Wilkinson [excuse me, "W.W."] is no idiot, but look at what his commitments are forcing him into here: he's allying himself with someone whose racial politics _he_ describes as "toxic", and endorsing inherited privilege because reasons, that's why. In other words, he's agreeing with Flynn that meritocracy is sociologically incoherent, and embracing its devolution into aristocracy, if it can be used to upset enough liberals, and ennoble enough proles to damp down unrest.

"This history is truly what makes the lamentations of present-day conservatives for a conservative think tank (or think tanks in general) dedicated to rigorous policy development so hard to accept. In the sixties and seventies conservatives in places like AEI, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute did more than anyone else to discredit the idea of policy making as a social-scientific endeavor. Instead, policy debates became primarily concerned with political identities and political combat and provided the foundation for the elite media discourse within which Americans live today, where “balancing” public policy debates between “two sides” in a “marketplace of ideas” effectively takes precedence over policy content and, dare I say, truth.
"Likewise, this history makes the lamentations of Julian Sanchez at Cato equally hard to have sympathy for. As the brief history I’ve outlined here suggests, the political subjectivities and biases of the wealthy funders of conservative think tanks were integral to the success of these institutions. Obviously, such monies were used to develop the institutional infrastructure, but even more importantly their biases and subjectivities were used as a way to change and enter public policy debates. So, it is hard to feel sorry for those at Cato who are now lamenting what Koch may or may not do to the institution. When the history of the institution is wrapped up in a project which uses the biases of wealth funders to gain power and change the way people discuss politics and public policy, you can hardly be angry when those funders want to change the political identity that you’re promoting.
"And this, ultimately, is what the debate at Cato is about. Since it has been a long time since the technocratic ideal held (if it ever truly did—that is a discussion for another post) this is not a debate between one side that wants an institution dedicated to Republican Party political combat (Koch) and one side that wants rigorous truth-seeking and a development of policies that “work” (people like Sanchez at Cato). No, it is instead the battle that conservatives (in think tanks and elsewhere) have been wanting for the last four decades—a battle of identities in a political marketplace. Who will win: the millionaire who is seeking to “re-brand his product” or the old-school libertarian brand? According to the narrative conservatives have been offering us, only “the market” can decide."

"So if liberty is the absence of coercion, as many libertarians claim, and if the capacity to act—say, by enjoying material conditions that would free one of the costs that quitting might entail—limits the reach of that coercion, is it not the case that freedom is augmented when people’s ability to act is enhanced?
"More to the point: is one’s individual freedom not increased by measures such as unemployment compensation, guaranteed health insurance, public pensions, higher wages, strong unions, state-funded or provided childcare—the whole panoply of social democracy that most libertarians see as not only irrelevant to but an infringement upon individual freedom?
"In one sense, of course, the libertarians are right: such measures require taxation and redistribution, limitations on what people can do with their property, all of which do infringe upon some limited group of people’s freedom. But by providing to others some version of the freedom from material constraints that Sanchez already enjoys—state-sponsored childcare, for instance, being in one limited respect the financial inverse of not having children at all—such measures would also enhance the freedom of a great many more.
"That, it seems to me, is the great divide between right and left: not that the former stands for freedom, while the latter stands for equality (or statism or whatever), but that the former stands for freedom for the few, while the latter stands for freedom for the many. ”We are all agreed as to our own liberty,” wrote Samuel Johnson. “But we are not agreed as to the liberty of others: for in proportion as we take, others must lose. I believe we hardly wish that the mob should have liberty to govern us.” That’s why libertarians like Sanchez can sense so clearly the impending infringement of his freedom while remaining indifferent to the constraints of others."

"That’s my wife Veronica giving her brother Vincent a shave. Oddly enough, people who perform such rituals every day are rarely Ron Paul supporters. Vincent lived until the age of 38 with his parents. He moved in with us after his mother died. He then made the transition to a nearby group home. He spends his weekdays with friends, coworkers, and staff at a sheltered workshop. He receives good medical care for various significant challenges.

