Asymmetrical Information

There's another difference. Today in the United States the (usually local) government can take your property under certain circumstances, for instance at the behest of a politically connected developer, but you have to receive fair compensation. If a repressive political regime takes your property because you said the wrong things, you're not going to get any compensation.

Peter,

It isn't "fair" compensation if I haven't agreed to it. "Fair" requires two consenting parties. It is the government imposed compensation that I receive.

I agree that in general, economic liberty is more important than civil liberty. If I am left alone by the government to run my business and prosper from it, I can find ways to use my money to buy other liberties. But if I am kept poverty-stricken by socialist policies that confiscate my earnings and smother or forbid my business, I have no resources with which to fight for myself. That's why I favor the Republican tax-cutting approach, even if it does not include cutting spending and thus runs up big deficits and eventually weakens the value of the currency: if I can keep more of my earnings through tax cuts, then I will find ways to preserve their value. But if they are taken away through higher taxes per the Democrats, I never get a chance to do so.

I totally agree I mark on this, but at the same time I'm tempted to jump towards my civil liberties, instead of what I spend over 60% of my day doing.So, really I'd rather have enough to see the movie that doesn't exist.... than to not have enough to see the movie that does exist.

Hence the idea that property rights underlie all other rights. Even free speech presupposes a physical printing press or webserver or a piece of ground to stand on while one speaks.

Isn't "property rights" the more accurate designation --as opposed to "economic rights"?

If the government has the power to confiscate my means of survival at will, what good does it do me to have the "right" to complain about it?

That said, there are tradeoffs. I agree to pay taxes because there is a tradeoff - I trade economic freedom for security. Likewise, I agree to a measure of scrutiny by public agencies. I trade civil freedom for security.

I think that the best government is one which allows the greatest possible degree of volunteerism in establishing necessary tradeoffs.

Our liberties are not something we trade for by yielding a portion of them to the government as tribute. They are ours by nature and by right. Government acts to protect them and is only legitimate when it does so rather than acting to subject them to the arbitrary whim and will of whatever tyrant or group of tyrants would have them at our expense. There is no conflict of interests between our liberties and we don't have to give some of them up to protect the ones we'd prefer to keep. We can and should keep them all, and a good government can and should protect them all.

I once saw a video of William Randolph Hearst griping about the Roosevelt Administration's insistence that he pay a graduated income tax. It's on the "making of" DVD that comes with "Citizen Kane", and it's priceless, in part because he looks and sounds like the traditional parody of a Monty Burns-style capitalist- you almost expect the recording to end with him unleasing the hounds on the cameraman. But if a guy like Hearst who owned ninety newspapers wasn't able to rely on freedom of speech or the press to protect his property, what change does the average guy have?

Keep it up, minions. There are probably a few people still unconvinced that Western Europe is a worse place to live than Singapore or Hong Kong.

Have any of you brave posters ever sat down and talked with someone who has lived in a country where people get disappeared? Because a lot of the comments above sound far more like a college bull session than insights based on experience.

This isn't either-or. Both are forms of oppression, both need to be opposed. But the possibility of becoming one of the "los desaparecidos" has horrific effect. The people I've met seemed to have truncated large chunks of their persona. It's not so much that they don't talk certain topics; rather much of reality doesn't seem to exist for them. The omni-present, omni-persistent fear has ripped a chunk of humanity out of their soul.

Not that I think I have any chance of convincing you guys but I cannot resist:

Can you provide examples from history where gov't stifled dissent by taking away economic freedoms to the point where they were in danger of starvation in a society that was otherwise free? Because from what I know of history, civil liberties are always taken first. The only examples which would kinda sorta match the above would be, ironically, blacklisting union workers in McCarthy era or firing of air traffic controllers by Reagan.

So unless you think people in France or Sweden do not have power to dissent I dont see what reality your arguments are standing on.

It is pointless or counterproductive to try to divide liberties into civil and economic classes. Your civil liberties are worthless without economic liberty because you will not be able to enforce them, and I think it likely the reverse is also true.

I do think Mark is correct that economic liberty is easier to take away, but only for the reason these liberties can be redistributed to someones else, thus allowing a measure of democratic removal.

A few more questions:

What is the difference between economic liberty and just wealth, as it relates to political power? Isn't is possible to be economically free and remain poor (as people do in the US, for gernerations)

If wealth is important to political power (as it underlies other liberties), wouldn't you say significant income inequality is dangerous because it automatically leads to assymetrical political power?

If you were poor, living in a war-devastated country, and a political party offered to resistribute property the rich people in your country to you, but advocated curtailing certain civil liberties, would you support it? The other option is to keep you civil liberties but you would have to crawl out of your poverty and dispondency on your own.

MS,

Re; "Because from what I know of history, civil liberties are always taken first."

I think a quick review of history would show that, other than genocide, by far the most common means of denying liberty have been economic. First by a long shot would be slavery or serfdom, followed closely by confiscatory taxation and/or tribute.

Governments exist to either protect property or to plunder it. Violations of civil liberties are incidental to these objectives.

"Have any of you brave posters ever sat down and talked with someone who has lived in a country where people get disappeared?"

Yup. I work next to one. His uncle has the dubious honor of having done time in both American and Soviet prisons. Not often that you find that - but I digress.

In all but the craziest totalitarian societies, it's hard to get "disappeared." It certainly was difficult in the later years of the Soviet Union, although not impossible. The key fact of life in any totalitarian system is its bureaucratic nature, and ease of action determines a lot of what happens in a bureaucracy. For some people, like a minister of state security, imposing the death penalty is easy: for an office security manager, it's much harder, and it raises an interesting question: if we need to kill this guy or send him to a camp, why isn't our local security apparatus doing a better job of finding and reeducating people before they get into trouble? Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The First Circle" captures this dilemma beautifully. So for most governments, there's a whole range of little needling degrees of pain, which require less paperwork and fewer efforts, and incidentally conserve the severe penalties as a deterrent for what are usually ill-defined but nevertheless worse forms of behavior. Communist dictatorships specialized in this - for those who are not incurable enemies, there always needs to be a degree of punishment remaining; it's when they have nothing left to throw at you, as Solzhenitsyn wisely observed, that you become truly free and truly dangerous. I doubt if that was the example Janis Joplin had in mind, but it's really her point.

Randy,

First by a long shot would be slavery or serfdom, followed closely by confiscatory taxation and/or tribute.

You got it completely backwards. Any economic freedom would be totally meaningless without the 13th amendment. If you are already somebody's property, the right to open up a business and not get taxed isnt worth very much.

Where China and Soviet Union free societies when Stalin and Mao nationlized industries and collectivized farms?

Of course all these rights are important but if one has to push priorities I'd lean toward MS's position -- though I take some issue with the additional commentary. Most readers of this blog probably know that an earlier draft of the US Declaration of Independence argued for "... life, liberty, and property ..." (Italics, um, mine), presumably in that order. One has to be alive in order to do much of anything, then have the ability, then have the means to do so.

So yes Jane, political culture matters -- but let's keep it in perspective. The most effective "deterrant (sic) to any sort of dissidence" is, well, "disappearance." Even thugs who start off trashing economies for their own purposes (see Chavez, Putin, Mugabe, et al) often get around to pulling on the jackboots.

In retrospect I'm a little disheartened that Jefferson fudged it up with "pursuit of happiness." Maybe that's where we went off the rails.

If a repressive political regime takes your property because you said the wrong things, you're not going to get any compensation.

I think I was in 6th (or maybe) 7th grade when our teacher handed out one of those "weekly readers" with little short stories for children. This was a Friday before a vacation week, so she didn't want to bog us down with all sorts of new material. I guess she figured it was a perfect time to indoctronate us into the wonders of Marxist Economics and Communism.

