Bryan Caplan broni w swojej książce pt. „The Myth of the Rational Voter” zdroworozsądkowej rzekomo tezy, iż eksperci, w przeciwieństwie do laików, mają jednak na ogół rację w odniesieniu do kwestii, którymi zawodowo się zajmują. Ciekaw jestem, jak w związku z tym odniósłby się on do zjawiska pojawiających się nagminnie w następstwie każdej wielkoskalowej katastrofy obwieszczeń „ekspertów”, jakoby „paradoksalnie” jej skutki mogły wyjść gospodarce dotkniętego obszaru na dobre. Casus niedawnego tsunami w Japonii nie jest oczywiście od tego zjawiska odstępstwem. O rzekomo korzystnym wpływie efektów kataklizmu na „krajowy wzrost” i „globalny popyt” pisze np. popularny lewicowy portal informacyjny The Huffington Post; w podobnym tonie wypowiedział się także w wywiadzie dla telewizji CNBC Larry Summers, były dyrektor narodowej rady ekonomicznej przy Białym Domu i były rektor Uniwersytetu Harvarda.
Być może podobne stwierdzenia byłyby mniej niepokojące, gdyby padały z ust politycznych populistów. Jeśli jednak formułowane są one przez osoby uchodzące za zawodowych ekonomistów, i w dodatku pojawiają się w odpowiednich momentach z regularnością godną prawa natury, to teza Caplana wydaje się nie do końca wiarygodna. Tego rodzaju przypadki uświadamiają nam, że dorobku rzetelnej wiedzy ekonomicznej nigdy nie można traktować jako rzeczy bezpiecznej, nienaruszalnej z racji cieszenia się powszechnym rzekomo szacunkiem, podobnym do tego, jakim darzy się prawa fizyki, biologii czy matematyki. Tak długo, jak istnieją grupy specjalnych interesów i roszczeniowy stosunek do rzeczywistości, tak długo istnieć będą również próby negacji uniwersalnych i logicznie koniecznych praw rządzących rzeczywistością, często przebrane w kostium fachowej analizy. Zadaniem ekonomisty, prawdziwego, nie tytularnego – a więc osoby rozumiejącej logiczne konsekwencje rzadkości dóbr i praktycznej nieograniczoności zapotrzebowania na nie – jest obnażać te próby oraz cierpliwie i niestrudzenie wykazywać ich intelektualną jałowość.
Warto zwrócić uwagę na panglossjańską retorykę powyższych opinii, apelującą do podejścia, iż „nie ma tego złego, co by na dobre nie wyszło”. Istotnie, podejście to można uznać za zdrowe, jeśli przykre doświadczenia niosą w sobie naukę na przyszłość. Trudno jednak twierdzić, że jakąkolwiek stosowną naukę niesie w sobie niepowstrzymany kataklizm o nieprzewidywalnych rozmiarach. Wyważony sens szukania korzyści w nieszczęściu zastępuje się więc bałamutnie dialektycznym „im gorzej, tym lepiej”, doskonale opisanym przez Fryderyka Bastiata w ramach opowieści o zbitej szybie. O ile Bastiat (jak również wybitny kontynuator myśli Bastiata Henry Hazlitt) zdaje się sugerować, że wiara w podobne miraże wynika przede wszystkim z krótkowzroczności – ze skupiania się na rezultatach danego wydarzenia tylko dla pewnych grup uczestników rynku – ja myślę, że jest w niej jednak więcej z zawiści rodem z bajek Ezopa: oto żyliśmy w indyferentnym społeczeństwie podzielonym różnicami majątkowymi, a teraz jesteśmy wszyscy solidarni w biedzie i nieszczęściu. Powrót do punktu zero przy takiej mentalności musi być lepszy niż wznoszenie się ponad ten punkt w atmosferze „chciwości” i „wyzysku”. Tylko, jeśli to gwałtowny i śmiercionośny powrót do stanu ubóstwa ma się traktować jako moment wielkiej odnowy moralnej, jaki cel mają mieć jakiekolwiek próby wydobycia się z niego? Czy nie lepiej jak najdłużej pozostać w stanie czcigodnego, egalitarnego cierpiętnictwa? Nie oczekuję, że odpowiedzi na to retoryczne pytanie udzielą mi napawający się swoją rolą lekarzy dusz keynesistowscy besserwisserzy.
W powyższych komentarzach można też natknąć się na sformułowanie, iż „Matka Natura w krótkim czasie zdołała dokonać tego, czego przez lata nie zdołał dokonać japoński rząd i bank centralny”. Stwierdzenie to dobrze opisuje bezowocność dominującego w ekonomii głównego nurtu paradygmatu pozytywistycznego. Bo dlaczegóż to nie mielibyśmy uznać, że trwająca od dwóch dekad japońska stagnacja utrzymuje się z powodu, a nie pomimo bodźców fiskalnych i monetarnych aplikowanych tamtejszej gospodarce przez lokalny aparat urzędniczy? Spór pomiędzy równie zgodnymi z dostępnymi danymi, lecz wzajemnie przeczącymi sobie wyjaśnieniami może rozsądzić to, które z nich zgodne jest z logicznie spójną teorią. Ekonomia głównonurtowa wzdraga się jednak przed metodą teoretyczną i przed kryterium logicznej spójności jako przed scholastycznymi przeżytkami. Warto zadać sobie pytanie, jak długo stosując podobne podejście można dziwić się, że rzeki nie chcą płynąć pod prąd, a z dwóch i dwóch nie chce wynikać dwanaście.
Prawdopodobnie nie bez przesady można skonstatować, że niezakłócony rozwój cywilizacyjny stoi pod znakiem zapytania tak długo, jak długo kolejne wcielenia metafory zbitej szyby i innych życzeniowych panaceów, rozgłaszane przez medialnych „ekspertów”, będą kształtować świadomość gospodarczą społeczeństw. A będzie to z pewnością trwało tak długo, jak długo logiczna analiza zjawisk gospodarczych nie będzie dawała podobnym rewelacjom natychmiastowej i twardej kontry.
