Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!bbnccv!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Orphaned Response Message-ID: <28200054@inmet.UUCP> Date: Mon, 2-Sep-85 00:55:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.28200054 Posted: Mon Sep 2 00:55:00 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 00:53:47 EDT References: <303@ubvax.UUCP> Lines: 329 Nf-ID: #R:ubvax:-30300:inmet:28200054:177600:17898 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Sep 2 00:55:00 1985 >/* Written 6:33 pm Aug 17, 1985 by ubvax!tonyw in inmet:net.politics.t */ >/* ---------- "Re: Charity in Libertaria vs. a goo" ---------- */ >In article <28200051@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes: >> >>(Tony Wuersch) >>>/* ---------- "Re: Newsflash! [Subsidized Educatio" ---------- */ >>> >>>But is it true that the poor >>>and down-and-out do better from private charity than from the modern >>>welfare state? Why should the abolition of "coercion" make people >>>any more generous? Why should the absence of any health standards, >>>for instance, which poor people should fulfill (food in the right >>>quantities, minimum shelter, etc.) aid the poor in meeting these >>>standards? >> >>If you want a lot of evidence for this, I suggest you read Charles >>Murray's "Losing Ground". In brief, the welfare state has harmed those >>it wished to help, and so far (a social-worker friend tells me) the best >>that any liberal publication has been able to do is grumble that maybe >>things would have been even worse if the welfare state hadn't been around. >>A pretty weak argument from those who have stolen billions of dollars >>ostensibly to help. > >I'm glad you say "evidence" and not "good evidence". The best the New >Republic did (and it's not entirely a liberal publication) was to smash >the data used in "Losing Ground" to pieces. Its data was selective at its >worst -- the worst cities in the worst years, and the worst groups. Excuse me, but I haven't read the article. I'm surprised, though -- surely the policies in question are worth testing at their worst? Not to do so is like saying that a ship's hull is "on average" watertight. I am curious, though, just which data were called "selective", and whether the selections were deceptive (as you seem to imply by saying "selective at its worst"). By the way, who's contention is it that the data used were "smashed to pieces"? If it's yours, and you've the same knowledge of data that you seem to display with regard to kidney problems, below, then I invite you to apologize for voicing any opinion. >>The abolition of coercion need not make people more generous -- to >>spend $1 on a poor person, the Federal government must take in >>$5. A private agency need take in only about $1.10. Remember, we're >>talking about a society in which anybody could take people on >>taxi rides, cut their hair, or do social work without certification >>from the state or fear that the state might shut them down without >>certification from a union, so some proportion of the poor who don't >>have jobs now would have jobs in libertaria. > >A private agency need take in only about $1.10 because it has no >obligation to help everybody. It only has to help people who make it >easy to be helped. I can just see next year's United Way campaign slogan -- "We do the EASY ones!" I invite examples of charities that help only those who make it easy. Of course, some people do not WANT to be helped -- the government may come along and imprison them for life regardless of what they want, for their own good. What to do about people who do not desire treatment is an interesting question, of course, well worth separate consideration, but very briefly, I oppose coercion of anyone not initiating force or fraud, and forced psychiatric treatment of anybody. Short of that, what private charities have refused to help reluctant or nasty people? Of COURSE the government gets certain hard problems, just as the USPS probably gets most of the mail destined for Rural Free Delivery areas. Why? Because the government subsidizes RFD. To argue that there'd be no charity for the "hard-to-help" in Libertaria is like arguing that there'd be no mail for those living in the countryside. It's nonsense. If the government didn't do it, those concerned with the problem would. This would include the relatives of the schizophrenics, the manic-depressives, those affected by literature on the subject, those victimized directly or indirectly, by the illness who have recovered, and those who, like yourself, I'm sure, are concerned with public welfare in general. >People who make it hard to be helped get dumped >on the government. In Libertaria, people who make it hard to be >helped, schizophrenics being the most notable case (and there are >MILLIONS of them around, some of whom I know), still would be turned >away by private agencies. Oh lovely! I can just see "Sixty Minutes (Libertaria Edition)" doing a story on that. End of funding for that bunch of hard-nosed nasties, right? Who would give to the folks that turned away people they said they'd help? On the other hand, if a government bureau does the same thing, does its funding get cut? Well.... no. >Remember, the criteria for success for >private agencies tends to be the number of bodies they end up helping. >Any body that makes life hard on them would reduce the "success" rate. Nobody would expect the "Rich Rosen Halfway House For the Violently Flaming" to have the same "success" rate as the "Professor Moriarty Clinic for Those With Mild Indigestion From the Net". Yet both causes would attract funding. What's that? Not the sort of funding you desire? Why bless you, Fella, that's the POINT of Libertaria! Richard Carnes doesn't get to choose how much money would be donated. Nat Howard doesn't get to choose it. JoSH doesn't get to choose it. The people who GIVE get to choose it. Right now, those people do NOT have a choice regarding (say) welfare. People who would put such things in the hands of the state deny it to them. Is