Minarchy vs. Anarchy and the State

In libertarian circles the minarchy versus anarchy argument is ever present, and typically in a non-threatening way.

What I mean by "non-threatening" is that the anarchy is NOT the sort characterized by conservatives and liberals. You know the kind, rioters in black masks roaming the streets looting, pillaging, and causing general mayhem. That is not the libertarian view of anarchy, thats just rioting.

The libertarian view of anarchy coincides with the concept of spontaneous order. That concept describes how the unhindered the free market operates by imposing its own rules on itself, such that there is a "spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos." One of the biggest proponents of that sort of anarcho-capitalism, as it is called, was Murray Rothbard.

My background teaching biology made it very easy for me to accept spontaneous order in economics and society. Anyone that has ever studied biology will know that organisms, be they plant, animal or protist, live within "self ordered" ecosystems. There is a producer level, and various levels of consumer, and any external interventions often disrupt the order of the ecosystem. So, you see its not a huge jump to spontaneous governance among humans, and I have written about this before, here, here, and here.

In the ReasonTV video below, Stefan Molyneux is interviewed by Matt Welch at FreedomFest 2012. If you live in or near Southern Ontario, Stefan Molyneux will be the Keynote Speaker at Liberty Now on November 3, 2012. Why not come out and challenge the self-confessed  anarcho-capitalist on his home turf? I'll be there too.

US vs. Canada Health Care: "A Mercedes Costs More than a Corolla"

Yes, "A Mercedes Costs More than a Corolla," even though they both seem to be able to do the same thing, that is carry people from one place to another. Certainly the Mercedes does the "carrying" in more style and comfort, but the end result is the same.

That comparison used in the following video from ReasonTV discusses the cost and availability of health care, including a brief comparison of the American versus the Canadian medical care systems. 

If the American system is the Mercedes, and the Canadian system in the Corolla, then the end result for patients should be the same, just difference between luxury and utility. But is it? Do Canadians get faster better service, or are wait times longer and access to care more restricted? 

I think a better and more appropriate comparison would be comparing the product of an ordinary X-Ray machine to the product a CT Scanning machine. Both products will give physicians an internal view of a patient, but the CT Scan will provide volumes more data for the physician to make an accurate diagnosis of an ailment.

In this commentary Michel Kelly-Gagnon, president of the Montreal Economic Institute, does have an interesting viewpoint.

Achieving a critical mass?

Europe is in a deep recession. Spain has a 25% unemployment rate, the rest of the EU has unemployment north of 11%, and those are the official "adjusted" government figures. Various countries have required huge monetary bailouts including Spain and Greece, Italy is in trouble and government austerity measures have resulted in rioting throughout the EU.

In the US, official unemployment figures show rates over 8%, but unofficially some say it is over 20%. The US Fed has announced a third round of Quantitative Easing, even though the previous two have not worked.

The price of gold has tripled in just 5 years and is now approaching record levels. Interest rates in the Western democracies, controlled by their various central banks, are at or near record lows, jeopardizing large pension plans and the savings income of retirees and the elderly. A worldwide economic malaise lingers from the economic turmoil of 2008-09; the bailouts and handouts back then may yet lead to greater problems in the future. World markets and investors are in a constant state of apprehension.

Governments everywhere (including Ontario) are reining in spending and are at odds with their various public sector unions; terms like cutbacks, pay freezes, and outsourcing are common in the daily news. The same is true in the North American manufacturing sector.

While all this is happening government run education costs in North America continue to increase, while student test scores are mediocre at best. Canadian government run health care costs continue to rise, yet wait times and access to service never seems to improve. At the same time Americans are expanding their socialized health care system.

Local and regional governments everywhere are instituting bans related to environmental and personal choices. Bans on the sale and distribution of pesticides, herbicides, plastic bags, sugary soft drinks, foods, breeds of dog, and on and on, are becoming more and more common. That, of course, is in addition to the restricted sale of alcohol in Canada, smoking bans everywhere, and continued and seemingly fruitless prohibitions on the distribution and use of recreational drugs.

So, the question needs to be asked, have we reached a point yet where the actions of governments are so detrimental to the general welfare that some sort of action is required? There is no question that the individual liberties of large swaths of the population have already been constrained. Can personal and economic freedoms be restored? If so, how, and who will do it?

