Who are they kidding, us or themselves?

What annoys me most about the market-always-knows-best crowd is when they argue that the market will achieve various goods – reduction of poverty, discrimination and so on – much better than the state ever can by any intervention. Those who argue for the more extreme forms of non-interventionist liberalism, which seems to be finding new favour, adopt a kind social darwinian position, and then often have the nerve to claim that it will be for everyone’s best. If they think they think that private property rights/ freedom of association are so important that intervention is never, or almost never, justified, then fair enough. That’s something I strongly disagree with, but I can see the attraction of defending “liberty” at all costs. Please though, don’t then tell us/yourselves that there is no cost involved in taking such a stance.

If you take such a stance, there is going to be suffering. Take healthcare, the honest response would be to say: yes, the poorest will be worse off. Some of them will suffer much more than they would have, perhaps even die (depending on your branch of liberalism), but the principle of liberty is worth it. That’s not what they say though. They say things like: “Without state intervention private charity will cover the needs of the poorest.” Or: “People are suffering now because of state intervention” (cue anecdotes/statistics).

I’m sure there would be more private charity if there was less state intervention, but please, once again, don’t tell me there’s not going to be a price to be paid (in some cases a severe price). If you think it’s worth it, fine. I disagree. But if you claim there is no price to be paid, that everyone’s a winner, then I have to wonder who you’re kidding more, the rest of us or yourselves.

On the Freedom to Choose and the Dubious Benefits of Legalising Heroin and Prostitution

Fredrik has posted an interesting reply to my post from yesterday. In summary, he seems to believe that whether the prostitutes were forced into taking heroin in the first place is the key factor in determining whether or not they can make a free choice to give it up later.

We obviously don’t agree on what restricts a person’s freedom to make a choice, so I’ll try and illustrate what I mean with another analogy. (Fredrik wasn’t too impressed with the last one, so it will be interesting to see what he makes of this one.)

John is forced into a cell and the door is locked behind him. John is trapped in the cell and is unable to get out. He did not want to go into the cell in the first place and he does not choose to stay in the cell. Now suppose Mike goes into a cell freely and pulls the door to locking himself in. After a while, Mike comes to realize this was a bad decision and he wants to leave. He may have freely locked himself in the cell, but he is just as trapped in the cell as John.

We may think that Mike is more deserving of our sympathy than John, but that doesn’t change the fact they are both held in the cell against their will. Whether they freely went into the cell in the first place is irrelevant to the freedom of their choices later on.

Now obviously being addicted to heroin isn’t the same as being locked in a cell – people do overcome the withdrawal symptoms and break their addictions. My point is that whether you are forced into using heroin in the first place is irrelevant, you have the same cravings for the drug and you undergo the same withdrawal symptoms if you stop using it. Fredrik’s free choice seems to be no more than a tool for judging people. If you are forced into something, fair enough, but if you make a stupid decision, tough luck. I suspect very few people weigh up the consequences of taking heroin and then think to themselves, well, I likely end up prostituting myself on the streets and I probably won’t make it to my thirtieth birthday, but what the hell, I’ll give it a go. The real world is more complicated than that, and the line between being forced into something and making a stupid decision is often blurred.

On the issue of legalisation – Fredrik claims classical liberal thinkers do in fact care about drug addicts and prostitutes, that’s why they want heroin and prostitution to be legalized – then everything would be alright. Prostitutes and drug users would be offered the same protections as everyone else in society. But wait a minute, what happens if a heroin-addicted prostitute is assaulted now? Well, it’s a crime. The fact prostitution and heroin are illegal has no bearing on that. The massive police investigation into the murders in Ipswich is clear evidence of this. So, I guess Fredrik must think prostitutes will feel more able to make use of the law if what they are doing isn’t deemed to be illegal. That is, people who are often incapable of feeding themselves properly due to their drug addiction are suddenly going to be utilizing the full weight of the law to protect themselves. The fact is that their heroin addiction will still make them just as vulnerable to exploitation regardless of the legality of heroin and prostitution. But hey-ho, as Fredrik says, “Som man bädda får man ligga” – you’ve made your bed, now lie in it.

Sympathetic Liberalism

In response to the recent murders in Ipswich, Nyan carried an interesting leader today by Nina Fellman on prostitution. In summary, it highlights the fact that the vast majority of streetwalkers are drug addicts and suggests the best way to make the women involved safer would be to supply them with free heroin, the assumption being that they only sell their bodies in order to feed their habit.

Rather than address her ideas, I’d like to take up the response it prompted from Fredrik Gustafsson, which addressed what I would have thought was one of the least controversial points she made. Given that they are addicted to heroin, Fellman says they didn’t have any choice but prostitution in order to feed their habit. Fredrik disputes this claiming there is nothing that forces you to take heroin – it’s not like food and drink without which you can’t survive.

Firstly, the girls often do get forced/threatened into taking it to start with by “boyfriends”/pimps. However, even if we assume they freely chose to take it on the first occasion, it doesn’t follow that they can freely give it up anytime they want. The withdrawal symptoms suffered when coming off heroin last for a couple of weeks and include violent stomach cramps, diarrhea, panic attacks and vomiting. Given that, saying that they choose to carry on using heroin is rather like saying a man threatened with a severe beating if he goes out of his house chooses to stay in his house. Even if this may seem preferable to using heroin to most rational people, a significant feature of addiction is that people in its grip don’t act rationally. As usual, those espousing classical liberal thought seem totally lacking in sympathy for others less fortunate than themselves.