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The activities of the “World Health Organisation” (even the name is chilling) and the rest of the Progressive establishment against e. cigarettes are terrible;
These activities have no health justification (none) – indeed (as has been pointed out) they may well cost thousands of lives. It is “just” a matter of people loving exercising power – power for its own sake.
Horrible – utterly horrible.
By the way……
This site (including Sean Gabb) are very good on civil liberties (including criminal cases) – which is one of the few reasons that I still look at the site.
Alas, Paul, I’m afraid your hope is in vain. Speaking only from observation.
I’m turning over in my mind an idea for a piece at LH, so I’d like to ask you for either a definition or a fairly comprehensive list of what you consider to be “civil liberties.”
Grateful for the same from anyone who cares to answer, of course. :>)
Also, Paul, what about the converse: That you cannot have commercial freedom without civil liberties? I should have thought this is also obvious, but apparently (at least going by the reports of some high-flyers who live there) Singapore has excellent commercial freedom, despite being (as I understand it) very far from politically free. So does this mean that civil liberty is not a part of political liberty?
If so, then all the more do we need to agree upon definitions of both, so that in our discussions we are all talking about the same thing.
(Contrary to the opinions of many, words do matter — a great deal.)
I have also read that the Singapore of the high-flyers is quite different from the Singapore of the average Singaporean. But at least it is said to be clean, and safe.
In the end restrictions on civil liberties have financial consequences. Take that government run pension fund that so many people are forced to invest their money in Singapore. What does it invest in? And why is no one allowed to question it.? To me civil liberties are indeed a moral matter – but they also have practical usefulness (why should there be a contradiction between the two?).
Nor do I believe that civil liberties (rightly understood – and that is important) undermine things being clear and safe.
General point, which is part of my general philosophy (if you can dignify it as that); the economy is just one sphere of human activity. A free market economy is not a guarantee of nor provider of general freedom. It only provides economic freedom. One might imagine a country where, for instance, there is a totally free market, but compulsory arranged marriage. This would clearly not be a free country from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t want to marry the second cousin their parents are forcing them to marry.
This is why I keep trying to drag the discussion onto social liberties, and keep hammering the point home that the lesson of Austrian economics- that economic values are subjective- is just a subset that all values are subjective. Economic freedom, political freedom, religious freedom, social freedom, and so on. You need them all, and a coutnry with only one or some of them is not a “free country”.
The problem is that we have been induced to measure only certain freedoms as significant; most people only consider political freedom (e.g. the right to criticise the government, the right to protest etc) and religious freedom, and ignore many others. Orthodox libertarianism frequently only focusses on adding one more sphere- economic freedom- and this began to concern me some time ago back at Samizdata in some discussions where it was clear that the people I was debating with genuinely believed that somehow a free market solves everything, in a kind of marxist inversion in which changing the “mode of production” changes everything else because they see everything else, like Marxists, as “superstructure”.
There is a documentary on Youtube with Denis Healy interviewed by Andrew Neil. At one point, Neil asks Healey about the 1970s economic policies he presided over- 98% tax rates, etc- and Healey agrees that they were ridiculous. He then goes on to say that he and Callaghan recognised in 1979 after Thatcher’s election that a “secular change” had occurred. People didn’t want the nanny state (his words) any more. They wanted to spend their own money rather than the State spending it for them.
It seems to me that Libertarians have failed to grasp a lesson from this. People in both the UK and USA voted for economically liberal governments (Thatcher and Reagan) after two decades or so of rapidly increasing Social freedoms; I would argue that these two things go together. People getting used to managing their private social lives in a non-conformist era started to want to manage their own wallets too, and have economic choices rather than apply to the Ministry Of Cookers for a stove which if they were lucky would arrive after six months on a waiting list.
Non-economic personal freedom- “social” freedom- is thus to me the most important element. Not because other things are “superstructure” to that, but because it is personal and immediate to peoples’ lives and thus has immediate impact. And that is why I believe that that is where we should be focussing our efforts.