These and other issues will be addressed at first annual Liberty Now at the University of Toronto, November 3, 2012.

Liberty Now is an opportunity to network with other liberty-minded Canadians. This full day event is designed to provide liberty-minded individuals the opportunity to listen to, and participate with, panels of leaders discussing such topics as the philosophy of freedom, the environment, the economics of liberty, the politics of freedom, freedom on campus, and how to spread the message of liberty.

Whether you are a conservative, classical liberal, libertarian, objectivist, anarcho-capitalist, a follower of the Austrian School of Economics, or just in favour of limited government, you'll find something of interest at Liberty Now.

One question may be answered at this event. Has the liberty movement in Canada achieved the critical mass required to make an impact on the social and political fabric of this country?

Find out. Be a part of it!

Please join us for the first annual Liberty Now at the University of Toronto November 3, 2012. Registration is now open.

It's Justin....time

The Liberal Party of Canada has not had much luck with its leadership choices since the glory days of Jean Chrétien.

Paul Martin came next as leader and he was just too wishy-washy.

Then came Stéphane Dion, a convention compromise, and characterized as "not a leader."

Next Michael Ignatieff was literally shipped in, and he was "just visiting."

Each of these men led the party to lower and lower popular vote counts: Martin got 36.7% in 2004, then 30.1% in 2006, Dion 26.2% in 2008, and Ignatieff 18.9% in 2011. Down and down they went, from being the minority government, through to loyal opposition, then to a back bench third place finish for a once great political force. The current interim leader Bob Rae, a refugee from the socialist NDP, has already read the tea leaves, and will not run for permanent leader.

The stage has been set for the second coming of a saviour for the Liberals and by extension Canada, and this boy was born on Christmas Day too!

Yes, it's Justin Trudeau, eldest scion of the charismatic Pierre who led Canada to larger and ever more bloated government. Trudeau the father took office in 1968 when Canada's debt was 24% of GDP, by the time he left office in 1984, the debt was 46% of GDP, an increase of 83%. But of course the rest of the Western Democracies, did precisely the same thing during that time and it has become much worse. The evidence in Europe, America and Canada clearly shows bloated governments don't work.

How does the younger Trudeau - just Justin, thank you - propose to fix the country? I think he gets it right, sort of, lets reinvigorate the middle class. Here is a part of his leadership entry speech:

"A thriving middle class provides realistic hope and a ladder of opportunity for the less fortunate. A robust market for our businesses. And a sense of common interest for all.
The great economic success stories of the recent past are really stories of middle class growth. China, India, South Korea and Brazil, to name a few, are growing rapidly because they have added hundreds of millions of people to the global middle class.
The news on that front is not so good at home; I don’t need to tell you that. You, like our fellow Canadians all over the country, live it every day. Canadian families have seen their incomes stagnate, their costs go up, and their debts explode over the past 30 years.
What’s the response from the NDP? To sow regional resentment and blame the successful. The Conservative answer? Privilege one sector over others and promise that wealth will trickle down, eventually.
Both are tidy ideological answers to complex and difficult questions. The only thing they have in common is that they are both, equally, wrong.
We need to get it right. We need to open our minds to new solutions, to listen to Canadians, to trust them.
And as we face these challenges, the only ideology that must guide us is evidence. Hard, scientific facts and data. It may seem revolutionary in today's Ottawa, but instead of inventing the facts to justify the policies, we will create policy based on facts. Solutions can come from the left or the right, all that matters is that they work. That they help us live - and thrive - true to our values.
Because middle class growth is much more than an economic imperative."

So, Justin and the Liberals should eschew ideology, except where it is supported by evidence and hard scientific facts. Maybe that has been part of the problem with the Liberals, no principles, nothing but the ideology de jour, or as I heard this morning, there is no there, there. 

I don't know where Justin gets his facts, but it seems to me, he and the Liberals have absorbed the prevailing collectivist ideology so they don't even recognize that they have one. If putting a larger and larger tax burden on the middle class, then saddling it with huge debt, is not evidence for why the middle class is struggling, then I'm not sure what is. Maybe Justin should consider unburdening the middle class and stop trying to fix it. That is a second coming I can get behind.

Here is Justin telling the internet he is going to share his greatness with us: