Rob, you’ve just not done the work required to entitle you to be so dismissive of Dan’s position(s).

And I’m inclined to side with Dan on the rights to exist question as it has been constructed. Whilst we do deny people rights to exit in all sorts of other circumstances (incidentally none of which, Rob, you have specified), it doesn’t thereby follow that there is no problem with denying people the right to leave a country and settle elsewhere, should they so choose.

I don’t think you need to be a libertarian to conclude that denying people the right to exit/end their citizenship and residency is very, very worrying: Dan calls it “slavery” because of the apparent economic motivations for keeping those people within a given territory. I’m not sure I want to endorse the underlying libertarian thoughts. So I’ll just stick with “unjustifiable imprisonment”.

I have no idea what proposition this is supposed to express, it seems to be missing a verb.

No, it was never denied that private property rights are a form of power, never

Oh, you mean where I said “In some sense, sure, the wealthy are more powerful than the poor,” or “I see the kind of power that money brings (in the absence of a state) as far less invidious than the power official positions bring” (note, “far less invidious,” not “non-existent”) or even when I approvingly quoted Hayek as saying “What is called economic power, while it can be an instrument of coercion…”

You clearly have a bit of a chip on your shoulder about libertarians, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to spout bullshit and mischaracterize what people have actually said.

The point I was making was that we deny people rights to exit from morally required arrangements all the time. Even libertarians think that you can’t simply refuse to participate in schemes of mutual respect for each others rights, for example. So I don’t see why denying a right to exit – which of course wouldn’t have to be done in as militaristic a manner as the Berlin Wall did: other border arrangements have existed – is so problematic.

Of course the difference is that a libertarian scheme of rights only entails *negative* duties, those of refraining from interference with persons and their justly acquired property. There is a huge gulf between forcing people not to interfere with others, and forcing people to stay inside a country against their will to coerce them to work in order to benefit others. The former is entirely reasonable and a precondition of civilized society; the latter is morally abhorrent and on a par with slavery.

If you really feel this way, I’m puzzled why you would be the first to bring it up. That the Berlin Wall was a restriction on the freedom of East Germans does not exactly require any controversial theory of freedom now, does it?

re 3) Yes, freedom of exit is huge in Locke. Indeed, it underpins his entire theory of consent (which is nowhere near as silly as has often been said or implied) and also has a lot to do with the extent to which he thinks there are enough unowned resources to go around for a labour-mixing theory of property to work…but this is because he is operating with a great big “unclaimed” wilderness called America in his thought (America was “unclaimed” cos Indians didn’t labour-mix, they moved around, and hence it was fair-game for the white man; this is a massive hole in Locke’s thinking, obviously, as it basically led to one of the justifications for genocide). But basically, Locke thinks: if you don’t like it here under the King of England, off to the State of Nature which is America with you, where you can be your own king and mix your labour with the resources on offer to establish your entitlements etc etc. So, incidentally, a lot of Locke’s thought isn’t directly applicable to the modern world because America is now a nation state with most things claimed under existing legal property rights. But yes, if you call yourself a “Classical Liberal” it is inexcusable not to have read the Second Treatise! (Even if you weren’t this way inclined politically, it’s a truly fantastic piece of work that anyone with an interest in political thought should read).

This is partly why I can’t see your “rise of the corporations, marginalization of the state” story coming true

If I said marginalisation (I can’t be bothered to check if I did), then I shouldn’t have. The story I want to tell/predict is much more complex than the state being marginalised by corporations. I’m thinking about dramatic changes in the way entire power structures are composed. I don’t equate this with the state being “marginalised”, necessarily. Your analysis has a lot in it that I agree with. (Incidentally, a slightly silly comparison, but The Corporation in the first two Alien films, which is monolithic and represents some ungodly hybrid of the totalitarian state and the monopolistic mega-corporation represents one possibility of what I’m driving at, though obviously real-world analysis will be much more nuanced than a Sci Fi film, lol).

Confusing as it may be to leftists, this is why big business is often the biggest cheerleader for more regulation: they realize that their increased size allows them to handle the fixed costs of regulation better than their smaller competitors, and they recognize that their political clout will enable them to influence the content of that regulation to work out in their favour even while giving the external impression of ‘government getting tough on business’.”

I guess I agree with this to a large extent, actually, but have a reservation to make: mega corporations advocate specific kinds of regulation which they use to squeeze out competition – but that also means lobbying against regulation that would actually have a negative impact upon them. So the leftists may still be right at root: more regulation is needed – but they get lost along the way and miss the nuances that you point to regarding what kinds of regulation, and how it is enacted and targetted, are required.

