Via Timmy, more wibble from the obnoxious Richard Murphy.
It is in the private sector that we need cuts – or more tax if they refuse to do it. The reason is straightforward: much (and I know, not all) of what the the private sector does is froth on the top of the cappuccino, nice but wholly unnecessary. It’s the state sector that provides what we need most: health, education, housing (oh yes – all of it is regulated), safe food (oh yes – again, we only have that because it is regulated), transport infrastructure, safety, protection and so much more. They are, if you like the coffee in life. The froth is the extra. And we can do without some froth – we can’t do without the coffee.
Where to start, eh?
Okay, in a recession, the private sector will, inevitably, cut its cloth. This has nothing to do with the state and nor should it. If my business is not making enough profit, I will cut back on my costs – the alternative being diversifying into other markets should the opportunity be available. To use tax in this situation is, frankly, absurd beyond belief. It is nothing whatsoever to do with the state. This man wants to use taxes as some sort of punishment.
As for froth – well, the arse dribble in the quoted comment does indeed qualify for the epithet. But, let’s look at some of this rampant nonsense in a little more detail, shall we?
The state does, indeed, provide a health service. However, the private sector does as well. There is nothing inherent in the need for the state to be a provider of such a service, although I tend to diverge from some of my libertarian fellow travellers in having no beef with the principle of the state being involved in the funding. The French model works rather well as I can attest from personal experience. Given the option of a French hospital or a UK one, I think I’ll go for the French. However, it is not entirely state funded. The same applies to education, of course – state funding may be appropriate, but there is no reason why the state should be the provider.
Housing? The state does not supply my housing. Sure, local authorities provide some housing, but many, like me, provide for ourselves, thankyou very much and want the state to play no part in it whatsoever. Regulation is not the same thing as provision. So, bollocks to that one.
Safe food. The state provides a legislative framework. That is not the same thing as provision. Food is provided by the private sector, so some froth, eh?
Transport infrastructure. Sure it’s provided by the state and arguably that is okay. However, it could be provided equally well by the private sector. Again, they do so in France with their excellent motorway system. I’m not sure that using the railway as an example of state provision is such a good idea, though…
Safety – again, a legislative framework is not the same thing as provision. Indeed, it is arguable that this one has been over egged with unnecessary secondary legislation causing confusion when the original primary legislation pretty much covers it, but that’s just an opinion.
So, by and large, Murphy is confusing legislation with provision. A stupid argument to start with. However, there are things that the state needs to provide and therefore taxes need to be raised to fund them; defence, policing and justice, for example – and as I mentioned, I can live with education and health. But, to suggest that these things are the coffee and the private sector that funds them is merely froth is risible. The state sector with its quangos has burgeoned out of control. No longer are the private and public sectors symbiotic, the latter has become a malignant tumour feeding voraciously off the former. Radical surgery is needed. It is the public sector that needs trimming, not the private one. Without the private sector paying taxes, there would be no public sector. If anything, given the economic situation, the private sector needs to grow and suffer less punative taxation.
Richard Murphy likes to present himself as the reasonable voice of the middle ground. Reading this post, it is obvious that he is nothing of the sort – he is an extremist, peddling a brand of communism (the state is mother, the state is father – with apologies to Babylon 5), a deeply nasty, destructive and rightly failed ideology.
Thank fuck he is not my accountant.
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Update: Oh, and we Libertarians are like the BNP.
Further libertarian comments on this and other economic issues will be blocked for good reason – I do not think the discourse you offer any more acceptable to society than that of the BNP
Your concept of liberty, as is theirs, is one that is deliberately designed to harm – and would
I will not give it space
Cretin!
“Thank fuck he is not my accountant.”
Could he even make a living as an accountant? Surely anyone who Googled him would steer well clear!
.-= ´s last blog ..Yes, I Think I Would, Too… =-.
Great article, but one cannot be a libertarian AND be FOR the stealing of peoples moneyby a collective to finance a health service. Not only is that immoral, but every libertarian knows that only the market can create the most efficient and inexpensive services to he greatest number of people. Or maybe you do not mean a state run health provision funded by taxes?
It’s a compromise. I don’t know of any libertarians who believe that there should be no state – that would be anarchy. Given that there are some things we need to do collectively, the principles of raising taxes becomes a necessary evil. The discussion then becomes what should be funded and what should not. Here there will be differences of opinion. Defence and criminal justice tend to be a given.
Health and education are expensive services. I can afford health insurance and should I need it, school fees. What about these who are on, say, a minimum wage or have chronic health conditions and cannot access such insurance or pay expensive school fees?
The American system of social healthcare for those who cannot still has to be funded.
Given that, I’m inclined towards the educational voucher system often touted by the Devil’s Kitchen and a similar system for health. Yes, it ain’t pure libertarianism, but for these two issues, I can live with it. The world isn’t perfect and the market is not always the perfect solution – particularly when we talk about expensive services that will not necessarily turn a profit (think of your long-term terminal illness here, for example).
Ultimately, that’s why we have a public sector, to provide those things we collectively want but are not viable for the private sector to provide effectively at an affordable price.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that I won’t resent the moolah I hand over to hmrc next January, although that is in part because I know that the state will be pissing a large proportion of it up the wall, which is another matter.
It’s a compromise.
You cannot compromise on this and call yourself a Libertarian. You do not have the right to steal. You cannot pass a right you do not have to others so that they can steal on your behalf. Stealing is immoral and is always immoral; there is no distinction between an individual doing it and individuals banding together to do it. By compromising in this way, you break one of lynch pins of Libertarianism; the non aggression principle.
