A reply to "Libertarianism by Conjecture and Refutation", Norman Barry, Humane Studies Review, volume 13, number 2, Spring 2001, a review of Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy Reconciled, J. C. Lester, London: Macmillan, 2000.
As someone who wishes his own book to succeed, I am grateful for a review with such high praise from a well-known classical liberal. As a critical rationalist who wishes to learn from his mistakes, I am grateful for Norman Barry's thoughtful criticisms. The only way that I can hope to try to repay these and appreciate their full force is by doing my best to reply to them. So that is what, in the spirit of gratitude and truth-seeking, I shall do here. I say this in case less critical-rationalist-minded persons mistake my motivations (and so might be inclined to dismiss my reply) as being merely vain or churlish in objecting to some criticisms in what was, by any standards, a very favourable review. In all honesty, I welcome those criticisms. I shall quote the main ones and then respond to them. I leave out some quibbles I have about Barry's exact exposition. Though, "rarely has capitalism been justified with such philosophical expertise" overlooks that it is defended rather than "justified" private-property anarchy rather than "capitalism". And on the general point that my exposition is "not always crystal clear", I can only plead that the book covers an awful lot of ground, much of which is difficult, and often applies a new theory for the first time.
That theories in ethics and politics are harder to falsify, if true, hardly means that they have worse, or better, support than scientific theories. If critical rationalism is true, then universal theories in all fields must remain completely unsupported conjectures. Passing tests in no way supports them.
Originally, Karl Popper evolved empirical falsificationism as a way of distinguishing science from non-science (though all apparent falsifications are themselves, perforce, theory-laden conjectures subject to testing; something which many critics have failed to understand). But Popper's overall epistemology of critical rationalism, particularly as influenced by Imre Lakatos (who showed him that mathematics was falsifiable) and William Bartley (who showed him that everything else was too, including critical rationalism itself), is much broader than its scientific origins. From the outset, Popper readily acknowledged that there would be empirically unfalsifiable aspects even of empirical science. He certainly did not object to mathematics and logic. There is no reason that he would be bound to object to empirically unfalsifiable aspects within any theory. What is more, Popper explicitly advocates something extremely like Ludwig von Mises's rationality as a way of making social science theories more falsifiable overall (e.g., "The Rationality Principle", 357ff of A Pocket Popper, David Miller, ed., Fontana Press, 1983). For unless we suppose that people are attempting to act in the best way that they can make sense of, much behaviour can be dismissed as unintelligibly and uncriticisably 'irrational'. For instance, John Watkins used Popper's rationality assumption in a paper explaining the behaviour of a ship's captain who had crashed his ship during a manoeuvre in a prima facie 'crazy' way (in Borger, Robert and Cioffi, Frank, eds., Explanation in Behavioural Sciences, University Press, London, 1970). It is confusing and ultimately impossible to eject all the a priori aspects of a theory, as some economists have tried with rationality. To assert them clearly is to make them more criticisable, rather than to put them beyond criticism. Mises was hardly a critical rationalist in his approach, of course, and he took the a priori aspect too far in the opposite direction.
I see why my unorthodox position will make many libertarians, and economists, chary. But why is that due to lack of rigour? I explain why I think it is necessary to allow that approximate cardinal utility sometimes makes sense. Norman Barry does not say why it does not, so I have nothing to add. That the concept might be abused cannot be an objection to its making sense (and see below on interpersonal comparisons of utility, which is more precisely where the risk is usually thought to be located). I do find it hard to understand how a conscious being could have a hierarchy (ordinality) of real desires but these desires had no felt intensity (approximate cardinality). This might just be a failure of imagination on my part, but it certainly does not seem to be true of humans that we are like this.
A lot more might be said about the Rushdie case, which I spend only a few hundred words on. I was not interested in getting to the bottom of that in the depth that a periodical article might but, rather, using the example to explicate how 'minimising imposed costs' applies to the taking of offence. But not only do I not say that they have no "realistic case" (Barry's words), I say that I do not mean to deny that they do have a case ("I do not need to deny that having others criticize their religion is an imposed cost to the Muslims to some degree" p.67). And I deal with various analogies and possible criticisms and counter-criticisms explicitly "in the context of [my] philosophical position". So I am, again, at a loss to know what to add. I cannot see how it can be denied that it is against the self-perceived interests, which is what I am discussing, of sincere Muslims that their religion is mocked (though their persons and property are not physically harmed). Barry seems again to be conflating a criticism of my theory of liberty as such with a criticism concerning its possible misapplications. I argue just earlier in the book that there is an inescapable subjectivist aspect of imposing a cost. To show that this is "irredeemably subjectivist" in practice Barry needs to show what is wrong with my replies to posited criticisms or give his own unanswerable example. I am sure that he could usefully have said a lot more here. I just wish he had.
