JONATHAN CHAIT SEPTEMBER 21, 2010
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Most economic right-wingers have an a priori commitment to small government, and thus assume that liberals have a mirror image commitment to big government. Tim Lee, a libertarian, offers a rare exception:
Even the most hardened left-winger doesn’t see government regulation as an end in itself; they see government as a means to various ends, such as public health and safety, economic stability, and so forth. When regulations aren’t achieving those ends, and are instead benefitting special interest groups, it makes sense for liberals to favor their repeal. Not because they favor “deregulation” in the abstract, but because doing so is consistent with liberal values of equality, fairness, freedom, and so forth.
A point I've been trying to make for a long time.
10 comments
Dead on.
- benjamin81
September 21, 2010 at 11:40am
Government is a means to an end for most all liberals, whereas an anti-government stance is a dogmatic belief for most conservatives. Jonathan, you have written that even if big government works, conservatives would not be in favor of it because that would go against conseratives' notion that small government is virtuous.
- liberal reformer
September 21, 2010 at 12:01pm
I don't feel this is dead on. The quote seems to assume that liberals see government as something less than a last resort -- which is demonstrably false. Liberals see the government as a last resort. To quote Abraham Lincoln, liberals believe in "only the government they need, but [they] insist on all the government they need." Liberals believe that our government should "rise to the level where it corrects the gaps left by chance or by wisdom we don't fully understand." That's what I've always seen as the liberal philosophy. That said, I give Tim Lee credit for being more open minded than I've seen any conservative or libertarian.
- jimbomoron
September 21, 2010 at 12:45pm
I suppose what I meant by "dead on" is the realization that the antithesis of conservatism isn't liberalism, but rather socialism. Liberals don't argue for higher taxes or bigger government because they're self-evidently good, the way conservatives argue for smaller government or lower taxes. If a liberal (well, a thoughtful one - it's easy to find inconsistent ideologues anywhere on the political spectrum) supports more government intervention, there's a pragmatic reason for it. This is what conservatives fail to understand about liberalism, and probably why it's fashionable now to decry opponents of the Republican party as "socialist." Kudos to Lee for figuring this out.
- benjamin81
September 21, 2010 at 2:04pm
For Big Gov to work implies Big Gov works better than the alternative of smaller Gov and Bigger Private sector. Except for a fairly narrow set of Gov goods/services such as defense, protection, law enforcement, etc --- Big Gov is always a loser in pure economic terms (ie. economic value creation). This concept in every college level Econ 101 textbook. But what about the concepts of social justice that automatically cancels out economic logic you ask? I don't believe there are any social justice concepts that stand up to scrutiny. Please prove me wrong.
- mr_rationale
September 21, 2010 at 2:26pm
"But what about the concepts of social justice that automatically cancels out economic logic you ask?" Even ardent liberals like myself will argue that achieving social justice distorts economic principles. But maybe Mr. Rationale believes that an economist shouldn't attempt to rescue a drowning six-year-old at a pool because he has a comparative advantage doing something else while someone else at the pool has a comparative advantage rescuing the child? After all, that would be optimal economic behavior, and asking the economist to help rescue the child would cancel out economic logic. ...
- jimbomoron
September 21, 2010 at 3:11pm
mr_rationale, it's kinda obvious you don't know any economics, I'd let that one go. There are public goods, externalities, natural monopolies, utilities. Also, there's the notion that dramatically heightened uncertainty feels worse than a marginal dollar increase feels better. Start studying.
- mmathog
September 21, 2010 at 4:07pm
I think we'd be okay if government really was the Last Resort. Unfortunately many on the left seem to feel that nearly every problem has a government solution, or at least that it should try to come up with one. At this point in history the track record for this is too extensive for any serious person to ignore. Libertarians are the real "liberals". I hope everyone gets to read the article on D.P. Monyhan's letters in New York. Deja vu all over again.
- Robert Powell
September 21, 2010 at 6:12pm
http://nymag.com/news/politics/68317/
- Robert Powell
September 21, 2010 at 6:18pm
hog: try to make a substantive comment. Your list reads like the statist list of reasons for Big Gov. intervention in markets -- ideas that have been disproven for decades. The problem is that Gov. makes externalities worse. Indeed, an externality always corresponds to either the lack of definition of a formal property right, or to the lack of enforcement of an existing property right, or to the contradictory enforcement of overlapping property rights. In as much as governments coercively impose their monopoly on the definition and enforcement of new and old property rights, they are the cause of any lasting externality. Governments prevent the use of natural mechanisms by which property rights emerge and externalities disappear: homesteading and the common law
- mr_rationale
September 22, 2010 at 6:42pm