oz stories are fantasy and changing hearts and minds about fiction can only be used as a metaphor for changing hearts and minds about real-world ideas. But, by analogy, one might conclude that changing hearts and minds, following the example of Wicked, is accomplished by emotional storytelling, using beautiful songs, dialog, acting, costumes, and sets.

When persuading, Wicked further instructs by example: we ought not draw conclusions. Rather, we ought to let the conclusions draw themselves. Wicked never says that Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, is a sympathetic character and morally good. Wicked tells a beautiful, emotion-laden story and the audience is permitted to draw their conclusions. The audience is unanimous in its conclusion as is shown by the success of the play—over 11 years running, 4,722 Broadway showings, 9 world-wide touring companies, seen by millions of patrons.

Our third rule: Persuasion begins with well-told personal, factual stories. Let our correspondents draw their own conclusions.

Conclusions

Our three rules, drawn from our knowledge of elephants are these:

Our first rule: Do not offend other peoples’ elephants. Avoid this at all costs.

Our second rule: Establish good relations with our correspondents.

Our third rule: Persuasion begins with well-told, factual stories. Let our correspondents draw their own conclusions.

The project of persuasion, thus, can be seen to be a year’s long process of avoiding offending our correspondents, establishing good relationships with our correspondents, and sharing fact-based stories with our correspondents.

It is precisely within a moral community—Fellowship of Reason®—that this years-long project can occur.