16 marca 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Bastiat's definitional precision
While I always liked it, I recently came to the conlusion that Bastiat's definition of the state as "the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else" is not only pithy and memorable, but also perfectly precise, more accurate in the strictly logical sense than any other definition of the state I am familiar with. Surely, the state is not just a piece of land - when someone says "the state ought to give me X", he is not appealing to a personified geographical area. The state is not the society either, since individuals and social groups can, and often are, condemned by others as "the enemies of/traitors to the state". Nor is it the state bureaucracy or the political class, since these too can be easily excoriated as "working against the interests of the state". What is the state, then? It is an idea, whose specific content depends on who makes an appeal to it, but whose form is always that of an otherwise unspecified entity whose legitimate job is to enforce one's coercive claims on the property of others. Hence, in the strict ontological sense there is no state, but it shouldn't surprise us that that does not prevent there being legions of statists.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Ten Reasons Why Statism Is (Nearly) Universally Accepted and a Brief Note on Why It Matters to Know Them
It seems scarcely an exaggeration to say that today’s inhabited world is almost universally statist. Thus, the task facing libertarians remains comprehensive and formidable. Since the shape of social reality is ultimately determined by the ideas people hold, undermining the influence of any given doctrine requires prior understanding of the reasons for both its active espousal and its passive acceptance. Consequently, in order to oppose statism effectively, it is necessary to get a grasp of the factors that make the societies of the world endorse or at least consent to the existence of centralized monopolies of aggression, violence and coercion. What follows is my attempt at compiling a succinct list of what appear to me to be the main driving forces behind the phenomenon just described.
1. Intellectual propaganda. The statized education system managed to accomplish a formidable task of creating a number of very potent mental viruses – the theory of social contract, the theory of public and collective goods, the theory of political obligation, various theories of monopoly and other “market failures,” various theories of “positive legislation,” the doctrine of the divine right of kings, etc. The examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. To non-intellectuals, these propagandist concoctions oftentimes seem to be serious, rational justifications for obeying the dictates of monopolies of force. To intellectuals, on the other hand, even if they see the (quite flagrant) logical inadequacies of these sophistical constructions, their adoption and propagation usually appears to be one of the safest ways to secure permanent, lucrative and influential job positions.
2. Emotional propaganda. People whose life is by their own admission bland and uninteresting often turn their attention to the antics of various celebrities. Statism never fails to jump on this opportunity to make people emotionally attached to public figures by trying to confer as much notability as possible on politicians, bureaucrats and other high-ranking representatives of the apparatus of institutionalized violence. As a result, the majority of the state’s subjects fall prey to the large-scale version of the Stockholm Syndrome, feeling genuine sympathy for their oppressors even if they do not belong to their immediate electoral clientele.
3. Self-deception. It would seem quite natural to suppose that for the majority of right-minded, decent people the realization that one is being systematically robbed and threatened with severe violence in case of non-subordination is abhorrent to the point of being psychologically unbearable. And yet, since this is precisely what happens under statism, a natural psychological self-defense mechanism for such people is to engage in self-deception and attempt to justify the systematic depravities inflicted upon them. Thus, they are browbeaten into accepting the double “morality” that every rationalization for the ethical distinction between the rulers and the ruled has to rely on.
4. Simple ignorance. It is a sad testimony to the quality of intellectual perspicacity of the majority of the human race that in principle statism can flourish even in the absence of any additional intellectual propaganda on the part of its adherents. As was acutely observed by Bastiat (and reiterated by Hazlitt), it is enough for people to look only at the short-term consequences of a given action, or only at its consequences for a given group, to accept the notion that the apparatus of institutional coercion can create prosperity for some without destroying the prosperity of others. It is of course imperative for the statists to exploit these widespread cognitive deficiencies to the utmost extent.
5. Fear. This element could be understood in a twofold manner. On the one hand, it is fear of responsibility for one’s own life and its shape, which culminates in the conviction that it is desirable to be able to have recourse to an institution capable of forcibly shifting this responsibility onto others. On the other hand, it is a more general horror vacui – fear of independent thinking and acting, fear of living in a world devoid of any ultimate temporal disciplinarian, whose final, indisputable argument is the authoritative argumentum ad baculum, the ability to subordinate a recalcitrant reality by means of legalized (or even sanctified) coercion. After all, it might be quite dispiriting to realize how difficult it would be to accomplish one’s wishes were they not aligned with those of the unquestionable institution just mentioned.
6. Laziness. Drawing on Oppenheimer’s distinction between the economic means and the political means, it can immediately be noticed that using the former to earn one’s bread is time- and effort-consuming, whereas the latter – as soon as the apparatus of institutionalized violence is already in place – can be utilized relatively quickly and effortlessly. Modern-day social democracy epitomizes the redistributive function of the political means. If one can regularly “vote himself” the property of others rather than obtain it through voluntary exchange of independently produced, valuable goods, why shouldn’t he – in the absence of any inhibiting scruples – opt for the former alternative and support the system that enshrines it?
7. Envy. The egalitarian ideology of modern statism, based on the coercive demand that the stream of politically redistributed goods and valuables flow specifically into the hands of those who did nothing to deserve their acquisition, is exceptionally useful in channeling envy and dog-in-the-manger resentment into support for the system that institutionalizes these low and base instincts. Unlike meritocracy, whose results come about through the medium of the totality of voluntary interpersonal interactions, egalitarianism needs to marry statism in order to achieve its envy-driven aims. And since envy is unfortunately a very widespread characteristic, we should not be surprised by the level of backing for the monopolization and centralization of force that it generates.
8. Lust for power. There might be good evolutionary reasons for the contention that human beings are naturally prone to trying to dominate their fellow brothers and sisters. Perhaps noticing that others enjoy a higher standard of living, and consequently higher chances of passing their genes into the future, creates in many an instinctive eagerness to gain similar opportunities in the most convenient manner, even if that means forcibly appropriating someone else’s resources. Be that as it may, we should not forget that a rational morality can be argued to be precisely the tool for disposing of some of the more questionable elements of our putative evolutionary inheritance.
