Or so says Arnold Kling:
In my experience, libertarians and collectivists often talk past one another. Libertarians believe that collectivists are not thinking, while collectivists believe that libertarians are not feeling.
I view economics as training in thinking. That does not mean that you lose your empathy with people. It means, however, that you pay attention to the consequences of policies, regardless of their motives. Or, as Alan Blinder put it, economists have Hard Heads, Soft Hearts.
To say that libertarians are rational people who care only for the outcomes of policies, whereas collectivists question the compassion of libertarian policies is overstating the philosophical situation. I've read too many 'consequences-be-damned' libertarian rants, many of them from my own mouth, to buy into this view.
"Don't you care about the suffering of X?"
We all engage in this kind of juvenile rhetorical device, myself included. Most recently, I engaged in a loooong argument with Cory of Gutless Pacifist. Our blood got a bit heated and we both ended up accusing each other of not caring about the outcomes of each other's policy proposals for the people of Europe during WWII. But that's not true. We both wanted to save innocent lives, however, we approached the solution to the problem through different means.
We can all make progress in political discourse by putting away accusations of nefarious motives in policymaking.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
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4 comments:
A few years back I spoke to a libertarian (brother of a friend of mine). He wanted no laws at all regulating lending practices. I posed the hypothetical of a used car dealer having a contract that provided for 10% interest, except that if even one payment was a day late, the interest jumped to 35%. His response was that it wasn't his fault that there are people dumb enough to sign such contracts.
There are many anarchists claiming to be libertarians. Some are so ridiculous as to support the privitization of the courts, police, and military.
I can sympathize with your friend. People should watch what they sign.
People should watch what they sign, but the Bible also says that we are our brother's keeper. Nanny, no. But at some level society has a right to protect the interests of people who read at a 6th grade level. (I remember a very, very impatient potential landlord who had to cool her heels while I read a very long apartment lease contract with small print and numerous addendums. She kept trying to tell me, "it's all standard language" in order to speed me a long. But I read the whole thing and then told her what wasn't acceptable. She agreed to the changes.
You sympathize with someone who supports abusive contractual provisions?
One of the accelerators of the Great Depression was that so many appliance merchants had such onerous finance agreements -- repossesion of appliances if payment was just one day late -- that many consumers became less willing to buy on credit for fear that if they had even one financially bad month because of a medical emergency or crisis, they'd be up the proverbial creek, losing both the appliance and often most or all the money paid.
Argh! Joel, you are making it frustratingly difficult to apply my theory to reality!
I sympathize with someone who wants people to take responsibility for their own actions.
People should read what they sign. There is some personal responsibility. And if they don't understand what they are signing, they shouldn't sign it.
Do you have a limit that you would set? At what point would someone become responsible for the provisions of contracts that he signs?
Yes, we are our brother's keeper. But the state is not.
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