“People getting used to managing their private social lives in a non-conformist era started to want to manage their own wallets too, and have economic choices rather than apply to the Ministry Of Cookers for a stove which if they were lucky would arrive after six months on a waiting list.”
Ian — that is certainly what one would expect. But in practice, as more and more conventions have been thrown overboard, we-the-people have allowed government to become more and more intrusive in our economic lives. Not to mention in our private lives as well — bakers of wedding cakes to be required to produce these for “marriages” of which they disapprove (freedom of conscience abridged, freedom of contract abridged, freedom of association abridged, government intervention in the market); smoking and ersatz “smoking” to be disallowed in more and more venues if not outright banned; factual statements about religious or ethnic groups to be outlawed and punishable by jail terms….
Julie, I’m arguing that this standard analysis is mistaken. Most people on “the right” (or whatever) have this assessment that everything has been heading in the same direction (to Hell, in a handbasket) since the Beatles, or thereabouts. Otherwise synonymous with the Cultural Marxism hypothesis.
I’m arguing that we’ve seen an oscillation- first towards freedom, and then back again. In other words, PC is not a linear trend, but is a reaction against the loss of social control characterised by the 1960s. PC is, in my characterisation, a reactionary moralist movement.
The CMH postulates the swingin’ sixties as being a cunning Marxist plan to undermine public morals and thus something something communism. But the cultural marxists (most notably, the Feminists) are all on the reactionary, not liberal side. PC is a way to put back in place the socially ultra-conformist dispensation that preceded the socially liberal 1960s.
Ian – if people are forced to marry others there is not a “totally free market”.
But then I reject this division (by John Stuart Mill and others) of “economic freedom” and other freedom – one reason I am an Old Whig (not a 19th century liberal – although Mill and co were actually a minority faction among the liberals at first) is because I regard, for example, the 13 departments of state proposed by Jeremy Bentham (the mentor of J.S. Mill and his father James Mill) regulating every aspect of economic activity (which, to me, is just civil interaction) as an outrage against freedom – not just “economic freedom”, but freedom generally.
There is (at the fundamental) no difference between “economic freedom” and “social freedom” – human rights are property rights (Rothbard was not always wrong), and that includes voluntary (consentual) trading in immoral things (one can express strong disapproval – but the moment one uses FORCE to prevent such voluntary consentual trading, one violates freedom, freedom not “economic freedom” or “social freedom”).
As for Mr Denis Healey – he was a lot more dangerous, in reality, than the openly socialist Mr Benn.
It was Mr Healey (not Mr Benn) who undermined the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force in the 1960s and handed over the so much influence in the Middle East to the enemies of the West, And it was Mr Healey (not Mr Benn) who pushed tax rates that served no other purpose but to UNDEMINE INVESTMENT (this was not “taxing for revenue” – this was taxing with the INTENTION of doing harm, of undermining the country).
The “extremist” Mr Benn was essentially harmless (a joke figure) – but the “moderate” Mr Healey did vast harm.
As for the present – neither Ronald Reagan or Mrs Thatcher did anything to deal with the expanding Welfare State, they may have wanted to (I do not deny that), but they did not achieve the needed reforms.
The West remains on track for fiscal bankruptcy – and cultural bankruptcy (as the Welfare State is not “just” an “economic question”, it is an effort to replace Civil Society with the state).
The West also faces the collapse of its financial system – which has been debased. Lending must be from REAL SAVERS not from monetary expansion.
The idea (so often expressed on this site) that the “economic” question is settled so now we should turn to the “social” question is just wrong, flat wrong.
Further on J.S. Mill – he says (in “On Liberty” – (his most pro freedom work) that he supports free trade, but that the arguments for it are different from the arguments for the freedom he is discussing in his book.
No, no, no – freedom is freedom, selling goods to people in France (or buying goods from them) is the same sort of thing as freedom of speech.
Mr Mill also says that the freedom to sell is different from the freedom to buy.
No – it is not different.
So we do not need to go into such absurdities (in J.S. Mill’s other works) as the “land question” (the absurd non question that came from David Ricardo’s and James Mill’s false understanding of economics) and the Labour Theory of Value (ditto).
Nor does one need to go into the whole area of philosophical determinism – that debate is a vast bog where both of us have been trapped (throwing mud pies at each other) in the past.
Or deal with the false idea (supported by J.S. Mill) that the free market is good at “production”, but not at “distribution” (oh pass the sick bag Alice – this is the “liberalism” of Nick Clegg not the Old Whig ideas of Edmund Burke).
Even in his BEST work (On Liberty) – J.S. Mill left me feeling cold.
I hope to keep this brief, as it’s way past lights-out. But think a minute. What is a “not-free market”?
A free market is one where everyone involved in a “market” transaction, i.e. an exchange of goods for goods, usually with “money” as the marker for economic value, is at perfect liberty to do so as he pleases, subject only to the usual restrictions against criminal activity properly so-called: force, fraud, and extortion or threat-of-force; and to the limitations of reality itself, of course.
A “not-free market,” then, is one in which people’s liberty (freedom from unjust governmental interference) to engage in market transactions is limited by governmental interference in the market.
Suppose that some government were so out-of-touch with reality as to make it illegal to buy or sell some product. That, of course, would constitute intervention in the market; to that extent we would not have a “free market.” Now if one could make the product oneself, the market interference wouldn’t impinge on the person’s making and using the product; he would not lose his freedom to do that; but he HAS already lost his freedom to act as he wills, namely, to purchase the product if he can find a seller whose terms he would accept. The loss of market freedom in such a case would automatically engender a loss of personal, non-economic freedom.
Of course, such a thing could certainly never happen in real life. :>)
Or consider wage-and-price controls. In particular, the minimum wage, which is a case of government setting a minimum price for labor. This throws people out of work and simultaneously drives up prices, as well as creating barriers to entry for new businesses. The result in each case is a loss of personal freedom, although it is indirect.
When the government holds drugs off the market as being insufficiently tested, it intervenes in the market. This may accomplish great good in terms of patients’ safety (or it may not, of course) but it certainly also causes a lot of preventable deaths. Dying does, after all, involve a loss of liberty.
When the government subsidizes this or that industry, for instance ethanol production, that drives up the availability of other corn products, and also their cost, so now maybe you have to make do with Rice Krispies (yum) instead of those delicious cornflakes (and they used to be so cheap, too!).
When the government starts telling broadcasters what they must or can’t send out over the airwaves, it intervenes in the market and tramples the freedom of broadcasters to show or tell what they please and of audiences to hear what they please.
Taxation itself, by the way, is a market intervention, since it involves taking part of the proceeds of market transactions either at the production end (income tax) or the consumption end (sales tax, VAT).
It’s true that most government intervention in the market only indirectly limits our ability to do as we will, but it clearly does create limits that otherwise wouldn’t exist. And a government that gains absolute power to set prices arbitrarily, also has gained the power to starve people to death.
If I am told that I must marry so and so – with the threat of violence (from the state or a private gang – including my own family) this is a violation of my freedom.
If I am told that I may not buy a drink, or sell a drink, (say a bottle of wine from France)- with the threat of violence, this is a violation of my freedom.
There is no fundamental difference in these cases – the threat of aggressive violence (unless I obey) is the violation of freedom.
And it can be state or private violence.
For example a violent pimp violates the freedom of the people he forces into prostitution – because the threat of violence, is the same whether done by the state or private people.
Our principle of NAP or NIOF applies across the board, to everyone and every group, not just groups or subgroups of “the government” or “the State.”
The “right of free association” is at the very heart of governmental intervention in the market, since the market is a matter of interactions between persons or groups, whether Mr. A is handing Mr. B $ 3.79 for a loaf of bread or Companies A and B are signing a contract to provide services one to the other … or to merge … or to “collude” in some way *populace breaks out in hives*, though not using any type of force or fraud or even manipulation on each other or on the populace at large. Although historically, cartels and “cornering the market” haven’t lasted long without governmental support, or so I understand.
Another heinous example of governmental support of “private” thwarting of individual liberty is laws supporting union demands that employers do this that and the other; which amounts to price supports for workers/laborers/employees, which is certainly a market intervention. Surely there’s no clearer abridgement of civil liberty than telling a man he’s prohibited by force of law from taking a job which, absent the law, the would-be employer would be happy to give him. (Also, the minimum wage is a form of price support. See above.)
Or remember the kerfuffle in the UK what, a couple of years ago? when there was all that business about setting a minimum price of £ 2900/pint for beer, or whatever it was, on the theory that this would in practice make it unavailable to the drunken poor. Or the raising of taxes on cigarettes and, most currently, gasoline in the U.S. since the Creature from the Black Lagoon thinks we all need to drive less….
(Yes, Virginia, taxation is market intervention.)
Restricting civil liberties and market intervention are (as Paul notes) in principle the same thing. It’s common sense and perfectly obvious that laws requiring Negroes to sit in the back of the bus, or to use separate conveniences, or to attend segregated (or integrated!!!) schools, are violations of civil liberties; but they are carried out by interventions in the market, telling people whom they can and can’t serve, and where they can or can’t be served, and on what terms.
Freedom and liberty (by which I mean political freedom: freedom from governmental coercion) are freedom and liberty, no matter what face of it we have in mind at the moment. And all our liberties are interconnected.
Yes Julie – freedom of association (freedom of contract) is a moral matter. it sickens me when people talk of “public accommodations” and “common carriers” – destroying the distinction between state and civil society.
The activities of the “World Health Organisation” (even the name is chilling) and the rest of the Progressive establishment against e. cigarettes are terrible;
These activities have no health justification (none) – indeed (as has been pointed out) they may well cost thousands of lives. It is “just” a matter of people loving exercising power – power for its own sake.
Horrible – utterly horrible.
By the way……
This site (including Sean Gabb) are very good on civil liberties (including criminal cases) – which is one of the few reasons that I still look at the site.
I hope people understand that commercial freedom is a vital part of civil liberties – indeed that civil liberties rest upon commercial freedom.
Alas, Paul, I’m afraid your hope is in vain. Speaking only from observation.
I’m turning over in my mind an idea for a piece at LH, so I’d like to ask you for either a definition or a fairly comprehensive list of what you consider to be “civil liberties.”
Grateful for the same from anyone who cares to answer, of course. :>)
Also, Paul, what about the converse: That you cannot have commercial freedom without civil liberties? I should have thought this is also obvious, but apparently (at least going by the reports of some high-flyers who live there) Singapore has excellent commercial freedom, despite being (as I understand it) very far from politically free. So does this mean that civil liberty is not a part of political liberty?
If so, then all the more do we need to agree upon definitions of both, so that in our discussions we are all talking about the same thing.
(Contrary to the opinions of many, words do matter — a great deal.)
I have also read that the Singapore of the high-flyers is quite different from the Singapore of the average Singaporean. But at least it is said to be clean, and safe.
In the end restrictions on civil liberties have financial consequences. Take that government run pension fund that so many people are forced to invest their money in Singapore. What does it invest in? And why is no one allowed to question it.? To me civil liberties are indeed a moral matter – but they also have practical usefulness (why should there be a contradiction between the two?).
Nor do I believe that civil liberties (rightly understood – and that is important) undermine things being clear and safe.
Well, Paul, all I can say is, I agree with all of that! :>)
Thanks.
General point, which is part of my general philosophy (if you can dignify it as that); the economy is just one sphere of human activity. A free market economy is not a guarantee of nor provider of general freedom. It only provides economic freedom. One might imagine a country where, for instance, there is a totally free market, but compulsory arranged marriage. This would clearly not be a free country from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t want to marry the second cousin their parents are forcing them to marry.
This is why I keep trying to drag the discussion onto social liberties, and keep hammering the point home that the lesson of Austrian economics- that economic values are subjective- is just a subset that all values are subjective. Economic freedom, political freedom, religious freedom, social freedom, and so on. You need them all, and a coutnry with only one or some of them is not a “free country”.
The problem is that we have been induced to measure only certain freedoms as significant; most people only consider political freedom (e.g. the right to criticise the government, the right to protest etc) and religious freedom, and ignore many others. Orthodox libertarianism frequently only focusses on adding one more sphere- economic freedom- and this began to concern me some time ago back at Samizdata in some discussions where it was clear that the people I was debating with genuinely believed that somehow a free market solves everything, in a kind of marxist inversion in which changing the “mode of production” changes everything else because they see everything else, like Marxists, as “superstructure”.
There is a documentary on Youtube with Denis Healy interviewed by Andrew Neil. At one point, Neil asks Healey about the 1970s economic policies he presided over- 98% tax rates, etc- and Healey agrees that they were ridiculous. He then goes on to say that he and Callaghan recognised in 1979 after Thatcher’s election that a “secular change” had occurred. People didn’t want the nanny state (his words) any more. They wanted to spend their own money rather than the State spending it for them.
It seems to me that Libertarians have failed to grasp a lesson from this. People in both the UK and USA voted for economically liberal governments (Thatcher and Reagan) after two decades or so of rapidly increasing Social freedoms; I would argue that these two things go together. People getting used to managing their private social lives in a non-conformist era started to want to manage their own wallets too, and have economic choices rather than apply to the Ministry Of Cookers for a stove which if they were lucky would arrive after six months on a waiting list.
Non-economic personal freedom- “social” freedom- is thus to me the most important element. Not because other things are “superstructure” to that, but because it is personal and immediate to peoples’ lives and thus has immediate impact. And that is why I believe that that is where we should be focussing our efforts.
Sorry, what was the question again? 🙂
Ian — that is certainly what one would expect. But in practice, as more and more conventions have been thrown overboard, we-the-people have allowed government to become more and more intrusive in our economic lives. Not to mention in our private lives as well — bakers of wedding cakes to be required to produce these for “marriages” of which they disapprove (freedom of conscience abridged, freedom of contract abridged, freedom of association abridged, government intervention in the market); smoking and ersatz “smoking” to be disallowed in more and more venues if not outright banned; factual statements about religious or ethnic groups to be outlawed and punishable by jail terms….
Julie, I’m arguing that this standard analysis is mistaken. Most people on “the right” (or whatever) have this assessment that everything has been heading in the same direction (to Hell, in a handbasket) since the Beatles, or thereabouts. Otherwise synonymous with the Cultural Marxism hypothesis.
I’m arguing that we’ve seen an oscillation- first towards freedom, and then back again. In other words, PC is not a linear trend, but is a reaction against the loss of social control characterised by the 1960s. PC is, in my characterisation, a reactionary moralist movement.
The CMH postulates the swingin’ sixties as being a cunning Marxist plan to undermine public morals and thus something something communism. But the cultural marxists (most notably, the Feminists) are all on the reactionary, not liberal side. PC is a way to put back in place the socially ultra-conformist dispensation that preceded the socially liberal 1960s.
Ian – if people are forced to marry others there is not a “totally free market”.
But then I reject this division (by John Stuart Mill and others) of “economic freedom” and other freedom – one reason I am an Old Whig (not a 19th century liberal – although Mill and co were actually a minority faction among the liberals at first) is because I regard, for example, the 13 departments of state proposed by Jeremy Bentham (the mentor of J.S. Mill and his father James Mill) regulating every aspect of economic activity (which, to me, is just civil interaction) as an outrage against freedom – not just “economic freedom”, but freedom generally.
There is (at the fundamental) no difference between “economic freedom” and “social freedom” – human rights are property rights (Rothbard was not always wrong), and that includes voluntary (consentual) trading in immoral things (one can express strong disapproval – but the moment one uses FORCE to prevent such voluntary consentual trading, one violates freedom, freedom not “economic freedom” or “social freedom”).
As for Mr Denis Healey – he was a lot more dangerous, in reality, than the openly socialist Mr Benn.
It was Mr Healey (not Mr Benn) who undermined the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force in the 1960s and handed over the so much influence in the Middle East to the enemies of the West, And it was Mr Healey (not Mr Benn) who pushed tax rates that served no other purpose but to UNDEMINE INVESTMENT (this was not “taxing for revenue” – this was taxing with the INTENTION of doing harm, of undermining the country).
The “extremist” Mr Benn was essentially harmless (a joke figure) – but the “moderate” Mr Healey did vast harm.
As for the present – neither Ronald Reagan or Mrs Thatcher did anything to deal with the expanding Welfare State, they may have wanted to (I do not deny that), but they did not achieve the needed reforms.
The West remains on track for fiscal bankruptcy – and cultural bankruptcy (as the Welfare State is not “just” an “economic question”, it is an effort to replace Civil Society with the state).
The West also faces the collapse of its financial system – which has been debased. Lending must be from REAL SAVERS not from monetary expansion.
The idea (so often expressed on this site) that the “economic” question is settled so now we should turn to the “social” question is just wrong, flat wrong.
Further on J.S. Mill – he says (in “On Liberty” – (his most pro freedom work) that he supports free trade, but that the arguments for it are different from the arguments for the freedom he is discussing in his book.
No, no, no – freedom is freedom, selling goods to people in France (or buying goods from them) is the same sort of thing as freedom of speech.
Mr Mill also says that the freedom to sell is different from the freedom to buy.
No – it is not different.
So we do not need to go into such absurdities (in J.S. Mill’s other works) as the “land question” (the absurd non question that came from David Ricardo’s and James Mill’s false understanding of economics) and the Labour Theory of Value (ditto).
Nor does one need to go into the whole area of philosophical determinism – that debate is a vast bog where both of us have been trapped (throwing mud pies at each other) in the past.
Or deal with the false idea (supported by J.S. Mill) that the free market is good at “production”, but not at “distribution” (oh pass the sick bag Alice – this is the “liberalism” of Nick Clegg not the Old Whig ideas of Edmund Burke).
Even in his BEST work (On Liberty) – J.S. Mill left me feeling cold.
I hope to keep this brief, as it’s way past lights-out. But think a minute. What is a “not-free market”?
A free market is one where everyone involved in a “market” transaction, i.e. an exchange of goods for goods, usually with “money” as the marker for economic value, is at perfect liberty to do so as he pleases, subject only to the usual restrictions against criminal activity properly so-called: force, fraud, and extortion or threat-of-force; and to the limitations of reality itself, of course.
A “not-free market,” then, is one in which people’s liberty (freedom from unjust governmental interference) to engage in market transactions is limited by governmental interference in the market.
Suppose that some government were so out-of-touch with reality as to make it illegal to buy or sell some product. That, of course, would constitute intervention in the market; to that extent we would not have a “free market.” Now if one could make the product oneself, the market interference wouldn’t impinge on the person’s making and using the product; he would not lose his freedom to do that; but he HAS already lost his freedom to act as he wills, namely, to purchase the product if he can find a seller whose terms he would accept. The loss of market freedom in such a case would automatically engender a loss of personal, non-economic freedom.
Of course, such a thing could certainly never happen in real life. :>)
Or consider wage-and-price controls. In particular, the minimum wage, which is a case of government setting a minimum price for labor. This throws people out of work and simultaneously drives up prices, as well as creating barriers to entry for new businesses. The result in each case is a loss of personal freedom, although it is indirect.