I don’t know of any Libertarians who believe that there should be no state
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ is as close as you will get to that.
– that would be anarchy.
The word ‘anarchy’ has been twisted to become a synonym for destructive chaos. The true meaning of anarchy in this context is entirely different and in fact, desirable. What is for certain is that a health service built on stolen money is NOT Libertarian at all.
Given that there are some things we need to do collectively, the principles of raising taxes becomes a necessary evil. The discussion then becomes what should be funded and what should not.
And this is the problem. Some people think its OK to steal to have a health service. Some people cannot imagine how roads would work without the state stealing money and ‘organizing’ everything. In the end, this boils down to a lack of rigor and imagination. People who cannot imagine living without the state stealing but who want to be Libertarians, ‘compromise’. Who decides what is and is not a necessary evil? Should it be decided by a vote? I think even you can see where that would lead. Evil is not necessary. It is the fallback position of the people who compromise. What is and is not moral cannot be decided on by a popular vote.
Here there will be differences of opinion. Defence and criminal justice tend to be a given.
And there is no reason why these should be funded by stolen money. There are many examples in theory of how both those objectives could be met without stealing. Some of them are outlined in the books you can find at http://www.mises.org.
Health and education are expensive services. I can afford health insurance and should I need it, school fees. What about these who are on, say, a minimum wage or have chronic health conditions and cannot access such insurance or pay expensive school fees?
First of all, you believe that there should be no minimum wage, obviously, if you are a Libertarian. Secondly, how these people get health care is a separate issue to that of the principle of non aggression and stealing. You cannot use this as a justification for stealing. See below for the issue of school fees.
The American system of social healthcare for those who cannot still has to be funded.
Once again, that is irrelevant.
Given that, I’m inclined towards the educational voucher system often touted by the Devil’s Kitchen and a similar system for health. Yes, it ain’t pure Libertarianism, but for these two issues, I can live with it.
Provision of education is not the business of the state, and neither is the provision of health care. As for you being able to ‘live with it’ what you are saying is that you are willing to rob other people so that you can feel good. This is not a personal attack obviously, but a statement of fact. While we are at it, everyone should now know that the state is terrible at running schools, and that standards are extremely low, to the point that the government has to compel universities to give places to poorly performing students from their prison like institutions. The same goes for health care. There are many stories of health care rationing (to take just one aspect of failure) that demonstrate how the state is completely inept.
The world isn’t perfect and the market is not always the perfect solution
The market is not perfect, but it is demonstrably always the most efficient way to deliver goods and services at the cheapest price to the greatest number of people. That is a fact. Wether or not the world is perfect is not relevant to stealing being wrong. Stealing is always wrong. Using force is when no aggression has been done to you is always wrong. Period.
– particularly when we talk about expensive services that will not necessarily turn a profit (think of your long-term terminal illness here, for example).
This is what insurance is for. Insurance in a truly free market can take care of everyone, and the rest who cannot afford the dirt cheap policies that would exist in a free market will be taken care of by charity.
Ultimately, that’s why we have a public sector, to provide those things we collectively want but are not viable for the private sector to provide effectively at an affordable price.
This is the Richard Murphy party line. Libertarians do not accept it, because it is an immoral and unthinking justification for theft.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that I won’t resent the moolah I hand over to hmrc next January, although that is in part because I know that the state will be pissing a large proportion of it up the wall, which is another matter.
Actually it is not at all another matter; it is the matter at hand. They are not ‘pissing it up the wall’ at all; if that were all they were doing with it, it might not be so totally offensive. The fact of the matter is that they are using your money to murder people in far flung places around the world, while the very services you compromise your principles for are being starved of the cash they need to fulfill their function. That is what is called adding insult to injury. On top of that, they print money and steal from your savings through inflation. Once again, stealing.
Great piece. I would have been a lot ruder about Mr Murphy. He’s an idiot.
.-= ´s last blog ..Art =-.
There is a big difference, both morally and from the standpoint of how likely it is to work, between the State funding a service, and the State providing a service. It’s at least arguable that in the absence of State funding of, e.g., schools, society as sovereign individuals would step in to fill the breach (prior to the State education system, school attendance rates were high and rising). But the truly malevolent aspect of the State education and healthcare systems is not that they are funded via taxation, but that the taxpayers being mulcted to fund them are given no more than a vestigial say in how they are implemented. They are entirely producer-run organisations. A voucher system would do nothing to solve this problem unless the running of schools and hospitals was thoroughly decoupled from government (and its rent-seeking hangers-on like the civil service and unions (among which I count the BMA)).
“This man wants to use taxes as some sort of punishment.”
Well, yes. He is a socialist. Confiscation from class enemies is the norm.
“I don’t know of any libertarians who believe that there should be no state – that would be anarchy.”
That was certainly Murray Rothbard’s position and he wasn’t afraid of the word ‘anarchy’. ‘The Ethics of Liberty’ is a must read for libertarians.
I do love the way that people close down any argument by calling anyone who disagrees a racist or similar; it says a great deal about the writer.
.-= ´s last blog ..The deteriorating state of UK public finances =-.
The State doesn’t provide anything. It may organise health, education, defence etc but it is the private sector that pays for it.
What does he think would happen if we all fucked off and refused to play anymore?
.-= ´s last blog ..Holiday Musing #1: Labour’s Old Age Insurance Plans =-.