9. Habituation. Statism and its destructive offspring – war, slavery, expropriation and intellectual corruption – have proven themselves to be very resilient and long-lived social plagues. Consequently, it is relatively easy for statists to describe these phenomena as historical, civilizational or even metaphysical necessities. Furthermore, the apparent robustness of monopolies of force allows its rulers and employees to depict non-statist social arrangements as, at best, a radical an precarious unknown, and, at worst, a system prone to endless conflict of everyone against all. Under such conditions, becoming aware and convinced of the viability of voluntarist alternatives, as well as working towards their implementation, is all the more difficult.
10. Resignation. The ultimate goal of statism is to throw every single individual into the state of passivity and lethargic inaction as regards the efforts to shake the parasitic classes off one’s back. This goal is exemplified by fostering the all too known “taxes and death” attitude. Thus, even those unconvinced of the moral or economic necessity of the existence of monopolistic apparatuses of coercion, or even those actively opposed to their existence on intellectual grounds, are supposed to reconcile themselves to the fact that their doubts and objections have absolutely no influence on the shape of binding social arrangements, neither today nor at any time in the future.
Having clearly identified the above factors, libertarians should be able to pursue their fundamental aims with much greater efficiency. As I emphasized at the outset, social reality is ultimately shaped by the ideas held by its inhabitants. Pinpointing the most prevailingly pernicious among them should make it far easier for the supporters of freedom to counter their symptoms and fight their root causes successfully.
[Reprinted from Strike-The-Root.com]
1. Intellectual propaganda. The statized education system managed to accomplish a formidable task of creating a number of very potent mental viruses – the theory of social contract, the theory of public and collective goods, the theory of political obligation, various theories of monopoly and other “market failures,” various theories of “positive legislation,” the doctrine of the divine right of kings, etc. The examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. To non-intellectuals, these propagandist concoctions oftentimes seem to be serious, rational justifications for obeying the dictates of monopolies of force. To intellectuals, on the other hand, even if they see the (quite flagrant) logical inadequacies of these sophistical constructions, their adoption and propagation usually appears to be one of the safest ways to secure permanent, lucrative and influential job positions.
2. Emotional propaganda. People whose life is by their own admission bland and uninteresting often turn their attention to the antics of various celebrities. Statism never fails to jump on this opportunity to make people emotionally attached to public figures by trying to confer as much notability as possible on politicians, bureaucrats and other high-ranking representatives of the apparatus of institutionalized violence. As a result, the majority of the state’s subjects fall prey to the large-scale version of the Stockholm Syndrome, feeling genuine sympathy for their oppressors even if they do not belong to their immediate electoral clientele.
3. Self-deception. It would seem quite natural to suppose that for the majority of right-minded, decent people the realization that one is being systematically robbed and threatened with severe violence in case of non-subordination is abhorrent to the point of being psychologically unbearable. And yet, since this is precisely what happens under statism, a natural psychological self-defense mechanism for such people is to engage in self-deception and attempt to justify the systematic depravities inflicted upon them. Thus, they are browbeaten into accepting the double “morality” that every rationalization for the ethical distinction between the rulers and the ruled has to rely on.
4. Simple ignorance. It is a sad testimony to the quality of intellectual perspicacity of the majority of the human race that in principle statism can flourish even in the absence of any additional intellectual propaganda on the part of its adherents. As was acutely observed by Bastiat (and reiterated by Hazlitt), it is enough for people to look only at the short-term consequences of a given action, or only at its consequences for a given group, to accept the notion that the apparatus of institutional coercion can create prosperity for some without destroying the prosperity of others. It is of course imperative for the statists to exploit these widespread cognitive deficiencies to the utmost extent.
5. Fear. This element could be understood in a twofold manner. On the one hand, it is fear of responsibility for one’s own life and its shape, which culminates in the conviction that it is desirable to be able to have recourse to an institution capable of forcibly shifting this responsibility onto others. On the other hand, it is a more general horror vacui – fear of independent thinking and acting, fear of living in a world devoid of any ultimate temporal disciplinarian, whose final, indisputable argument is the authoritative argumentum ad baculum, the ability to subordinate a recalcitrant reality by means of legalized (or even sanctified) coercion. After all, it might be quite dispiriting to realize how difficult it would be to accomplish one’s wishes were they not aligned with those of the unquestionable institution just mentioned.
6. Laziness. Drawing on Oppenheimer’s distinction between the economic means and the political means, it can immediately be noticed that using the former to earn one’s bread is time- and effort-consuming, whereas the latter – as soon as the apparatus of institutionalized violence is already in place – can be utilized relatively quickly and effortlessly. Modern-day social democracy epitomizes the redistributive function of the political means. If one can regularly “vote himself” the property of others rather than obtain it through voluntary exchange of independently produced, valuable goods, why shouldn’t he – in the absence of any inhibiting scruples – opt for the former alternative and support the system that enshrines it?
7. Envy. The egalitarian ideology of modern statism, based on the coercive demand that the stream of politically redistributed goods and valuables flow specifically into the hands of those who did nothing to deserve their acquisition, is exceptionally useful in channeling envy and dog-in-the-manger resentment into support for the system that institutionalizes these low and base instincts. Unlike meritocracy, whose results come about through the medium of the totality of voluntary interpersonal interactions, egalitarianism needs to marry statism in order to achieve its envy-driven aims. And since envy is unfortunately a very widespread characteristic, we should not be surprised by the level of backing for the monopolization and centralization of force that it generates.
8. Lust for power. There might be good evolutionary reasons for the contention that human beings are naturally prone to trying to dominate their fellow brothers and sisters. Perhaps noticing that others enjoy a higher standard of living, and consequently higher chances of passing their genes into the future, creates in many an instinctive eagerness to gain similar opportunities in the most convenient manner, even if that means forcibly appropriating someone else’s resources. Be that as it may, we should not forget that a rational morality can be argued to be precisely the tool for disposing of some of the more questionable elements of our putative evolutionary inheritance.
9. Habituation. Statism and its destructive offspring – war, slavery, expropriation and intellectual corruption – have proven themselves to be very resilient and long-lived social plagues. Consequently, it is relatively easy for statists to describe these phenomena as historical, civilizational or even metaphysical necessities. Furthermore, the apparent robustness of monopolies of force allows its rulers and employees to depict non-statist social arrangements as, at best, a radical an precarious unknown, and, at worst, a system prone to endless conflict of everyone against all. Under such conditions, becoming aware and convinced of the viability of voluntarist alternatives, as well as working towards their implementation, is all the more difficult.