This "story" was of a Chinese man who owned and operated a "water shop." What he did was "boil water" and sold the boiled water to people in the village who didn't have any capacity to create hot water. That is what he did. That was his business. This was 1950-(something.) Well, the government paid his village a visit and told the people in town that a new road was going to be built and it was going to be built right through their village and right through many of their homes (including this guy's "water shop.") They were warning the villagers so that they could disassemble their homes prior to construction and save all the materials. This "water shop" owner was aghast. He yelled at the government people saying that his price for the country to take the land that was his and turn it into a road, was $10,000. The government people promptly smacked this poor old man on the head with a stick and left him bleeding in the road.

Time passes. In his village, all his neighbors are tearing down their homes and moving "somewhere", all except the "water shop" owner. His is the only builing left in the path of the new road. Eventually, the government people return, and this time they bring demolition equipment and bulldozers. In protest, the Chinese man stood right in his shop, as the government people disassembled the entire building. They just tore it down with him standing there, watching it happen. When they were finished, there was this man standing in the middle of a wide road.

(This next part is the part that I remember most vividly.)

Then it dawned on the "water shop" owner that now there was this magnificent road to be used for the collective good of all Chinese. And he was part of that. He sacrificed his land for the overall good of his country which gave him satisfaction, that the road is simply more important than his own personal needs. I don't know what he did after they took it down, but there he was, smiling, all happy that there is now a road there. And that is the end of the story.

Isn't that lovely???

Valjean,

Have you ever read a reason why Jefferson modified Locke's inalienable rights?

MS,

Well, I think that slavery is just an extreme form of taxation.

The thing is, governments don't violate civil rights for the fun of it. They do it to protect or to plunder. I see the Patriot Act as protection. I see much of the tax code as plunder.

I'm not worried that the government may start violating my civil rights in order to plunder from me (and why else would they violate my civil rights?), because they're already shown that they are willing and able to plunder from me without violating my civil rights.

Yancey,

I'll presume your question isn't rhetorical and say no -- I've not read a reason beyond the old saw of literary embellishment. (He could have included four inalienable rights, after all.)

I can go off on a wicked tangent about what Jefferson the yeoman-loving agrarian Virginian meant by "pursuit of happiness," but I'll leave that to another entry. I assume he veered off the Lockean script based at least partly on his extreme distaste of the Northeast-Hamiltonian-budding-capitalist faction and their love of such perceived economic rights.

But if you have something to add, by all means ...

Randy,

My main objection was the statement that economic liberty is the most important because it underlies other liberties. That is of course absurd. Government may be "plundering" from you (of course it also protects that much larger portion that it doesnt plunder and creates an environment where you can make that money in the first place - all things you take for granted (but thats another subject)) but you are still free to do what you can do change policy -organize with like minded people, vote, post on blogs, whatever. If you didnt not have the civil liberties, you wouldnt have that luxury. Serfs didnt have that right, nor slaves, nor Chinese farmers during the Great Leap Forward.

Further, you cannot "buy" yourself those other rights in a way that you can vote for more fair economic policies. I am sure lots of people in China right now would want to do that - but they are shit out of luck.

Last point - government is an abstraction - like a corporation. It doesnt exist for its own end. When you say govt is doing this or that it would help to specify who is ACTUALLY doing it.

I think that in the long run neither kind of right can be secure, or will endure, without the other. At the same time, I think that for most people economic rights are more important than civil liberties. Civil liberies as such are more like insurance policies than anything else. Most people aren't going to say someone that enrages the powers that be sufficiently to invoke the State to seize them, just like most people's houses aren't going to burn down. But in either case, its nice to have an insurance policy that covers the harm that might result. Most people don't get involved in situations where they personally need the civil liberties guarranteed by the Bill of Rights or any such similar protections, but its always nice to know they are there if you need them.

'...from what I know of history, civil liberties are always taken first.'

