Friendly fire: Fire edition
By Thoreau
To prove that I don’t just aim my fire at Democrats, allow me to aim some friendly fire at libertarians.
Some people out there are concerned that a chemical seeing greater use in automobiles may cause fires that are difficult to put out. This is being reported at Reason, and I’m sure that they’ll offer the key libertarian insights on this: Don’t worry, the market will decide on good fire-fighting technologies for dealing with this problem, and insurance companies will price the risk, enabling the market to fairly and efficiently allocate risk. Besides, if you’re really worried about this, the best approach is to privatize fire departments so that they can respond to market incentives to develop better fire-fighting technologies, and also remove the public guarantee of protection that encourages risky behavior.
Standard libertarian gospel.
Oh, wait, they aren’t. They’re offering it as an argument against ethanol fuel.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of ethanol fuel (or at least not ethanol fuel from subsidized corn). And I’m not even sure that I would always agree with the Standard Libertarian Gospel on industrial and consumer product hazards. Still, it’s just kind of funny to see my fellow libertarians using “Oh no! Somebody might get hurt!” as an argument against a chemical additive. Seriously, this is the best we can do? Not even some token “Well, the public sector fire-fighting bureaucracies will be too short-sighted to respond to this effectively, yet another wing of the state subsidizes it anyway, once again illustrating the inefficiency of Leviathan”?
Finally, just let me say that whatever my issues with some of Katherine Mangu-Ward’s posts I love her use of graphics, and I also like her food blogging. Good stuff.
EDIT: A good point is made in comments. I am being sarcastic about people not doing things that I would usually be sarcastic about. I guess my basic point here is that most of the folks at Reason would generally argue (quite correctly) that “OMG! Somebody might get hurt!” is not a strong argument. Different libertarians may supplement that insight with additional ideas that one may or may not agree with (e.g. “And obviously if it’s dangerous then the market will ensure that….” etc.) but that basic point is one of widespread agreement.
However, when the product in question is one that many libertarians (myself included!) have some (reasonable) qualms about, suddenly “OMG! Somebody might get hurt!” is acceptable. I guess it all depends on whose ox is getting corn-holed.
So, the short version of what I want to say is this: If “OMG! Somebody might get hurt!” is an inherently weak argument against other chemicals, it’s an inherently weak argument against subsidized ethanol as well. Stick to the stronger arguments against subsidized ethanol.
EDIT II: Perhaps the real point of Katherine’s post was just to show a picture of a flaming cocktail. In which case I obviously approve.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
While I tend to think all the bleating about your disturbing lack of faith in the Blues is laughable…this post is kinda, as the kids say, full of fail.
Because, well, I see what looks like sarcasm, but you’re being sarcastic about folks not fitting the pattern you’re usually sarcastic about them meeting…and, shades of some of your sarcastic comments in global warming threads some time back, I’ve lost track of what your point might actually be.
Maybe if you put in a wordy, passive-aggressive disclaimer?
Comment by Thoreau —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
I’m being sarcastic about the highly selective concern. Why is “OMG! Somebody might get hurt!” a good enough argument here, but in other contexts it’s trumped by “Of course, the market will respond…”?
Highly selective concern from people claiming to advocate for ideas rather than constituencies always irks me.
Comment by Timothy —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
I think Eric’s right that her post might be sarcastic. I’m more concerned about the “close cousin of the alcohol used in flaming drinks” line at the start of the piece. Come on, Katherine, learn your organic solvents!
Comment by GinSlinger —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
I read it as more of, “OMG! more public expenses will be yoked to us in the name of ethanol.” I point to the fact that she included in the quote that ethanol-fighting foam is more expensive than traditional foam.
Or, maybe I’m just being too kind on KMW.
Comment by lunchstealer —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Wait, the loops of sarcasm are starting to make my head spin. I didn’t think that KMW was using it so much as an argument against ethanol as snark about unintended consequences of government ethanol mandates. I mean, nobody came out and said that, but that was certainly the context in which I interpreted it.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
By whom, precisely? Mangu-Ward (she’s a libertarian since…?) or specific people in the comments? No offense, but a long-ass, blithering H&R thread isn’t something I care to trudge into without landmarks.