If we are libertarians then liberty surely must take priority. As for this being merely asserted, there are a few sentences of explanation as to why this is the lesser imposition and so more libertarian and this is, in addition, in a context discussing similar issues. What I say of Friedman's examples is, broadly, that they are acceptable in the abstract but that they exactly lack plausible scenarios that make them a practical problem. Barry's mere assertion that anti-libertarians could think of some does not give me anything substantial to consider.
For some reason, Georgism simply did not crop up during the considerable time I was writing, and rewriting, this book. I certainly did not mean to duck the issue. Indeed, I took it for a dead duck. I am happy to say why here, though probably at too short a length to impress its adherents. Not merely land but absolutely every product and even ourselves have a considerable part of their (market and non-market) value because of the demand of other people. Insofar as there is mere luck involved in this—and there will always be some, I suppose—we are still not thereby proactively imposing on other people. But if the state taxes us for whatever reason then that ipso facto proactively imposes on us. So such taxes cannot be libertarian. I see no realistic case that these taxes can improve welfare any more than any other kinds of taxes. All the usual moral hazards and waste associated with taxation appear to apply equally to land taxes. Further, land is not the inherently fixed finite resource that is supposed to distinguish it. Superior agricultural techniques (producing vastly more food per acre, when politics allows) and building techniques (producing vastly more living space simply by building skywards, when politics allows) mean that the real price of land, and so its relative scarcity, is declining. It is not declining at the same rate everywhere and would be declining faster with less political intervention. But the differences in price are themselves a market signal that taxes would, as ever, also disrupt and so slow growth. Admittedly, such developed agricultural and habitational land will command relatively higher prices. And greater populations and so even greater demand will ensue. But—as is so well argued in Julian Simon's Ultimate Resource—the greater division of labour will ensure that, paradoxically for common sense, the relative scarcity of land will continue to decline (not that interfering with the market would obviously be desirable in any way even if this were not so).
I do explicitly acknowledge the affinity with cardinal utility in the rationality chapter, where I say that "Cardinal utility and economics will be discussed in more detail in the welfare chapter" (p.48) and explain it in the statement that "the motive-utility of aprioristic economics (that we must aim at what it most satisfies us to aim at) becomes the goal-utility of preference-utilitarian welfare (that we are better off if we really achieve what it most satisfies us to aim at)." (p.49) Obviously, preference utilitarianism (which I am there defending as a theory of welfare) requires some interpersonal comparisons or it would merely be some form of Paretianism. In the welfare chapter, I allow broad, non-scientific, interpersonal comparisons of utility for the sake of argument to show that this leads back to libertarian conclusions in any case. I cannot use moral judgements within the context of my thesis just because my whole argument is that there is an objective congruence of liberty, welfare and private-property anarchy. My moral judgements are irrelevant to this. In any case, do we not partly think that slavery is wrong because it is a terrible imposition that the relatively slight gain to the owner cannot begin to excuse? This is an intuitive interpersonal comparison.
Barry mentions another area where I might well have said something but did not. Again, I do not see it as a hole in the theory. My compatibility thesis might naturally seem to entail a compatible transition. But it is not part of, or entailed by, the compatibility thesis—that maximum liberty and maximum welfare do not clash as an end-state—that we must, whatever our current circumstances, always be able to move towards this efficiently in an immaculately compatibilist way. People have come to rely severely on, or stoically to tolerate, certain regular political impositions in a way that does not happen with individually unpredictable common crime (but if it did then that might also have to be phased out instead of stopped dead if welfare were to be maintained). To cut off state pensions immediately is certainly libertarian but possibly not utilitarian (and possibly it is: a short sharp shock might well be better than having it drag on). Perhaps it is not a practical political proposition mainly because all government rests on opinion. So some compromise might be necessary to get us out of the mess that we are in as quickly as possible. Phasing these things out, though not fully libertarian, could ensure that no one is left in the lurch while all newcomers make their own preferred arrangements. A similarly imperfect possibility is selling off various 'state assets' to help with adequate funds for this or tying their sale to dealing with the dwindling ex-state aspects of provision. I suggest these things as practical political possibilities. Concessions to what is practical appear inevitable. The various publications of free-market policy institutes, though not always excellent or even particularly libertarian, are probably much better on sorting out the piecemeal, practical transition than I can hope to be. Having said that, some practical possibilities are clearly more libertarian than others and I would hope that these could be explored first (as they are not always at present).
J. C. Lester (July, 2001)