If you're trying to separate economic liberties from civil liberties--they're really the same thing--you'd be wrong.

In Hitler's takeover he first required everyone to produce their four grandparents birth certificates to their employers. Then any position of any status or prestige was reserved for 'Aryans'. I.e. you couldn't work if you were Jewish.

If you couldn't work you and were a burden on society, and subject to a concentration camp.

There's a very short, but instructive explication of what happened in the actress Lilly Palmer's (real name, Peisse) autobiography 'Change Lobsters and Dance'. Palmer was born in Berlin in 1914 to a physician who'd received the Iron Cross from the Kaiser for his service in a military hospital at Verdun--which fact may have saved her life and gave her the opportunity to leave Germany in, iirc, 1933.

She'd trained as a high school student at Berlin's most prestige drama school and got a contract at the regional theater in Darmstadt. She worked for a few months, but then Hitler came to power. The night she was to open in her first starring role, the Director of the Theater received a phone call from the head local Nazi saying he'd heard that they were going to allow a non-Aryan to appear on stage, and that wasn't going to be allowed.

Next, the ticket office manager came in and said that the Nazi Party had just demanded that every seat in the first two rows be reserved for them. Sure enough, just before the curtain went up a bunch of Brown Shirts filed in and took those seats.

Fortunately for Palmer, the Director had found out about her father's Iron Cross and communicated that to the head Nazi. He had second thoughts about causing trouble for a war hero's daughter, even if she was Jewish, and withdrew his troopers. But she soon lost her contract and decided to flee, with her sister, to Paris--even though she didn't speak French.

However, there wasn't economic liberty for immigrants in France either. She bribed an immigration clerk and got a permit to stay in the country, but she needed a work permit from the police to hold a job.

Unable to swing that, she and her sister put together a singing act, sewed some costumes using old curtain material, and got a gig at what they thought was a small nightclub in Pigalle (it was also a brothel, hence the police were paid not to come and check work permits).

An American film studio executive dropped in one night and offered her a screen test in London. Her mother managed to smuggle a couple of miniature paintings out of Berlin--Hjalmar Schacht's currency controls, now in force, forbade her parents sending her any money--which she sold and raised enough money to cross the Channel and stay at a boardinghouse long enough to complete the screen test.

Which resulted in a contract with Gaumont. But, the English immigration authorities refused her a work permit in that country too. They had unemployed actresses in their country. She was forced to return to Paris (by this time she'd been stripped of German citizenship) and petition British immigration for a work permit--which Gaumont eventually succeeded in obtaining for her.

Fortunately she spoke fluent English with just a trace of an unidentifiable accent. She made a few movies, got hired by a touring stage group, met and married Rex Harrison, survived the Blitz, moved to America in 1946 and starred in movies opposite Gary Cooper, Fred Astaire, and William Holden.

Then she and Harrison discovered the joys of paying both American (91% top marginal rates) and British income taxes. She did Broadway and West End theatre just to pay taxes.

Eventually ended her days as a writer. In addition to her very readable autobiography, she wrote two novels. One in English, one in German.

The microeconomics of her life are instructive at almost every stage. You can buy 'Change Lobsters' used on Amazon for a dollar or two. Well worth it.

Have you ever read a reason why Jefferson modified Locke's inalienable rights?

I've heard that it was because Locke's "pursuit of property" was seen as tolerating slavery, which was controversial even then.

Because from what I know of history, civil liberties are always taken first

You run a greater risk of fines and imprisonment developing a vacant lot than you do by accusing the President of the United States of being a two-faced lying traitor. There's no question of civil liberties being "the first things to go", because our civil liberties are still here and most of our economic ones are heavily restricted.

Hell, just think of all the things which are legal to do for free but illegal to do for money.

Ryan,

Thank you; interesting piece.

I suppose we've come full-circle then -- at least historically: Locke's advocation of economic rights would deny others their ... civil rights. And often their lives.