it a shame that AIDS funding is too low? Give them a few bucks. Is it too bad that the Society for Debating Unsettle-able Things gets so much? Specify on your United Way card that you don't want any of your money sent there. Right now, the SDUT people have the assistance of people who can attach your paycheck to get funding. >>Of course, if you REALLY think that people a libertarian society would >>be less generous, you should bear in mind that you are saying that >>people tend to give less than a fifth voluntarily than they do under >>coercion, and that the poor have not been denied reasonable jobs >>by such things as minimum wage laws and licensure. Not a tenable >>position. You're also assuming that a large number of people will >>need charity -- remember Daniel Mck.'s very well-defended discussion >>of unemployment in libertaria. > >Again, there are millions of schizophrenics who don't have to live in >institutions. I don't remember Daniel's discussion. And I really >think people in a libertarian society would be as generous as other >people with similar after-tax incomes today. That sounds reasonable >to me. And I don't think most people I know are very generous. Go just a step further. Supply AND demand, remember? In our society, the Supply of money is limited by taxation. Demand for private funding is ALSO limited -- the government is assumed to be "doing something" (and it is, mostly inefficiently) and is put in charge of anything regarded as a public health emergency. In a libertarian society, the SUPPLY of money is greater (your after-tax income is raised to match your pre-tax income) and the DEMAND for those funds from private charities is larger. Why? Because the private charities have not been subsidized. They have stronger cases that the funds are needed, and needed locally. They also can do their part more efficiently. >>The reason that the absence of health standards would help the poor to >>meet those the real standards of health is that the existence of a >>standard in law merely imposes a penalty for not meeting the standard >>("we arrest you because these houses you built are too small, or because >>the food you provide is too meager") but doesn't accomplish any increase >>in the amount of housing or food provided. In other words, making it >>illegal to serve inferior food doesn't make it a requirement to serve >>good food. > >Not true at the federal level. Courts can look at the intent of >legislation, and frequently do, to guarantee that compliance with the >law does not mean violation of the intent of a law. Also often not >true at the state level. Often true at the local level. Not true at the federal level, eh? That's not the experience of one lawyer who used to work for the Department of the Interior: "But Popeo, the son of a working-class family, was offended by his cases at Interior. Handed the responsibility for enforcing health and safety regulations often capricious and petty in nature, he found that his opponents in court were often struggling entrepreneurs. The last straw, Popeo related in a recent interview, was when he found himself seeking a court injunction to 'close down a one-man mine operation because the owner didn't have a two-way radio to talk to himself, or a stretcher to carry himself out of the mine if injured.'". [Reason Magazine, Sept., 1985, pp 48]. >>An example? Why sure! Just take a look at the abandonment rate of >>buildings under rent control in New York city. If you'd rather not >>look it up, just take a cab through Harlem sometime. Those buildings >>with the metal sheets blocking the windows are examples. > >Local problem -- the problem with housing policy is that it's defined >as a local problem, so people who want to cheat on a local law can >just move out or transfer their investment assets. Landlords should >be forced to keep reserves for maintenance of buildings at all times >as national policy, enforced by the FBI. Otherwise their buildings >go up for sale IMMEDIATELY. How nice! You would create an enormous federal agency to do this (think about it for five minutes) and the result would be? The landlords would sell or not sell their buildings. Rents would go up or not go up. If they didn't go up (presumably because landlords were not allowed to pass on increases in federal taxes and depreciation on the "reserves" (how would you reserve handymen, anyhow?) buildings would be abandoned, and left to rot. Remember -- nobody forces them to be in the landlord business, and you, oh Gentle One, have just argued that their assets should be seized at gunpoint if a bureaucrat in Washington says so. Of course, perhaps the increases could be passed on, forcing many of those on marginal incomes out into the streets. Nice going, oh Arbiter of Real Estate. Perhaps you should just come out and advocate socialized housing, as they have in Moscow (which has a terrific crunch in housing, by the way, and regulates people's moving). Thanks, but I wouldn't want the rest of Manhattan filled with rotting buildings and condos because of the irrational fears of the uninformed. For example, your argument that local enforcement makes it possible for landlords to transfer their assets elsewhere, this is a new low in feeble-mindedness. Those buildings are ABANDONED (read my lips) the landlord has given up on them. He has not sold them to anyone, nor gotten any "assets" out of them. He has discovered that (say) buying tax-free bonds offers him a better income than keeping up a building that costs more to keep up than he collects in rent. >>Another example? Certainly. Kidney machines are rationed and >>subsidized by the government. There has been relatively little research >>on improving these machines because the whole thing is pretty closely >>regulated, there have also been pretty severe limits placed on access to >>those machines. For details, see Reason Magazine, August 1984. > >Boy, you're in a mess on this one. Government pays for kidney maintenance >because most kidney disease sufferers can't afford dialysis. So the >government