10. Resignation. The ultimate goal of statism is to throw every single individual into the state of passivity and lethargic inaction as regards the efforts to shake the parasitic classes off one’s back. This goal is exemplified by fostering the all too known “taxes and death” attitude. Thus, even those unconvinced of the moral or economic necessity of the existence of monopolistic apparatuses of coercion, or even those actively opposed to their existence on intellectual grounds, are supposed to reconcile themselves to the fact that their doubts and objections have absolutely no influence on the shape of binding social arrangements, neither today nor at any time in the future.
Having clearly identified the above factors, libertarians should be able to pursue their fundamental aims with much greater efficiency. As I emphasized at the outset, social reality is ultimately shaped by the ideas held by its inhabitants. Pinpointing the most prevailingly pernicious among them should make it far easier for the supporters of freedom to counter their symptoms and fight their root causes successfully.
[Reprinted from Strike-The-Root.com]
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Rejoinder to Block's Defense of Evictionism
The present paper is an attempt to show that Walter Block’s defense of the ostensibly libertarian character of evictionism against my original criticisms is unsuccessful, though certainly informative and thought-provoking. In my exploration of Block’s counter-criticisms, I focus in particular on the role played in his account by the principle of proportionality, as well as on the putative disanalogy between cases of abortion and child abandonment on the one hand and my airplane thought experiment on the other hand.
[Read More]
[Read More]
Thursday, November 4, 2010
My Academic Publications
Below is a list of my publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, academic monographs, and book chapters:
43. “Hayek a gospodarka informacyjna”, in Hayek wielkim ekonomistą był, ed. Benedyk, M., Instytut Misesa, Wrocław (2026), 145-56.
42. “Proactivity in Economics: Between Resourcefulness and Entrepreneurship”, Routledge (2026).
41. “The Two Faces of Realism in Austrian Economics”, in Walter Block – Anarcho-Capitalist Austro-Libertarian, ed. Popescu, G. H., Nica, E., Addleton Academic Publishers, New York (2025), 55-8.
40. “The Economics and Sociology of Global Totalitarianism”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 31, 2 (2025), 7-20.
39. “Evictionism in the Light of Praxeological Economic Theory”, Studies in the History of Philosophy 16, 1 (2025), 101-110.
38. “The Proactive Society: an Introductory Exposition”, in Transition Economies in Central and Eastern Europe: Austrian Perspectives, ed. Sielska, A., Routledge, London-New York (2023), 133-39.
37. “The Ethical Structure of Production”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 28, 1 (2022), 25-38.
36. “Economics and Ethics: Neither Independent nor Intertwined, But Mutually Relevant”, in Defending Liberty: Essays in Honor of David Gordon, ed. Rasmussen, D. B., Wiśniewski, J. B., Ludwig von Mises Institute (2022), 227-52.
35. “Defending Liberty: Essays in Honor of David Gordon”, ed. with Rasmussen, D. B., Ludwig von Mises Institute (2022).
34. “The Capital Structure of Libertarian Production”, Studia Humana 11, 2 (2022), 1-9.
33. “Przedsiębiorczość jako fundament dynamicznej analizy gospodarczej”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 27, 2 (2021), 63-80.
32. “Spontaniczność instytucji a współpraca społeczna”, in Niech żyje rewolucja: 150 lat zasad ekonomii Carla Mengera, ed. Sielska, A., Wydawnictwo UwB, Białystok (2021), 129-38.
31. “Austrian Economics as a Paradigm of Golden Mean Thinking”, New Perspectives On Political Economy 16, 1-2 (2020), 39-51.
30. “Is Statism an Amoral Philosophy?”, Studia Humana 9, 2 (2020), 121-26.
29. “On the Impossibility of Intellectual Property”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 23, 1 (2020), 33-45.
28. “Dobra i zła interdyscyplinarność w ekonomii”, in Ekonomia jako dyscyplina naukowa i kierunek kształcenia. Aktualne trendy i pożądane zmiany, ed. Rutkowska-Tomaszewska, E., Kwaśnicki, W., Difin, Warszawa (2020), 94-105.
27. “Wpływ teorii makroekonomicznych na etyczną jakość praktyki finansowej”, Annales. Etyka w Życiu Gospodarczym / Annales. Ethics in Economic Life 22, 4 (2019), 7-20.
26. “Austrian Welfare Economics: A Reply to Wysocki and Megger”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 25, 3 (2019), 25-8.
25. “Word, Action, and Entrepreneurship”, Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 57, 1 (2019), 161-74.
24. “The Economics of Law, Order and Action: The Logic of Public Goods”, Routledge (2018).
23. “Etyka gospodarcza jako refleksja nad jakościowym potencjałem działalności ekonomicznej”, Annales. Etyka w Życiu Gospodarczym / Annales. Ethics in Economic Life 21, 1 (2018), 47–56.
22. “Legal Polycentrism and Contractarianism”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 23, 2 (2017), 75–82.
21. “Repugnancy, Marginalism, Transitivity, and Population Ethics”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 21, 3 (2015), 21–37.
20. “A Note on Collective Action, Cooperation, Collusion, and Voluntary Production of Public Goods”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 21, 2 (2015), 55–8.
19. “A comment on the concept of desire satisfaction and the Mises-Hayek dehomogenization debate”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 21, 1 (2015), 63–8.
18. “Legal Polycentrism, the Circularity Problem, and the Regression Theorem of Institutional Development”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 17, 4 (2014), 510–8.
17. “Defense as a Private Good in a Competitive Order”, Review of Social and Economic Issues 1, 1 (2014), 3-35.
16. “The Methodology of the Austrian School of Economics: The Present State of Knowledge”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 20, 1 (2014), 39-54.
15. “Legal monocentrism and the paradox of government”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 16, 4 (2013), 459-78.
14. “Non-excludability, Externalities, and Entrepreneurship – An Overview of the Austrian Theory of Common Goods”, Journal of Prices & Markets 1, 1 (2013), 57-68.
13. “Nonrivalness, Subjectivity and Capital – An Overview of the Austrian Theory of Club Goods”, New Perspectives On Political Economy 9, 1-2 (2013), 24-37.
12. “Abortion, Libertarianism, and Evictionism: A Last Word”, Libertarian Papers 5, 1 (2013), 153-62.
11. “On Regime Uncertainty and Legal Entrepreneurship”, Independent Review 17, 2 (2012), 253-6.
10. “A Note on Being Healthy”, Diametros 31 (2012), 133-5.
9. “Irreducible Holism”, Diametros 30 (2011), 76-92.
8. “Do Moral Dilemmas Tell Against the Consistency of a Given Moral System?”, Reason Papers 33 (2011), 44-59.
7. “Robust Political Economy and the Question of Motivations”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 14, 1 (2011), 56-65.
6. “Well-Being and Objectivity”, Libertarian Papers 3, 7 (2011).
5. “Response to Block on Abortion, Round Three”, Libertarian Papers 3, 6 (2011).
4. “Rejoinder to Block's Defense of Evictionism”, Libertarian Papers 2, 37 (2010).
3. “A Critique of Block on Abortion and Child Abandonment”, Libertarian Papers 2, 16 (2010).
2. “Well-informedness and rationality: a philosophical overview”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 12, 3 (2009), 43-56.
1. “Free Will and Preactions”, Libertarian Papers 1, 23 (2009).
43. “Hayek a gospodarka informacyjna”, in Hayek wielkim ekonomistą był, ed. Benedyk, M., Instytut Misesa, Wrocław (2026), 145-56.
42. “Proactivity in Economics: Between Resourcefulness and Entrepreneurship”, Routledge (2026).
41. “The Two Faces of Realism in Austrian Economics”, in Walter Block – Anarcho-Capitalist Austro-Libertarian, ed. Popescu, G. H., Nica, E., Addleton Academic Publishers, New York (2025), 55-8.
40. “The Economics and Sociology of Global Totalitarianism”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 31, 2 (2025), 7-20.
39. “Evictionism in the Light of Praxeological Economic Theory”, Studies in the History of Philosophy 16, 1 (2025), 101-110.
38. “The Proactive Society: an Introductory Exposition”, in Transition Economies in Central and Eastern Europe: Austrian Perspectives, ed. Sielska, A., Routledge, London-New York (2023), 133-39.
37. “The Ethical Structure of Production”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 28, 1 (2022), 25-38.
36. “Economics and Ethics: Neither Independent nor Intertwined, But Mutually Relevant”, in Defending Liberty: Essays in Honor of David Gordon, ed. Rasmussen, D. B., Wiśniewski, J. B., Ludwig von Mises Institute (2022), 227-52.
35. “Defending Liberty: Essays in Honor of David Gordon”, ed. with Rasmussen, D. B., Ludwig von Mises Institute (2022).
34. “The Capital Structure of Libertarian Production”, Studia Humana 11, 2 (2022), 1-9.
33. “Przedsiębiorczość jako fundament dynamicznej analizy gospodarczej”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 27, 2 (2021), 63-80.
32. “Spontaniczność instytucji a współpraca społeczna”, in Niech żyje rewolucja: 150 lat zasad ekonomii Carla Mengera, ed. Sielska, A., Wydawnictwo UwB, Białystok (2021), 129-38.
31. “Austrian Economics as a Paradigm of Golden Mean Thinking”, New Perspectives On Political Economy 16, 1-2 (2020), 39-51.
30. “Is Statism an Amoral Philosophy?”, Studia Humana 9, 2 (2020), 121-26.
29. “On the Impossibility of Intellectual Property”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 23, 1 (2020), 33-45.
28. “Dobra i zła interdyscyplinarność w ekonomii”, in Ekonomia jako dyscyplina naukowa i kierunek kształcenia. Aktualne trendy i pożądane zmiany, ed. Rutkowska-Tomaszewska, E., Kwaśnicki, W., Difin, Warszawa (2020), 94-105.
27. “Wpływ teorii makroekonomicznych na etyczną jakość praktyki finansowej”, Annales. Etyka w Życiu Gospodarczym / Annales. Ethics in Economic Life 22, 4 (2019), 7-20.
26. “Austrian Welfare Economics: A Reply to Wysocki and Megger”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 25, 3 (2019), 25-8.
25. “Word, Action, and Entrepreneurship”, Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 57, 1 (2019), 161-74.
24. “The Economics of Law, Order and Action: The Logic of Public Goods”, Routledge (2018).
23. “Etyka gospodarcza jako refleksja nad jakościowym potencjałem działalności ekonomicznej”, Annales. Etyka w Życiu Gospodarczym / Annales. Ethics in Economic Life 21, 1 (2018), 47–56.
22. “Legal Polycentrism and Contractarianism”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 23, 2 (2017), 75–82.
21. “Repugnancy, Marginalism, Transitivity, and Population Ethics”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 21, 3 (2015), 21–37.
20. “A Note on Collective Action, Cooperation, Collusion, and Voluntary Production of Public Goods”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 21, 2 (2015), 55–8.
19. “A comment on the concept of desire satisfaction and the Mises-Hayek dehomogenization debate”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 21, 1 (2015), 63–8.
18. “Legal Polycentrism, the Circularity Problem, and the Regression Theorem of Institutional Development”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 17, 4 (2014), 510–8.
17. “Defense as a Private Good in a Competitive Order”, Review of Social and Economic Issues 1, 1 (2014), 3-35.
16. “The Methodology of the Austrian School of Economics: The Present State of Knowledge”, Ekonomia - Wroclaw Economic Review 20, 1 (2014), 39-54.
15. “Legal monocentrism and the paradox of government”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 16, 4 (2013), 459-78.
14. “Non-excludability, Externalities, and Entrepreneurship – An Overview of the Austrian Theory of Common Goods”, Journal of Prices & Markets 1, 1 (2013), 57-68.
13. “Nonrivalness, Subjectivity and Capital – An Overview of the Austrian Theory of Club Goods”, New Perspectives On Political Economy 9, 1-2 (2013), 24-37.
12. “Abortion, Libertarianism, and Evictionism: A Last Word”, Libertarian Papers 5, 1 (2013), 153-62.
11. “On Regime Uncertainty and Legal Entrepreneurship”, Independent Review 17, 2 (2012), 253-6.
10. “A Note on Being Healthy”, Diametros 31 (2012), 133-5.
9. “Irreducible Holism”, Diametros 30 (2011), 76-92.
8. “Do Moral Dilemmas Tell Against the Consistency of a Given Moral System?”, Reason Papers 33 (2011), 44-59.
7. “Robust Political Economy and the Question of Motivations”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 14, 1 (2011), 56-65.
6. “Well-Being and Objectivity”, Libertarian Papers 3, 7 (2011).
5. “Response to Block on Abortion, Round Three”, Libertarian Papers 3, 6 (2011).
4. “Rejoinder to Block's Defense of Evictionism”, Libertarian Papers 2, 37 (2010).
3. “A Critique of Block on Abortion and Child Abandonment”, Libertarian Papers 2, 16 (2010).
2. “Well-informedness and rationality: a philosophical overview”, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 12, 3 (2009), 43-56.
1. “Free Will and Preactions”, Libertarian Papers 1, 23 (2009).
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Collective goods theory vs Rothbardian welfare economics and vice versa
My fellowship presentation on Rothbard's welfare theory, its criticisms and counter-criticisms, delivered at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Auburn, AL) on July 22.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Libertarianism and Its Impersonators
The distortion of reality begins with the distortion of the words used to describe it. That is why, whenever one notices that a word one thinks of positively experiences an upsurge in popularity, one should remain cautious. It is certainly possible that such an occurrence indicates a genuine increase in the appreciation for and understanding of the ideas that the word in question signifies. But it is equally possible that it indicates an attempt on the part of some relatively popular interest group to dress its members’ own ideas in what they take to be an attractive and fresh-looking costume. This, in turn, allows the groups openly hostile to what the original term stands for to launch their polemics against straw-men and caricatures, which allows them to wage the battle of ideas more effectively without displaying any genuine logical superiority over their intellectual opponents. Hence the necessity to keep the terms that constitute any well-established and well-developed intellectual tradition faithful to their original meanings if any sensible and fruitful discussion of them is to remain possible.
Libertarianism – perhaps on account of its principled and clear-cut character – has been a relatively frequent target of such attempts at hostile appropriation by means of semantic distortion. In what follows, I would like to describe a few positions masquerading as the original doctrine under consideration and point to the dangers they pose to the message of liberty. Consequently, my suggestion is that the values it carries can be preserved only by sticking intransigently to its intellectually pure and unadulterated version. Having made the above brief introduction, let me now move to enumerating the aforementioned approaches:
1. Utilitarian or Coasian “libertarianism.” According to this theory, the primary function of property rights is to reduce transaction costs – that is, the costs associated with finding the person with whom we wish to transact, coming to a mutual agreement with her, drawing up a requisite contract, enforcing its terms, etc. And while it is praxeologically true that the recognition of property rights is absolutely indispensable for overcoming some of the fundamental so-defined transaction costs (e.g., the costs stemming from otherwise irresolvable ownership conflicts, the costs associated with the inability to perform economic calculations and thus rationally allocate resources, the costs relating to the absence of the signaling function of prices, etc.), it is not necessarily the case that any given pattern of originally appropriated and contractually acquired property titles is bound to minimize the total amount of more detailed, circumstance-specific transaction costs. Imagine, for instance, that someone owns a parcel of land that constitutes a pass through an otherwise nearly impassable mountain range separating two merchant colonies. It would be highly beneficial for the inhabitants of both of these colonies if a road could be made through this pass, but the original owner refuses to sell his land to any of the road-building companies since it has been in the possession of his family for centuries and it has a sentimental value to him. Obviously enough, making detours around the mountain range is bound to generate significant transaction costs (measured in terms of market revenue, not in terms of psychological utility) as compared to the counterfactual scenario in which the road is built through the pass. In such cases, the recommendation of utilitarian “libertarianism” is to expropriate the recalcitrant owner and then offer him an “adequate” monetary compensation, corresponding to the anticipated market value of the road. But there is clearly nothing even remotely libertarian about such a recommendation – it involves an exercise of coercive force against the life and property of an independent, self-owning individual. It conceives of individual liberty as subordinate to collective money-making efficiency. Thus, even putting aside all the value-free, economic objections to the feasibility of making interpersonal comparisons of utility, the belief in which underlies the approach in question, it fails the essential moral test of paying unconditional respect to private property rights in one’s own body, labor and the fruits thereof.
2. Minarchist or militarist “libertarianism.” These are in fact two conceptually separable positions, but there are good theoretical and empirical grounds for claiming that acknowledging the legitimacy and desirability of the former invariably leads to the deadly excesses of the latter. I think it is fair to characterize the adherents of the approach under consideration as subscribing to the following catchphrase: We hold liberty to be the supreme value, but we realize that in order to secure the maximum feasible amount of liberty, some of it has to be sacrificed to the necessary evil of the monopolistic apparatus of coercion. In other words, unless one consents to the abrogation of some of his private property rights, one will not be able to enjoy any private property rights at all. The literature countering this claim on economic grounds is vast (see, e.g., here), so it would take too much time to even summarize it here. Instead, let me ask in this context just a couple of short, critical questions of mainly moral and psychological nature. Is it reasonable to assume that statist coercion is necessary to enforce contracts, but the alleged “social contract” that is supposed to establish the state needs no meta-state to enforce it, thus effectively becoming a self-enforcing anomaly? Is it prudent to expect that ceding the task of maintaining justice onto an entity that is both monopolistic and coercive will not lead to it continually perverting justice in its favor? Is it sensible to claim that an institution that forcibly imposes its protective services on others, unilaterally determines their price and excludes all competition in this area will not attempt to benefit from initiating conflicts or letting them develop rather them resolving them or preventing their occurrence? If one is ready to answer these questions in the negative, and it seems to me that there exist very good reasons for doing so, then one should not be puzzled by the suggested slippery slope from minarchism to militarism. And one should not be surprised by the contention that neither holds much promise for preserving individual liberty.
3. Anything goes “libertarianism.” This approach suggests that any social, political or economic change that lightens the burden of statism in even the most infinitesimal way should be considered libertarian and those who bring it about should be regarded as libertarian-minded. In other words, if a political party reduces the income tax by one percentage point or repeals one out of a hundred thousand regulations, its members should be thought of as fundamentally decent people and sincere supporters of personal freedom. Such an attitude, of course, trivializes libertarianism and induces its putative followers to rest on their laurels much too easily. If a communist system is replaced with a social democratic one, this is surely a welcome change, but it seems a grave abuse of language to call it libertarian. If a band of local highwaymen decides to lower the tribute it regularly extorts from the other inhabitants of a given area, should it be praised as a group of committed individualists and voluntarists? What use can there be in such semantic equilibristics other than to shift the spectrum of intellectual discourse in the direction opposite from that pointed to by the original and properly radical version of the discussed theory? It does not help a good cause to try to subsume every acceptable development under a program aimed at advancing it. The more inclusive a given position gets, the more it runs the danger of becoming meaningless. In order to avoid that danger, let us bear in mind the crucial difference between the changes that, relatively speaking, move us towards the libertarian vision and the changes that are also consistent with its principles.
4. Countercultural “libertarianism.” This particular doctrine puts paramount emphasis on the necessity of liberating social customs from the shackles of violent paternalism and coercive moralizing. And while this is certainly an effort worthy of support, since the acceptance or rejection of any given set of social customs should be entirely voluntary (here I am obviously, though implicitly, treating the non-aggression principle as something much more than even the most respectable custom or convention), it has to be borne in mind that liberty in matters social and customary is a natural and inevitable consequence of liberty in matters moral and economic, but not necessarily the other way around. Hence, the priorities of countercultural “libertarianism” turn out to be badly misplaced – its adherents strive to secure a single beneficial result, whilst overlooking the need to trigger (or even openly spurning) the only cause capable of bringing it about (together with many other essential human values). That is why it should not be surprising that the original countercultural “libertarianism” of the 1960s was hardly a movement for private property rights and unhampered freedom of economic activity. If any modern form of counterculture is to become a better ally of genuine individualism and voluntarism, it has to reassess its priorities on a fundamental level and put property rights at the very center of its positive program for change.
5. Anti-hierarchical “libertarianism.” As the name suggests, the cornerstone of this position is the rejection of hierarchies, in this context meaning arrangements of people in which they are represented as being “above,” “below,” or “at the same level as” one another according to some specified criterion. Again, this appears to be a reasonable attitude to take insofar as any such criterion is forcibly imposed on a given person, which results in her coercive subordination to the relevant hierarchy. Modern democratic statism, for instance, violently subordinates hundreds of millions of people to the hierarchy of political influence and the accompanying ability to amass and utilize large-scale aggressive force. In sum, anti-hierarchism is perfectly justifiable on libertarian grounds to the extent that it is aimed against coercive hierarchies. However, the doctrine under consideration, especially in its so-called “left-anarchist” incarnation, is aimed against all sorts of hierarchies, including the voluntary ones (existing in, e.g., firms, clubs, churches, scholarly associations, etc.), thus effectively contravening the basic libertarian principle of unhampered freedom of association. Insofar as left-anarchism regards a hierarchy stretching from the owner of a non-state-subsidized company to its lowest paid employee as inherently oppressive and hence suitable for forcible liquidation, its followers are indistinguishable from ordinary statists, whose final argument is always the use of their truncheon. In conclusion, it is very difficult to conceive of these outright opponents of private property rights and natural inequalities as reliable advocates for liberty.
As was perceptively noted by Murray Rothbard, human rights are property rights – either to one’s body, one’s mind, one’s labor, or the fruits thereof. Thus, libertarianism can convincingly lay claim to being the only position that genuinely champions human rights. The same does not apply, however, to all the doctrines that try to capitalize on libertarianism’s good name while leaving out its most important element – an unflinching and unconditional endorsement of private property rights. Let us never forget that fact whilst seeing the word libertarianism passed around more and more generously.
[Reprinted from Strike-The-Root.com]
Libertarianism – perhaps on account of its principled and clear-cut character – has been a relatively frequent target of such attempts at hostile appropriation by means of semantic distortion. In what follows, I would like to describe a few positions masquerading as the original doctrine under consideration and point to the dangers they pose to the message of liberty. Consequently, my suggestion is that the values it carries can be preserved only by sticking intransigently to its intellectually pure and unadulterated version. Having made the above brief introduction, let me now move to enumerating the aforementioned approaches:
1. Utilitarian or Coasian “libertarianism.” According to this theory, the primary function of property rights is to reduce transaction costs – that is, the costs associated with finding the person with whom we wish to transact, coming to a mutual agreement with her, drawing up a requisite contract, enforcing its terms, etc. And while it is praxeologically true that the recognition of property rights is absolutely indispensable for overcoming some of the fundamental so-defined transaction costs (e.g., the costs stemming from otherwise irresolvable ownership conflicts, the costs associated with the inability to perform economic calculations and thus rationally allocate resources, the costs relating to the absence of the signaling function of prices, etc.), it is not necessarily the case that any given pattern of originally appropriated and contractually acquired property titles is bound to minimize the total amount of more detailed, circumstance-specific transaction costs. Imagine, for instance, that someone owns a parcel of land that constitutes a pass through an otherwise nearly impassable mountain range separating two merchant colonies. It would be highly beneficial for the inhabitants of both of these colonies if a road could be made through this pass, but the original owner refuses to sell his land to any of the road-building companies since it has been in the possession of his family for centuries and it has a sentimental value to him. Obviously enough, making detours around the mountain range is bound to generate significant transaction costs (measured in terms of market revenue, not in terms of psychological utility) as compared to the counterfactual scenario in which the road is built through the pass. In such cases, the recommendation of utilitarian “libertarianism” is to expropriate the recalcitrant owner and then offer him an “adequate” monetary compensation, corresponding to the anticipated market value of the road. But there is clearly nothing even remotely libertarian about such a recommendation – it involves an exercise of coercive force against the life and property of an independent, self-owning individual. It conceives of individual liberty as subordinate to collective money-making efficiency. Thus, even putting aside all the value-free, economic objections to the feasibility of making interpersonal comparisons of utility, the belief in which underlies the approach in question, it fails the essential moral test of paying unconditional respect to private property rights in one’s own body, labor and the fruits thereof.
2. Minarchist or militarist “libertarianism.” These are in fact two conceptually separable positions, but there are good theoretical and empirical grounds for claiming that acknowledging the legitimacy and desirability of the former invariably leads to the deadly excesses of the latter. I think it is fair to characterize the adherents of the approach under consideration as subscribing to the following catchphrase: We hold liberty to be the supreme value, but we realize that in order to secure the maximum feasible amount of liberty, some of it has to be sacrificed to the necessary evil of the monopolistic apparatus of coercion. In other words, unless one consents to the abrogation of some of his private property rights, one will not be able to enjoy any private property rights at all. The literature countering this claim on economic grounds is vast (see, e.g., here), so it would take too much time to even summarize it here. Instead, let me ask in this context just a couple of short, critical questions of mainly moral and psychological nature. Is it reasonable to assume that statist coercion is necessary to enforce contracts, but the alleged “social contract” that is supposed to establish the state needs no meta-state to enforce it, thus effectively becoming a self-enforcing anomaly? Is it prudent to expect that ceding the task of maintaining justice onto an entity that is both monopolistic and coercive will not lead to it continually perverting justice in its favor? Is it sensible to claim that an institution that forcibly imposes its protective services on others, unilaterally determines their price and excludes all competition in this area will not attempt to benefit from initiating conflicts or letting them develop rather them resolving them or preventing their occurrence? If one is ready to answer these questions in the negative, and it seems to me that there exist very good reasons for doing so, then one should not be puzzled by the suggested slippery slope from minarchism to militarism. And one should not be surprised by the contention that neither holds much promise for preserving individual liberty.
3. Anything goes “libertarianism.” This approach suggests that any social, political or economic change that lightens the burden of statism in even the most infinitesimal way should be considered libertarian and those who bring it about should be regarded as libertarian-minded. In other words, if a political party reduces the income tax by one percentage point or repeals one out of a hundred thousand regulations, its members should be thought of as fundamentally decent people and sincere supporters of personal freedom. Such an attitude, of course, trivializes libertarianism and induces its putative followers to rest on their laurels much too easily. If a communist system is replaced with a social democratic one, this is surely a welcome change, but it seems a grave abuse of language to call it libertarian. If a band of local highwaymen decides to lower the tribute it regularly extorts from the other inhabitants of a given area, should it be praised as a group of committed individualists and voluntarists? What use can there be in such semantic equilibristics other than to shift the spectrum of intellectual discourse in the direction opposite from that pointed to by the original and properly radical version of the discussed theory? It does not help a good cause to try to subsume every acceptable development under a program aimed at advancing it. The more inclusive a given position gets, the more it runs the danger of becoming meaningless. In order to avoid that danger, let us bear in mind the crucial difference between the changes that, relatively speaking, move us towards the libertarian vision and the changes that are also consistent with its principles.
4. Countercultural “libertarianism.” This particular doctrine puts paramount emphasis on the necessity of liberating social customs from the shackles of violent paternalism and coercive moralizing. And while this is certainly an effort worthy of support, since the acceptance or rejection of any given set of social customs should be entirely voluntary (here I am obviously, though implicitly, treating the non-aggression principle as something much more than even the most respectable custom or convention), it has to be borne in mind that liberty in matters social and customary is a natural and inevitable consequence of liberty in matters moral and economic, but not necessarily the other way around. Hence, the priorities of countercultural “libertarianism” turn out to be badly misplaced – its adherents strive to secure a single beneficial result, whilst overlooking the need to trigger (or even openly spurning) the only cause capable of bringing it about (together with many other essential human values). That is why it should not be surprising that the original countercultural “libertarianism” of the 1960s was hardly a movement for private property rights and unhampered freedom of economic activity. If any modern form of counterculture is to become a better ally of genuine individualism and voluntarism, it has to reassess its priorities on a fundamental level and put property rights at the very center of its positive program for change.
5. Anti-hierarchical “libertarianism.” As the name suggests, the cornerstone of this position is the rejection of hierarchies, in this context meaning arrangements of people in which they are represented as being “above,” “below,” or “at the same level as” one another according to some specified criterion. Again, this appears to be a reasonable attitude to take insofar as any such criterion is forcibly imposed on a given person, which results in her coercive subordination to the relevant hierarchy. Modern democratic statism, for instance, violently subordinates hundreds of millions of people to the hierarchy of political influence and the accompanying ability to amass and utilize large-scale aggressive force. In sum, anti-hierarchism is perfectly justifiable on libertarian grounds to the extent that it is aimed against coercive hierarchies. However, the doctrine under consideration, especially in its so-called “left-anarchist” incarnation, is aimed against all sorts of hierarchies, including the voluntary ones (existing in, e.g., firms, clubs, churches, scholarly associations, etc.), thus effectively contravening the basic libertarian principle of unhampered freedom of association. Insofar as left-anarchism regards a hierarchy stretching from the owner of a non-state-subsidized company to its lowest paid employee as inherently oppressive and hence suitable for forcible liquidation, its followers are indistinguishable from ordinary statists, whose final argument is always the use of their truncheon. In conclusion, it is very difficult to conceive of these outright opponents of private property rights and natural inequalities as reliable advocates for liberty.
As was perceptively noted by Murray Rothbard, human rights are property rights – either to one’s body, one’s mind, one’s labor, or the fruits thereof. Thus, libertarianism can convincingly lay claim to being the only position that genuinely champions human rights. The same does not apply, however, to all the doctrines that try to capitalize on libertarianism’s good name while leaving out its most important element – an unflinching and unconditional endorsement of private property rights. Let us never forget that fact whilst seeing the word libertarianism passed around more and more generously.
[Reprinted from Strike-The-Root.com]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