Hard to see Jefferson easying off for the sake of slavery, though. I still maintain he was staying true to his Virginian roots.

Patrick,

If you're trying to separate economic liberties from civil liberties--they're really the same thing--you'd be wrong.

If they were the same thing, how would you describe China's history in the past 30 years in terms of liberties? Did nothing at all change? Or did China change in some respects but not others?

Dan,

because our civil liberties are still here and most of our economic ones are heavily restricted.

Can you name a country that is markedly less economically restricted than the US? Or has the US been much less restricted in recent past? Given that the US lies toward the lower end of the global restrictedness scale I dont think it is fair to characterize our economy as "heavily restricted". Also since US is a democracy, these restrictions reflect more or less what the country as a whole wants and not something imposed by one person or a small group of people. Obviously the level of restrictedness is subjective and some people will think it is too high, but again the law leaves many options for them to bring about change in a peaceful way, something possible thanks to our civil liberties.

I guess it depends a lot on your starting point. If you choose to start at the relatively narrow range of level of economic freedom found in free developed countries, then you will not conclude it is in any great danger. On the other hand if you start at some (at least politically) unrealistic libertarian fantasyland, I agree, we are in dire straits.

There seems to be a point where the notion of 'civil rights' and 'property' intersect; i.e. does a person 'own' their own body?

MS - how would you describe China's history in the past 30 years in terms of liberties?

I know that Deng Xiaoping said that he'd liberalize things economically but not politically. However civil liberties in China, while still very bad in many respects, have been increasing from what I can tell (I may be wrong.) For instance, the government recently (about 4 years ago) repealed a law saying that you had to be married to someone to sleep with them. And this was enforced a few decades ago with spot checks in hotels and the like.

You run a greater risk of fines and imprisonment developing a vacant lot than you do by accusing the President of the United States of being a two-faced lying traitor.

Are you seriously claiming that this in not as it should be? As human beings we have an inherent right to freedom of expression. We do not have an inherent right to set up a meth lab near a preschool, which would be perfectly legal in the libertarian utopia of unrestricted economic activity.

"I guess it depends a lot on your starting point. If you choose to start at the relatively narrow range of level of economic freedom found in free developed countries, then you will not conclude it is in any great danger. On the other hand if you start at some (at least politically) unrealistic libertarian fantasyland, I agree, we are in dire straits."

"...the relatively narrow range of level of economic freedom found in free developed countries..."

relatively narrow range=free ?

"..then you will not conclude it is in any great danger."

"...if you start at some (at least politically) unrealistic libertarian fantasyland, I agree, we are in dire straits."

"unrealistic libertarian fantasyland", if its unrealistic, what would "politics" have to do with it anyway?

"..Given that the US lies toward the lower end of the global restrictedness scale I dont think it is fair to characterize our economy as "heavily restricted"." Good news~ We may not be as "restricted" as others, so we Must not be "heavily restricted"!

"Obviously the level of restrictedness is subjective..." Hmm, "Given that the US lies toward the lower end of the global restrictedness scale I dont think it is fair to characterize our economy as "heavily restricted"

Hey Jane, Where's the "Logical Reasoning Fairy", when we really need her?

Mark, all I am asking is, by what standard are we "heavily restricted"?
By some sort of global standard, or maybe some standard desired (but not achieved) by most americans? Or is it some state mostly undesired except by a small group of people? Is that not fair to ask?

relatively narrow range=free ?
range of LEVEL of restrictedness. All I am saying that ecomonic activity is not THAT much more restricted in the most economically unfree democractic countries (Continental Europe?) than on the other end of the scale (US?) So there is no contradiction

MS,

"by what standard are we "heavily restricted"?"

What is it, that U.S. Citizens can do, that hasn't been perturbed by "regulation" of some sort?

"By some sort of global standard..." You stated, above, the this idea was "subjective", if it is "subjective", How can there be a "global standard"?