Because of Social Security’s disabled adult child program, Medicare, Medicaid, and a host imperfect, sometimes costly, often essential programs, Vincent has been able to spend his adult life in relative dignity, safety, and comfort. Because of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act and subsequent legislation, Vincent was able to attend public school, where he received important services. Because of those onerous class action lawsuits and the like, conditions at public and private care facilities are much better, much more community-based than they used to be.

Were it not for a host of policies that Ron Paul has consistently opposed, Vincent might well have exercised his individual liberty curled up medicated on a cot in the back ward of a gigantic state mental facility. His mother might have spent her final years going bankrupt, struggling to care for him at home or sending him away for institutional care. These comments might strike you as blogosphere hyperbole. They are not. These were common experiences across the country for hundreds of thousands of disabled people and their families well into the 1960s. In many places, inhumane policies persisted long after. Federal money and federal mandates were absolutely essential to address these concerns."

"This essay considers, and rejects, arguments for libertarian paternalism based on behavioral law and economics' findings that people sometimes make mistakes and lack self-control. It doesn't follow from the fact that people don't always do 'what they really want' that we can know what they really want and with confidence put in place laws and policies to nudge them in that direction. Still, in part because we don't necessarily do 'what we really want,' there may be sensible reasons to adopt paternalistic policies."

I have never properly appreciated "I don't write the headlines" complaints before this.

Further self-justifying whining: http://bactra.org/weblog/838.html

This is, indeed, one of the high points of the blogger's art.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with pursuing research into life-extension; at the same time these people are deeply silly.

Reconstructing the plot of the missing book that connects _Atlas Shrugged_ to _Anthem_.

" imagine my hunter-gatherer ancestor, anchored to other people by a web of 100 ropes, each one strong and obvious. I, on the other hand, am in a web of 10 million strands, most of which are so fine as to be invisible. Collectively, my web is thicker and more gripping than hers -- she could usually make her own clothes and gather enough food for survival -- but it's harder to see. And libertarians IMHO are people who have a hard time seeing it."

Far, far too generous. (For instance, _Essays in Positive Economics_ is appalling _as methodology_, never mind anything else.)

"This is thoroughly unconvincing." Indeed it is! Now, why might a smart man like Friedman advance such a thoroughly unconvincing argument? Why might so many people be convinced by it?

Cows?!?

I can't improve on DeLong's description of this - "the intellectual love child of Susan Brownmiller and Friedrich Hayek" - so I won't try.

Exactly. "Single vision, and Newton's sleep" as Blake said (nicely, but unfairly in more ways than I can explain here). In my grandfather's day these people would all have been CP(USA).

School vouchers: an experiment in ideology-driven, top-down social engineer which, empirically, fails. At best, the threat of it _may_ have motivated some useful reforms by public schools.

"I write about economic theory because I believe it is Really. Fucking. Important. Bad economic models make for bad economic policies."

I should think about _why_ I find myself deeply suspicious of all calls for "subsidiarity".

I corresponded with Chislenko for a while in the 1990s and then we dropped out of touch - I am very surprised, and saddened, to hear what happened to him.

The point about axiomaticism is, I think, well-taken; also the hopelessness of this kind of argument.

Richard Epstein: "I have discovered, to my infinite regret, that most of the serious debates over the basic principles of any political order have an irreducible empirical content". Doh!

Word: "The alternative to reasonably effective democratic institutions and a viable left-wing political movement isn't free markets but the capture of the state by large economic interests as during the Gilded Age or, indeed, the Bush administration."

No, Woodrow Wilson did not regret creating the Federal Reserve. Yes, the supposed statement to that effect circulated among wingnuts is a fabrication, stitched together from unrelated statements and whole cloth.

Yes, the man is a right-wing conspiracist crank. Why is this so hard to process?

Rick Perlstein bangs his head against the wall, trying to get across the idea that "fire-fighting is a public good" to a libertarian.

George Monbiot has fun at Matt Ridley's expense, while sketching the obvious evolutionary-psychological case against libertarianism