The Myth of the Rational Blogger
A couple of months ago on Facebook, Radley Balko accused me of being especially avid to “bash libertarians” since my “conversion.” I love Radley, but my first reaction was, “Cripes. Wouldn’t I have to actually blog now and then to do that?” All of which preamble ends in: In for a penny, in for a pound.
I thought a few days ago, I’d respond soberly and generously to Henry Farrell’s query about “why are so many libertarians opposed to fair trade coffee?” The early commenters on his thread can’t see any reason that isn’t malign, which is a shame. It starts with the truth that there are gains from trade, and gains from trade are not just frequently unappreciated; gains from trade are ironic. Adam Smith has the pithy summation:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
And, you know, that works. We can and do have big arguments about how sufficient a condition action on behalf of self-interest is, but it’s certainly a necessary one in many, many cases. And my fellow pwoggles can swear up and down that of course we understand the importance of markets and value free enterprise, and there’s a lot of truth to that, but the world does not lack for people who don’t understand and value and so on, and libertarians run into a lot of them, particularly in youth.
And the thing is, it feels good to recognize something that other people don’t. And once you notice an irony of that scope, and if you think about it it’s a huge scope indeed, you start expecting to find it everywhere. I am speaking from first-hand knowledge here! So something like Fair Trade will seem like it should be the kind of thing where there must be a catch. Here are people trying to act out of benevolence and still getting dinner! It would make perfect sense – and be a lot of fun! – if these do-gooders were actually doing harm.
But by this point, you can start getting lazy. Like, assuming that fair-traders must be screwing up “price signals” that are the market’s way of telling poor foreign farmers to stop farming. Which is a great argument if those poor foreign farmers are operating in a genuine free market, but, really, most coffee is grown in Africa and Latin America. So, just how genuine and free are those markets likely to be? It’s especially . . . ironic to make this particular anti-fair-trade argument if you also use words like “socialism” to cover everything from unemployment insurance to nutrition-labeling. Plus, whatever happened to the sacred principle that anything is worth exactly what someone else will pay for it, no more and no less. If enough people are willing to pay “fair trade” prices to make it worth other people working on “fair trade” farms, how is that not itself – and here I’m being perfectly serious – the magic of the market?
Where I was going with that when planning out the post is, if one isn’t careful, the appreciation of the ironic power of self-interest to fulfill social needs can slide into, first credulity – there’s got to be an irony in here somewhere! meaning, almost anywhere – and then decadence: mere contrarianism. At worst, contrarianism that isn’t just sloppy but smug: proud of itself for asserting ironical, “politically incorrect” claims that widely recognized beliefs and decencies are actually myths and vices. Tee hee! Look how upset everyone gets when I tell them how wrong they are to hold their comforting nostrums!
Thanks to the miracle of timing, Bryan Caplan has provided the perfect illustration. As many of his own commenters note, his “argument” that
Women of the Gilded Age were very poor compared to women today. But from a libertarian standpoint, they were freer than they are on Sex and the City.
has essentially no non-stupid aspects, neither in sum nor in parts. One commenter does try to “out-Caplan Caplan” by noting that “As horrific as spousal rape might be, isn’t that just another issue like coverture that could have conceivably been contracted around?” You’ve got to love the suggestion that spousal rape might be “horrific.” And don’t you wonder why the silly bitches didn’t think of that contract against spousal rape thing? Only, damn, other commenters offer reasons why this objection is . . . also stupid.
But hovering over it all is a doubt I just can’t shake: had Caplan even heard of this “coverture” stuff until Will Wlkinson brought it up? If he had, surely his argument would indicate familiarity a range of citations beyond Wikipedia and eHow. (Plus a couple of links to – Bryan Caplan!) Jason Kuznicki has to gently point out that “The article you cite from eHow is simply mistaken . . . “
Obviously I’m assuming something here, which means I’m making an “A” of “SS” and “UME,” and maybe Caplan is wearing his extensive learning in 19th-Century history – and a massive library of well-thumbed volumes in that topic – very, very lightly. But I doubt that an Intrade contract on the proposition would fetch much of a price.
Like Alanis, libertarians like Caplan – by no means all libertarians – start seeing “irony” everywhere it isn’t, even in their own belief systems. (Married women in 19th Century America couldn’t own property of their own. And this was the ultimate libertarian freedom!) Ironically, most of their ironies aren’t ironic. On the other hand, Caplan is clearly, on some level, a really smart guy. Who can make the absolute stupidest arguments going. Which is, um.
Comment by bill —
April 12, 2010 @ 11:51 pm
What did you convert to? Islam?
Comment by Ginger —
April 13, 2010 @ 12:06 am
Caplan’s arguments are so facilely stupid that it’s hard to pick a place to dig in on how wrong he is.
That post was beneath contempt. You don’t have to be a libertarian to think libertarianism deserves better.
Comment by Carlos —
April 13, 2010 @ 12:07 am
Wilkinson’s argument looks familiar.
Our current system of political discourse, from talk radio to academic journal articles, incentivizes contrarianism in order to gain a greater audience. Is it any surprise that so many people have reified contrarianism into a positive value in its own right?