Also, what do the conditions in other countries have to do with us, the U.S.? I suppose if we come to the conlusion that "other countries" are akin to SuperMax, we should be happy that we resemble, merely, Sing Sing?

As others(so too few) have pointed out, earlier in this thread, the parsing of Financial "Liberties" and Civil "Liberties" is a Fool's game, akin to asking for one-sided coins.

The two realms are inseparable, there can be no effective distinguishment between either state, they are of each other, for each other, and never without the other.

tylerh hits it with this:
"Have any of you brave posters ever sat down and talked with someone who has lived in a country where people get disappeared? Because a lot of the comments above sound far more like a college bull session than insights based on experience.

This isn't either-or. Both are forms of oppression, both need to be opposed. But the possibility of becoming one of the "los desaparecidos" has horrific effect. The people I've met seemed to have truncated large chunks of their persona. It's not so much that they don't talk certain topics; rather much of reality doesn't seem to exist for them. The omni-present, omni-persistent fear has ripped a chunk of humanity out of their soul."

Sadly, it seems too apt a description for too many that are too nearby. "Free-Speech Zones" anyone? or, rather, you already know that; "You, too, can be termed an "enemy combatant"?"

Worry not, there's always "China" to compare our state/State to. Correct?

Also, what do the conditions in other countries have to do with us, the U.S.? I suppose if we come to the conlusion that "other countries" are akin to SuperMax, we should be happy that we resemble, merely, Sing Sing?

People in general are similar (especially in like cultures) and want similar things. So conditions in other countries reflect, more or less, what people in general want. If you think we live in Sing Sing, you shouldnt be happy by any means. But you should realize that you are setting a standard that most people just dont agree with. I already said that if you are comparing the US to some libertarian pipe dream then you are right to think we are in bad shape. If thats the case, then our worldviews are just too different for us to agree.

In every country where there are no property rights for ordinary people, there are no civil rights for ordinary people. Whereever ordinary people have property rights they also have civil rights. This observations suggest the two types of rights are linked and that only property rights can give birth to civil rights.

Independence exists when a person is self-supporting and does not rely on the charity of others. Independence is being able to leave a job and find another. When the government is the sole employer and the sole provider of medical care and the sole source of consumer goods and the sole retailer then property rights no longer exist. Everything one "has" is held at the pleasure of the state. When a person is deprived of food, clothing, shelter health care and income, then civil right no longer exist.

To be sure a citizen has the civil right to sue to recover his job, food, shelter and health care and in the long run (there is no short run at Law) he might win but in the short run, absent food, shelter, a job and health care he is dead
or a refugee. Look at North Korea. It has a splendid constituion that gaurantees every citizen more rights than our own. So did the USSR under Uncle Joe, Cambodia under Pot Pol, China under Mao, Cuba under Castro.

People need more than beautiful words inscribed on expensive paper. Government is like fire - we all need it but if we are careless with it, it will kill us.

Sol - Well said.

Valjean,

The question was not rhetorical since I really don't know why Jefferson modified the statement of natural rights. Ryan's link suggests some possible reasons, but it is hard to reconcile the reality of Jefferson with those reasons.

Ryan,

The essay you linked to is a very, very poor one in my opinion. Here is a much better and balanced one exploring the issues involved.

This observations suggest the two types of rights are linked and that only property rights can give birth to civil rights.

Again, why hasnt this happened in China, after almost 30 years for property rights?

MS, China doesnt have anything that could be understood as strong property rights; local and federal officials intervene at will to dispose of your property. Many analysts identify this as a huge problem for China in moving towards a truly modern economy.

from http://janegalt.net/cgi-bin/MT/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=9501#113652 :

"The only examples [of loss of economic liberties being a mechanism of repression] which would kinda sorta match the above would be, ironically, blacklisting union workers in McCarthy era or firing of air traffic controllers by Reagan."

Yes, that is the usual canonical example -- and the McCarthy Era was the only time my parents felt unfree in the US.

