Thursday, May 27, 2010

Redistribution

So I was reading Julian Sanchez's latest on the CRA, Rand Paul, etc., and since he mentions reparations, I just want to say that I, for one, would support a massively intrusive federal program to tax all white people and transfer one million dollars each to every African-American descendent of slaves. Call in the national guard, motherfuckers.

I do not expect to see a white paper on this anytime soon, though.

Posted by IOZ at 1:55 PM | email »
Labels: , , , , ,

21 comments:

Professor Coldheart said...

I'm RICH, beeyotch!

2:13 PM
Anonymous said...

Are you fucking this up, Dude?

2:24 PM
IOZ said...

Oh, you've already made out the check . . .

2:34 PM
George Jones said...

I can only hope I get invited to the subsequent party.

2:41 PM
la Rana said...

Sanchez is an extremely bright guy, but his intellectual blinkers are always so goddamn obvious:

"If we take his argument seriously, there is simply no private sphere, because any choice a property owner might make is ultimately backed by state power . . . All our rights are ultimately enforced and protected by a system of law. To say that this entitles the state to decide which particular exercises of that freedom it deigns worthy of protection is just to say you don’t think there are any real rights."

Sanchez means this derisively, but the correct response is "well, uh, yeah." This is why I've never called myself libertarian. They know the calculus, but when they see that their logic is heading toward a world without "property rights" they scramble like a cat headed for water.

To have a property right means that the state will enforce that right. Without the state, it does not exist. In situtations like those giving rise to Sanchez's piece, one asks "what is the scope of this right?" The answer, as always, is whatever the state will enforce. But Sanchez can't accept that, because if he did he would have to recognize if not concede that his entire worldview regarding liberty from the state is in fact premised upon the state's very existence.

2:54 PM
Anonymous said...

La Rana, I was just about to leave nearly the exact same comment. It's fascinating to watch Sanchez reject his own insightful, reasoned observation for no other reason that it would otherwise conflict with his preconceived conclusions.

3:18 PM
Anonymous said...

And in Sanchez's Newsweek piece, referenced by his post:

"[The rules of libertarian utopia] tell us to respect the sanctity of the property rights that would arise as free people tamed the wilderness in John Locke’s state of nature. They have less to say about the sanctity of property built on generations of slave sweat and blood."

He also forgets to mention what to do when the 'taming of the wilderness' is built on generations of genocide, wars, imprisonment, and every other form of violent exploitation and domination, etc etc underwriting the sanctity of property. Goddamn I hate John Locke.

3:48 PM
Anonymous said...

Just visited JS's site.

He lost me at the sideburns.

3:51 PM
Jack Crow said...

It's really impossible to fully comprehend Locke's "improvement" without understanding that he meant "Enclosure."

Libertarians have no answer to corporate versions of Enclosure, except to mumble about how agorist futures will magically prevent it with "free market forces."

3:53 PM
Professor Coldheart said...

Sanchez: "One obvious possibility is a massive system of reparations in the form of direct cash payments. But that approach has many obvious drawbacks. First, it would likely have been politically impossible."

And when a libertarian tells you something's politically impossible, BROTHA!

4:43 PM
Anonymous said...

It's apparently much easier to drive up negatives for the Civil Rights Act without having to use the words "civil" or "rights" to represent it. I'd never in my life seen or heard it referred to as the "CRA" until the last two weeks. The think tanks and public relations firms must've worked long hours coming up with that marketing gimmick.

Personally speaking, since my family came here in 1910, taxing the heirs and heiresses to slave fortunes would be a much better idea.

7:28 PM
Jack Crow said...

Anon @ 7:28

It's long been referred to as CRA1964.

7:36 PM
Anonymous said...

IOZ,

Not money...actual productive resources, land, factories, patents (damned government again). Otherwise, this Real Donny, this oh so soi disant liberal agrees with you. Verily, sometimes government is capable of doing the right thing.

--Donny

8:59 PM
Peter Ward said...

You bring up a good point: libgressives rail against Rand Paul and his CRA stance, but wouldn't pay a dollar in reparations.

11:32 PM
TGGP said...

Will there be Indian casino criteria for determining if you have enough ancestry to qualify?

I actually don't have much of a problem with one-time redistribution, it's never-ending programs that get my goat.

la rana, if by "rights" you mean "natural rights" than of course I agree. But I don't think it should be terribly controversial to say that we do have positive property rights, not merely in the sense the government pretends to obey them but that also people like the unfortunately-surnamed Anthony Smelley have had their rights enforced (though it certainly took a while). For how property rights can arise in anarchy see David Friedman's A Positive Account of Property Rights. He's not some lone exception among anarchists, Proudhon & Tucker also believed in property (just not the existing scheme of property). I think the former believed in some variety of natural law, but the latter was a Stirnerite.

Yes, everyone's ancestors killed and stole (and everyone's ancestors were murdered and robbed as well). The point of property is not justice, it is peace and congruence with the sustenance and growth of wealth. In short, avoiding Zimbabwe.

11:35 PM
Anonymous said...

"...it's never-ending [redistribution] programs that get my goat."

Such as the current never-ending scheme resolutely redistributing income upward? That program?

--Donny

12:04 AM
Dunc said...

If you want to know how seriously to take Rand Paul, just remember that his solution to the "immigration problem" involves an underground electric fence with helicopter stations...

6:58 AM
Anonymous said...

to la Rana - ooh you got 'em good with that one ... KM would be proud ...

8:00 AM
Anonymous said...

So racially he's pretty cool?

8:50 AM
augustus818 said...

Where's the fucking money Lebowski?! Bunny says you're good for it!

6:11 PM
TGGP said...

Donny, by that do you mean entitlements for the elderly (who are richer than the average American)? Then of course. If you mean it in the Rawlsian sense for which the word "redistribution" is not apt, then no. There are plenty of aspects of the current scheme (intellectual property, for one) I disagree with, but I have nothing against primitive accumulation qua accumulation. You'll have to be more specific.

11:57 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)