When the government holds drugs off the market as being insufficiently tested, it intervenes in the market. This may accomplish great good in terms of patients’ safety (or it may not, of course) but it certainly also causes a lot of preventable deaths. Dying does, after all, involve a loss of liberty.
When the government subsidizes this or that industry, for instance ethanol production, that drives up the availability of other corn products, and also their cost, so now maybe you have to make do with Rice Krispies (yum) instead of those delicious cornflakes (and they used to be so cheap, too!).
When the government starts telling broadcasters what they must or can’t send out over the airwaves, it intervenes in the market and tramples the freedom of broadcasters to show or tell what they please and of audiences to hear what they please.
Taxation itself, by the way, is a market intervention, since it involves taking part of the proceeds of market transactions either at the production end (income tax) or the consumption end (sales tax, VAT).
It’s true that most government intervention in the market only indirectly limits our ability to do as we will, but it clearly does create limits that otherwise wouldn’t exist. And a government that gains absolute power to set prices arbitrarily, also has gained the power to starve people to death.
If I am told that I must marry so and so – with the threat of violence (from the state or a private gang – including my own family) this is a violation of my freedom.
If I am told that I may not buy a drink, or sell a drink, (say a bottle of wine from France)- with the threat of violence, this is a violation of my freedom.
There is no fundamental difference in these cases – the threat of aggressive violence (unless I obey) is the violation of freedom.
And it can be state or private violence.
For example a violent pimp violates the freedom of the people he forces into prostitution – because the threat of violence, is the same whether done by the state or private people.
Hm. “…that drives down the availability of other corn products, and drives up their cost….”
Yes, very good point, Paul.
Our principle of NAP or NIOF applies across the board, to everyone and every group, not just groups or subgroups of “the government” or “the State.”
The “right of free association” is at the very heart of governmental intervention in the market, since the market is a matter of interactions between persons or groups, whether Mr. A is handing Mr. B $ 3.79 for a loaf of bread or Companies A and B are signing a contract to provide services one to the other … or to merge … or to “collude” in some way *populace breaks out in hives*, though not using any type of force or fraud or even manipulation on each other or on the populace at large. Although historically, cartels and “cornering the market” haven’t lasted long without governmental support, or so I understand.
Another heinous example of governmental support of “private” thwarting of individual liberty is laws supporting union demands that employers do this that and the other; which amounts to price supports for workers/laborers/employees, which is certainly a market intervention. Surely there’s no clearer abridgement of civil liberty than telling a man he’s prohibited by force of law from taking a job which, absent the law, the would-be employer would be happy to give him. (Also, the minimum wage is a form of price support. See above.)
Or remember the kerfuffle in the UK what, a couple of years ago? when there was all that business about setting a minimum price of £ 2900/pint for beer, or whatever it was, on the theory that this would in practice make it unavailable to the drunken poor. Or the raising of taxes on cigarettes and, most currently, gasoline in the U.S. since the Creature from the Black Lagoon thinks we all need to drive less….
(Yes, Virginia, taxation is market intervention.)
Restricting civil liberties and market intervention are (as Paul notes) in principle the same thing. It’s common sense and perfectly obvious that laws requiring Negroes to sit in the back of the bus, or to use separate conveniences, or to attend segregated (or integrated!!!) schools, are violations of civil liberties; but they are carried out by interventions in the market, telling people whom they can and can’t serve, and where they can or can’t be served, and on what terms.
Freedom and liberty (by which I mean political freedom: freedom from governmental coercion) are freedom and liberty, no matter what face of it we have in mind at the moment. And all our liberties are interconnected.
Yes Julie – freedom of association (freedom of contract) is a moral matter. it sickens me when people talk of “public accommodations” and “common carriers” – destroying the distinction between state and civil society.