The firing of the air traffic controllers was an entirely different sort of thing. It wasn't economic repression -- it was an employer refusing to hire an employee who was asking for too much money. The fact that the strike was illegal under then-current law is only icing on the cake -- refusal of an employer -- even a government employer -- to meet a demand for a particular raise is NOT economic repression, any more than I'm opressing you if I don't meet your price when you list a house for sale.

-dk

Much as I support the philosophical underpinnings of the main post, and realize that part of the press controls in the former soviet union included restricting the distribution of newsprint, we still do have to account for the high level of perceived personal freedom of Scandinavian countries.

-dk

Jane,

We have some of that even here. But thats just splitting hairs. If you look at China's history in the last 30 years, it's pretty clear that it hasnt been linear and that they got more of certain rights and not as much of other rights.

In genereal, if you just took a whole bunch of countries, say Chile (70s version), Cuba, Sweden, New Zealand, Singapore, Russia, China you would have a hard time putting them all nicely in a straight line from free to not free without grossly oversimplyfying things. Some are free-er in some areas and others in different areas.

Can you name a country that is markedly less economically restricted than the US?

Um, if we're measuring freedom on a relative scale rather than an absolute one, I expect all the people complaining that the detainee and wiretap programs violate our freedom to shut the hell up immediately. Few people in the world have the rights you claim are being violated.

If we're measuring freedom on an absolute scale, however, it doesn't matter if most of the rest of the world is more restricted than us in economic areas.

"You run a greater risk of fines and imprisonment developing a vacant lot than you do by accusing the President of the United States of being a two-faced lying traitor."

Are you seriously claiming that this in not as it should be?

Yes, I'm seriously claiming that that is not as it should be. The risk of imprisonment for *either* activity should be zero.

As human beings we have an inherent right to freedom of expression. We do not have an inherent right to set up a meth lab near a preschool

Yes, actually, we do.

Hey Jane, Where's the "Logical Reasoning Fairy", when we really need her?

I'm right here, Sir Hoffer, but we've encountered technical difficulties. I had Lana (she's the Institute's fall intern, so naturally, we make her do all of the data entry chores) feed your latest round of posts into our mainframe this morning. She swears up and down that she did it correctly, but a whole lot of unpleasantry hit the fan shortly after that. Odd smells, critical failure messages, blue smoke, that sort of thing.

Mike the IT guy is inspecting the machine right now. What he has determined so far is that we lost at least six of the unit's processor daughterboards. He hasn't determined the exact cause of failure yet, but the going theory is that they died laughing, so make of that what you will.

As human beings we have an inherent right to freedom of expression. We do not have an inherent right to set up a meth lab near a preschool

Yes, actually, we do.

Meth labs have a tendency to explode. It's not just a problem of the "War on Drugs." Would it be okay to have a dynamite factory next to a preschool?

I have not read all the above comments, but I'll give it a shot anyway:

1. I agree that economic freedom is indeed a civil liberty - and a very important one.

But lets not get overexcited: I have to disagree with MarkM - threats to economic liberties is not a "greater" threat. No country has ever made more people "disappear" than Democratic Kampuchea 1975-79 - and I find it difficult imagining anywhere more close to hell. The jews living in the Third Reich during WW2 would also have to disagree - those who died of hunger in the Warsaw ghetto were not better off than the ones who suddenly disappeared during the night and was killed in Auschwitz.
If the government kills you by starving you to death or get you shot through the head in a back alley don't really matter all that much, you're dead anyway.

3. Political culture do matter alot. I live in Denmark where we have one of the highest tax levels in the world, yet at the same time very few countries, if any, have fewer restrictions on the other civil liberties such as the freedom of speech.

Meth labs have a tendency to explode.

And if they explode, their owner is liable for the damages resulting from that explosion.

Problem solved.

And if they explode, their owner is liable for the damages resulting from that explosion.

Problem solved.