Further, just on the point raised, isn’t there some libertarian idea about “unintended consequences” or something like that, with regards to government actions (like, oh, those promoting ethanol) smashing into the real world?
Comment by Thoreau —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
OK, that’s fair.
I still think she blogged it just to include a picture of a flaming cocktail. This is, after all, the blogger who brought us Lobster Girl.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 3, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
Just to be clear, I wasn’t talking about M-W’s post – I’m still not even clear on whom specifically Thoreau was snarking on, aside from “Mangu-Ward and/or some unknown number of other people among the glob of dipshit Reds, much rarer dipshit Blues, and increasingly minority libertarian commenters on H&R”.
Really, Thoreau, leave the omni-snarking to the Blue fanboys who want to be sarcastic to any given libertarian no matter what he or she says.
Comment by Timothy —
March 3, 2008 @ 6:02 pm
Let’s all just enjoy some 40% ethyl alcohol solution on the rocks, eh?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 3, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Seriously, Thoreau, what the Hell?
You don’t see any difference whatsoever between “Someone might get hurt! BAN THIS!” and “Hey, this thing the government’s foisting on us – someone might get hurt by it!”?
I don’t know about you, but nobody said I had to surrender my brain and the ability to perceive risk and danger in order to get my little decoder ring.
Comment by Bob Weber —
March 3, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
I was one of the responders to the H&R post. I pointed out that, indeed, “the market will handle it”, but that the flammability argument was specious. Alcohol fires CAN be extinguished with water. I should also have pointed out that you can’t judge a hazard without context: the question should be, “compared to what?” Any alcohol fire is much easier to put out than a fire with a comparable quantity of gasoline.
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
March 4, 2008 @ 9:56 am
most of the folks at Reason would generally argue (quite correctly) that “OMG! Somebody might get hurt!†is not a strong argument.
If you don’t mind humoring the non-libertarian in the audience: what, exactly, is wrong with the argument that “Somebody might get hurt”? When an especially dangerous product is out there that can easily be replaced with a less-dangerous or even non-dangerous substitute, I don’t want to wait to see how many people have to get killed, injured, poisoned, etc. until The Market™ figures out this product is a bad idea.
Comment by Leonard —
March 4, 2008 @ 10:59 am
There are two things wrong with it. One is a libertarian argument that I leave for later, since it may not appeal to you as a non. The other is utilitarian, which is I guess what your framework is.
Pain is not the be-all and end-all of politics. People are motivated by more than avoiding pain, for example: having fun. Or ease of living, or being a particular kind of person.
Pain is one of many negative consequences that can result from human action. However there are also, typically, many positive consequences, which is why the action was performed to begin with. If you attempt to weigh these off, but you look at only the negative consequences, then you’ll determine that everything should be banned.
When you write as follows: “an especially dangerous product … that can easily be replaced with a … non-dangerous substitute” you are creating a strawman. Name such a product. I can, of course, name some which are illegal already. But I can think of no products on the market at all which are unusually dangerous even when superior, easy replacements exist.
If you do find an action that has only negative consequences, and no positive ones whatsoever, for anyone, and which is still being done because The Market(tm) has not figured it out, please let me know and I will recant my view of markets as essentially rational.
The 2nd argument is a libertarian one. In our world, there are limits to what we should do to each other: no coercion. That includes coercing each other as individuals, of course, which everyone thinks is wrong. But also via the state. If realizing an end requires violating those limits, then we must abjure it, even though it is otherwise attractive. In other words, I may think that something “should” be banned, but yet, I have no moral way to effect a ban on it.
Consider a case where your sister is hooked on drugs. They are dangerous, being bought on a black market with no way to bring suit for impurity. They can easily be replaced with nothing, a non-dangerous substitute. But your sister, curse her, continues in her habit because she perversely believes that she enjoys it. You can prevent her from scoring only by locking her up. Do you?
I hope not. In any case, I hope you can see that some people would not, not because they want their sister hooked on drugs, but because they believe the evil of imprisonment is worse than the evil of drug addiction.