As usual, blanket calls – in this case, “more regulation!” – aren’t helpful or productive for the goals motivating the calls.

I’m actually getting really interested in this side of stuff: we have a lot of common ground here, and I think that’s significant re the scope and nature of the problem being faced (and the fact that many aren’t even spotting the problem implies to me that this is a key dimension of it)

1) Oops, sorry bout that.

2) Yeah I didn’t mean to come across like that – “reasonably smart” is me being effusive. As for finals marks, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…

3) They will probably take away my libertarian membership card for saying this, but no I have never read the whole thing. I didn’t even realize he emphasized freedom of exit – might have to pop down the library…

4) Can’t for the life of me work out who Robbie is, but if you mean the Hayek quote (which as far as I can tell is the only thing I quoted), it’s from the Road to Serfdom, Ch 10.

So, bailing out the banks = increasing the size of the state? Because it rests on the introduction of more regulation? Where, exactly, is this new regulation??

I meant the cries from the left of “more regulation!” – you’re right, though, that to a substantial extent it hasn’t come through. I like to distinguish between the scope of the state, roughly the areas of life within which it is in primary control, and its size. And the bailouts have increased both, as far as I can tell: the sheer cost of the billions which have been funnelled to the banks, and the unprecedented control and influence of the government in the banking sector (i.e. in the US, a ‘pay czar’ setting the wages of publicly subsidized banks). Now a lot of folks on the left reflexively cheer at any furthering of government involvement in the economy, but they shouldn’t. The idea that once big business and big government get deeper into bed together, they are suddenly going to turn around and start making life better for the little guys is depressingly popular and incredibly naive. It is not true now, and there is a substantial literature showing that it was never true (i.e. Gabriel Kolko’s, a historian with impeccable leftist credentials, book about the New Deal, *The Triumph of Conservatism*).

This is partly why I can’t see your “rise of the corporations, marginalization of the state” story coming true. The truth is that large corporations fear nothing more than competition: they are well aware that in a competitive market, their market position is highly precarious and liable to be overturned at any moment by a smaller and more vigorous rival. Hence, they use their size and influence to lobby the state for special protections and privileges and to erect barriers to entry. Confusing as it may be to leftists, this is why big business is often the biggest cheerleader for more regulation: they realize that their increased size allows them to handle the fixed costs of regulation better than their smaller competitors, and they recognize that their political clout will enable them to influence the content of that regulation to work out in their favour even while giving the external impression of ‘government getting tough on business’. Mega corporations, with the exception of the small few who are genuinely competitive and would remain so in a freed market, cannot maintain their market position without massive state support, which is why I am sceptical that one will ever be able to thrive without the other.

am off for a while now

can’t be bothered editing

Sorry your comment got caught in the spam net.

1. Don’t confuse me with that po-faced, lilly-livered sissy known as Peter (Hawkins), thank you very much.

2. “precisely the kind of thing I was looking for”, oh good, i’m glad you are pleased. You are being rather condensending today, I must say. In light of having met your criteria, do I get upgraded from “reasonably smart” to “smart” now? :P (Oh, my competitive side really wants to be juvenile and start comparing final honours scores…:P)

3. Re freedom of exit. You are such a bloody Lockean. Not just the entitlements stuff, but freedom to go elsewhere and start anew…please tell me you’ve read the second treatise? If not, you are in for a treat….

4. Got a reference/link for ‘ol Robbie’s essay?

Re your comments to Tom:

Tom, like I said, Dan is a mentalist so be careful. Especially given that he’s a very intelligent and eloquent mentalist. Don’t get sucked in by his siren song (and remember you’re at a disadvantage cos Dan’s just finished 3 years of Oxfrod and from your comments on the other thread, I take it you are about to embark on the University “experience”

Though Dan, this:

Stuff like bailing out bankers offends me deeply, but what a lot of folks on the left don’t appear to understand is that by simply ceding more powers to the state, adding more layers of regulation, and putting up ever greater barriers to entry, the mutual interconnectedness between big business and big government gets ever larger and meanwhile the worst off in society do not even get a look in.

is an interesting maneouvre.

So, bailing out the banks = increasing the size of the state? Because it rests on the introduction of more regulation? Where, exactly, is this new regulation??

Nah, I have a different take (see post on Lehman’s): we’re moving into an era where the state gets marginalised. Mega corporations are increasingly in the ascendency.

Interestingly, I think we may find increasing common ground as these buggers grow…