No, more like 'justice, of a sort, served.' The problem is not solved at all, since the average kitchen chemist is not the typically responsible, careful type who would even give thought to the risk of damages resulting from an explosion prior to seeing them unfold. The risk of criminal prosecution for messing with the apparatus at all, at least gives motivation to his more primal fears.

The problem is not solved at all, since the average kitchen chemist is not the typically responsible, careful type who would even give thought to the risk of damages resulting from an explosion prior to seeing them unfold.

First of all, the "average kitchen chemist" isn't going to build next to a preschool anyway, so the scenario's bullshit to begin with.

Secondly, the reason that meth labs are run by irresponsible jackasses is because of *another* violation of economic freedoms -- namely, the war on drugs.

Thirdly, "if we let people have freedom they'll fuck things up" is never a valid reason for denying people freedom. If it was then jailing socialists would be an admirable thing.

Finally, holding someone liable for the harm they do is more than "justice served". It is remuneration for damages. The value of the lives of preschoolers is not infinite, and does not trump all other considerations.

"If you look at China's history in the last 30 years, it's pretty clear that it hasnt been linear and that they got more of certain rights and not as much of other rights."

I don't think that they've gotten any "rights". The government has temporarily lightened up on various economic restrictions but can reverse course at any time, without warning, if they find it convenient. Law doesn't apply to the Chinese Communist Party, which can do whatever it wants.

Your example of Singapore is much, much better. They have a clear rule of law and a lot of economic freedom, but criticizing the government can get you into a lot of trouble. The ruling party, the PAP (in power since 1959) often use economic penalties, suing opponents and winning big monetary awards from them.

Example: once top PAP officials called an opponent "an anti-English education, anti-Christian Chinese chauvinist". The opponent denied the charge and called them liars for making it, so they sued him for calling them liars, winning a S$8.08 million judgment against him. The tax authority also began investigating him.

The PAP also sways elections in part by threatening neighborhoods. Voting is anonymous at the individual level, but it's reported at the neighborhood level. PAP more or less announced that the neighborhoods with the lowest vote for them would be the last to be re-developed.

But, if you don't criticize the government, you otherwise have a wide range of economic rights in Singapore. So China is a poor example, since there are no rights there at all, only a temporary loosening that may or may not continue. But Singapore may be an interesting counter-example.

As for building a meth lab near an elementary school:

1) The only reason kitchen chemists try to make meth is that the government prevents them from buying meth made in proper chemical factories.

2) Regulation does not necessarily make things safer. The worst chemical factory accident I've ever heard of was the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. India is in theory a far more regulated business environment than the US, and it didn't prevent this plant from operating unsafely. They probably just bribed officials to look the other way. If everyone trying to run a business at all has to bribe officials to not enforce the more ridiculous, onerous, and contradictory regulations, it also becomes easy to bribe them to ignore the important regulations.

3) It isn't just someone trying to start a potentially hazardous business that now has to worry about complying with thousands of regulations, and even criminal charges for forgetting a form. It's just as hard to start a daycare center. If you want to be near your customers, you'll need a zoning variance to put a business in a residential area. You've got all sorts of licensing rules to comply with. If your construction crew tips a shovelful of dirt in a ditch, you might face criminal charges for destroying a "wetland". And then, if you are ever up and running, you'll probably find that some normal cleaning supplies, which are absolutely required to keep the place sterile enough, are classed as hazardous materials...

And the USA is one of the world's best regulatory environments...

4) All those regulations reduce our wealth - and poverty kills. A few years ago, thousands of elderly French people died in a heatwave, for simple lack of air conditioning. Apparently, even the hospitals they were taken to when they collapsed often couldn't keep them cool. Here, I can't remember the last time I was in a public building that wasn't air conditioned - and I live way up north. There are poor people that suffer from a lack of air conditioning - but most of them could buy even a new air conditioner easily if they just saved up their cigarette money for a couple of months...

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