By coincidence I see from my email box that Chris Bertram has just written a comment to my Samizdata response to his post saying, “No, what Chris Bertram (and possibly some of his friends) grasp is that virtue is not all that matters.”

He meant it in a different context but … precisely. Or, as Adam Smith put it, “But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them.”

I didn’t see the relevance of your example of your barber to this debate. He might make a good libertarian icon but I doubt if he’ll get away with it for ever.

Scott (#81), I meant the subject of chickenhawks.

bi (#83), mentions the phenomenon of bootlicking. Without wishing to deny that (for instance) seeing someone suck up to the boss to keep their job is not a pretty sight, it pales before seeing someone obliged to suck up to a person who can order them punished as well as lose them their job. The more statist or corporatist the economy the less power people have to go tell the boss to stuff it, there are plenty other employers out there.

I don’t see why you think the accountability of governments is greater than that of rich people or corporations. Once every five years I can vote for the least bad of one of several packages of proposed laws. This is certainly better than no accountability at all, as in a dictatorship, but it isn’t great. In contrast it is quite easy for individuals to dismiss or boycott corporations.

Don’t make me repeat that I don’t think the people in private companies are a better, or people in governments a worse, sort of human being. The of a flawed system causing people who are not necessarily bad sometimes do very bad things should not be unfamiliar to socialists.

Jack (#47), you correctly said that countries/blocs like China, the EU, and Singapore have not become not pure capitalists, and in fact very few places are. I see that as support for my argument: crudely, capitalism works. It even works if you don’t do it perfectly. You are right that I cannot prove “this omelette should be entirely made out of salt” from “this omelette needs more salt”. But when I see a lot of omelettes getting better when more salt is added, I feel reasonably safe in writing “be generous with the salt” in the omelette recipe.

Pablo, I’m an admirer of Thomas Pogge’s work. I agree with Pogge that any social system that allows the existence of severe poverty is unjust and that certain aspects of the world order harm the poor, although I think Pogge exaggerates to what extent this is true.

However, I begin to seriously disagree with Pogge when it comes to what should be done to rectify this injustice. Pogge seriously underestimates the difficulty of erradicating poverty and often ignores the criticisms of economists like William Easterly that aid has rarely been effective at spuring growth or reducing poverty. And while I agree with Pogge that trade barriers and agricultural subsidies should be gradually eliminated in the developed world, two points are worth keeping in mind: (1) the reason these high tariffs exist is that developing countries did not participate in early negotiations before the Uruguay Round and therefore were not subject to any liberalizing commitments and thus they are now saddled with higher tariff barriers on industrial products than are developed countries, (2) 45 of the world’s 49 least developed countries are net importers of food and 33 are net importers of agricultural products. The removal of subsidies might hurt, rather than help, these countries, because such a move would raise the prices they pay for their imports. My point is that Pogge often relies on a merely suggestive and one-sided analysis of which aspects of the global order harm the poor.

Aside from that, Mathias Risse has an excellent set of papers that rebut Pogge’s arguments here.

To be equally patronizing but more accurate: by their own account they are rich because the Third World is poor, not the other way around, as industrialized countries persistently block independent development in the third world to their own advantage..

Given the amount of aid that government-driven aid programs tend to funnel back to their countries – not least to reward political supporters – when devoting marginal funds to third world development and humanitarian programs, there might be a good argument made for focusing policy towards increasing individual contributions – much of which are only given for the sake of tax write-offs already. On that note stripping think tanks of their tax deductable/charitable-giving status would probably mean a lot more individual giving would go into actual assistance work.

Where in all of this discussion is the joy inherent in the individual who is motivated to wilingly give of himself/herself to meet the need of another?

Where is the grateful heart as expressed by the individual whose need is met by another?

Too much entitlement, too much coercion, too much selfishness, too much covetousness, too much greed, too much insensitivity, too much control.

Not enough initiative, not enough generosity, not enough selflessness, not enough kindness, not enough thankfulness, not enough hope, not enough joy.

That said, though, I think there’s a better answer to Solent. It is the one developed by Thomas Pogge in his World Poverty and Human Rights, a work of everlasting significance whose influence has yet to be fully felt (both within the philosophical community and in the world at large). Pogge suggests that we look at the poor not as the casualties of a natural catastrophe, but as the victims of human action. The worst-off should be conceptualized as individuals harmed by the unfair rules of a global system. Since we better-off, as voters and taxpayers, partake of this system, we have a duty both to change the rules and to compensate those harmed by those rules. Critically, the moral notion involved here is not a weak duty of “assistance”, but the robust obligation of reparation that even libertarians, mean or otherwise, already accept (cf., e.g., Nozick’s [third] “principle of rectification”). Thus, unlike Murphy’s, or Cohen’s, or Singer’s, Pogge’s theory can dispense with complex, and always debatable, arguments about the merits or demerits of alternative moral theories: unless you are one of those rare people entirely unmoved by moral considerations, you already believe the moral principles that Pogge requires you to believe -–and act upon.

Without resorting to ad hominems, this makes no sense whatsoever. Unless, that is, NS is positing some kind of universe in which “power” and “free exchange” are polar opposites. If that’s the case, I hope she’ll enlighten us further.

Lawdy. Eighty-five comments in, and absolutely nothing’s been said here to make me reconsider my position that “libertarianism” is a big ol’ pile of unmitigated piffle. Give me those “hypocritical” G8 protestors—the contents of whose minds & souls Natalie Solent is somehow privileged to know with crystalline certainty—any day.

…And besides, I’ve already emphasized that with power comes accountability,

So rich peoples’ money, by definition, makes them accountable just like govt is, so who needs govt to make them accountable?

If govt has enough power to make these ‘powerful’ rich people accountable, it has enough to avoid accountability itself (since it would have more power than the rich people you think have too much power to be held accountable by anyone else).

So if 51% of the voters supported the religious right (you do remember who won the past few elections, don’t you?), then we all have to share decision making w/ everyone else and bring on censorship and sodomy laws? After all, that’s just us all collectively deciding what we will read or what we will do in our bedrooms.

Ask yourself, why do we have this phenomenon of bootlickers? Is it because there are mythical “men with guns” waiting outside the gate? No, it’s simply because those who are poor know that they have to please the higher-ups to get the money to feed themselves.

You’re right, give someone a lot of power over other people, and he’ll do lots of cruel things. The same holds for private groups. In no way are private groups inherently more virtuous, more correct, or more free than governments.

And besides, I’ve already emphasized that with power comes accountability, and governments can be held accountable for many more things than private groups. Don’t make me repeat that.

Taxpayers aren’t given the option of what govt activities to support and which not to – is that just peachy, too?

You can’t volunteer to fight all wars. Nobody can volunteer to help every person (or give money to every worthy cause). Since you can’t do everything, do nothing. Bullshit. Chickenhawks and college protesters call for others to make sacrifices they choose not to themselves.

I honour those who do join the army for being willing to risk their lives. (Disclosure: I tried to become an officer in the Royal Signals twenty-plus years ago. I was turned down. But I suppose you will say I ought to have kept trying or joined the ranks or something because I should have guessed I’d support a war sometime in the future.)

You can open your wallets and voluntarily pay extra for your war, can’t you, and not stick the rest of us taxpayers with the bill?

But I note that soldiers are not given the option of picking and choosing which wars to fight.

It is hard to get good help these days, isn’t it? Taxpayers aren’t given the option of what govt activities to support and which not to – is that just peachy, too?

And that’s quite enough from me on that subject.

Run on home to where you can avoid anyone who disagrees with you – typical Samizdatista.