created the market for kidney machines in the first place, >by making current technology affordable. > Tsk! When you go to the doctor, how much of the bill do you pay? I generally pay $1, because I have health insurance. Was the insurance federally subsidized? Nope, not as far as I can tell (modulo, of course, the ever-present tax arguments by which it may be argued that anything is subsidized). My understanding is that I'm paying for things like dialysis, should I need them, by pooling my risk of needing such things with other people. Need dialysis be expensive? Dutch physician Willem Kolff, the inventor of the dialysis machine in the 1940s, told me he was shocked to learn of the high cost dialysis machinery being used on an experimental basis in the United States when he immigrated here in 1950. Intent on altering this situation, Dr. Kolff continuously pushed to reduce costs. By 1968 he had modified Maytag washing machines into dialysis machines at a fraction of the cost of machines then in use. The same year, he sent 21 people home with machines and two months worth of supplies for a total cost of $360 per patient. [Reason Magazine, August 1984] >The technology is there; would you have thousands die while private >market analysts judge if investing in dialysis research is potentially >profitable? What if they decide that it isn't? I for one am not sure >it would be profitable on an unsubsidized basis. As one might expect, you have no idea of what is really going on. So you think that the government has to step in to get research going? Why not ask the fellow who invented the machine? Or consider how the system stifles equipment innovations. Kidney-machine inventor Dr. Kolff has now developed a portable dialysis machine that would enable patients to travel, work more easily, and generally lead more productive, normal lives. But Kolff told me that he is unable to get any American manufacturers interested in making the machine. The problem is uncertain demand. Prototypes have been made for $6000 each -- the same cost as American machines used in dialysis centers when purchased in volume. Although Kolff's machine could provide dialysis patients with more-satisfying lifestyles, neither nephrologists, equipment makers, nor facility operators have much incentive to introduce their patients to the machines, since it is not clear how they would fit in to ESRD reimbursement provisions. So Kolff has gone to a Japanese manufacturer to supply him with prototypes. And would thousands die? One doesn't hear about it in the case of hemophiliacs: The effect of these portrayals [dramatic appeals to the US congress about kidney failure] should not be minimized. There are, after all, other catastrophic disabilities that affect as many people and cost as much to treat as kidney failure but don't lure as much government money. Richard Rettig, professor of social sciences at the Illinois Institute of Technology, notes that the taxpayers are not footing the bill, for example, to treat hemophiliacs, whose numbers exceed those with kidney failure. The central symptom of hemophilia is serious bleeding, and Rettig figures that a quarter of all hemophiliacs "require continuous replacement of fresh whole blood, plasma, and clotting concentrates," a therapy at least as expensive as dialysis. > >And besides, government's not a bad market, either, if it operates a >proper bidding process. That is a pretty big "if", O mighty evaluator of markets. In the particular case of ESRD aid, the government offers a fixed fee for dialysis, regardless of what costs were. The result? It's very profitable indeed to run dialysis outfits, and new technology is not evaluated properly because of the uncertainty of how the government will treat it. In fact, I've answered this last statement of yours as if you'd said "the government doesn't do too badly at the market, either, if it operates a proper bidding process." To answer what you actually wrote (which I believe to be a mis-phrasing) the government is an AWFUL market -- one of the reasons why it's hard find anyone who still believes in the government setting all prices. The problem is that a government doesn't have available the information to set prices correctly, which results in incorrect prices, which results in misproduction. Very socialist economies tend to set their prices to reflect politics, not engineering reality, which is one reason why they have to make it illegal (for example) to feed bread to cattle (the price of bread is lower than that of the corresponding amount of grain). >Then the lowest price competitors get to sell >to government, and if there's competition, prices will go down. This would be true enough, but what has happened in this case is that the government offers a fixed price, so there is no pressure to charge the government less, so prices stay just where they are. This ties in nicely with the recent discussion in net.politics of the increasingly more complex specifications for airplanes -- the government has indeed put things out for bid, but the specs often limit competition, as do political requirements (I'm told that the Soviet rifle has much better performance when dirty than does the American, but do can you see the American government buying, say, knock-offs of that design?) >>>I agree with Piotr. I'd rather believe in people than believe in >>>libertaria anytime. >>> >> >>That's quite a statment for someone who seems to be advocating the >>welfare state..... Do you believe in people, or do you believe in >>people with the right chains on them? > >In the absence of decent moral education, I believe in people with the >right chains on them. > >Tony Wuersch >{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw >/* End of text from inmet:net.politics.t */ That last sentence was so priceless that I thought I'd leave your signature right next to it. It's so nice to know that you'd like to give people a "decent moral education". The thought of my (hypothetical) child getting one of which you'd approve gives me the shudders.