I almost wish that our system used other forms of promotion in the “marketplace of ideas,” such as sexualized advertising or collectible prizes. While unseemly, I doubt our republic would perish from an excess of softcore or tchotchkes.
(Yes, I know “incentivizes” is an ugly word, but it’s very convenient.)
Comment by Noumenon —
April 13, 2010 @ 4:31 am
I used to read Kaplan’s blogs just in the hope that dsquared would show up and tell him how stupid he was. Soooo stupid.
Comment by Joe Strummer —
April 13, 2010 @ 7:11 am
Yes. And beautifully written.
Comment by Joe Strummer —
April 13, 2010 @ 7:21 am
To add to that, I spent a lot of my 20s, and still frequently fall into the habit of, looking for the catch. What conventional wisdom must be wrong because someone’s missing the “catch”. The catch being, usually, some incentive problem that – in many cases – libertarianism helps indicate.
This can be tiresome to loved ones, who sometimes just want to listen to the news or conventional wisdom, and then go on with their lives. I’m getting better at not disturbing their peace. I’ve stopped yelling at Michelle Norris or Steve Inskeep. I swear!
I don’t ever think I want to lose that spirit of contrarianism. But rote contrarianism – of the kind practiced by libertarians – deserves its own huge heaping dose of contrarianism, and that contrarianism deserves its own. An ouroboros.
Many libertarians just stop at the first stage, whether out of laziness or because they work at places where the first stage is all that is required to keep the donors happy.
That’s a shame. But freed, as I am, from at least the second constraint… I don’t have to.
Comment by Gene Callahan —
April 13, 2010 @ 8:47 am
‘A couple of months ago on Facebook, Radley Balko accused me of being especially avid to “bash libertarians” since my “conversion.”’
Phrased a bit less accusingly, there would be nothing remarkable about this: an error from which one has just freed oneself is prominent in one’s thoughts; one is likely to be acutely aware of the error when one encounters it again, and one will voice the very same criticisms, fresh-in-the-mind criticisms of the error that were the very reason one abandoned it oneself.
Comment by Gene Callahan —
April 13, 2010 @ 8:52 am
Sorry, got a little wordy there at the end. Sleepy.
Comment by Ceri B. —
April 13, 2010 @ 9:12 am
Gene, that was well put.
Joe, very well put about “the catch”, and the rewards of looking for and finding it.
I like these things that help identify shapes in the landscape of thought.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 13, 2010 @ 9:52 am
First, radley should know that libertarians argue with libertarians at least as much as non-libertarians do.
Second, even if one’s knowledge of libertarians is limited to stereotypes, we would never consider a woman free if she can’t own property. We night consider her unfree if she has to pay a minimum wage to the people who work on her property, but she has to be able to own the property. Basic Libertarian Stereotypes 101.
Comment by mb —
April 13, 2010 @ 10:15 am
Um, who are these libertarians who “oppose fair trade coffee”? How do they “oppose” it? Do they think anyone should be prohibited from making, selling, or buying it? Or do they just voice some (possibly mistaken) doubts about its efficacy in helping poor people? Should they just shut up and accept that because some earnest people believe something is a good idea, it must be? Do you think this is true of, say, foreign policy or the War on Drugs? Do you believe it’s impossible for good, earnest people such as yourself to ever have bad, even extremely harmful, ideas? Are those pesky, contrarian libertarians — all 26 of us — the source of all the world’s evils, or just most of them?
Comment by Barry —
April 13, 2010 @ 10:18 am
Jim, the obvious reason is hippie-bashing, which is a right-wing hobby.
Comment by Russell L. Carter —
April 13, 2010 @ 10:20 am
I think this bit of introspection, both in the nicely written post and in #6, also nicely put, can be shortened up considerably:
The practice of identifying “the catch” or “the irony” of people (perhaps unconsciously) arguing disingenuously in their own self interest can itself be a method of (perhaps unconsciously) arguing disingenuously in your own self interest.
And, it’s turtles all the way down.
Comment by David —
April 13, 2010 @ 10:42 am
Jim, the obvious reason is hippie-bashing, which is a right-wing hobby.
That would be my “ass of you and me” making assumption as well. People will twist themselves into all sorts of logical knots to disagree with people they hate.
Comment by hilzoy —
April 13, 2010 @ 11:31 am
Opposition to Fair Trade Coffee: I cite some of it here:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/12/more_on_boycott.html
Pingback by Except for blacks. And women. And natives. And … uh, never mind. « The Edge of the American West —
April 13, 2010 @ 11:58 am
[...] been ably met by the appropriate choruses of “are you high?’ Because you’re leaving out African Americans, and women, and [...]
Comment by justinslot —
April 13, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
I love your random run-ins, hilzoy. It’s nice to know you’re still out there watching over us.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 13, 2010 @ 12:30 pm
Dunno. How many of those “libertarians” are pinkos and Team Red folk trying to re-brand? Easy test: how comfortable are they with a private ambulance that included a prominent painted ichthys or five?
I imagine much of that is because when you do blog, it’s either to say
1) Libertarians suck and are dumb.
2) Team Blue is weak and cowardly.
I have to admit, since your self-described shift to “the left”, I’ve actually gotten a little curious about your new political outlook beyond “libertarians bad” and “left lame”.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 13, 2010 @ 1:08 pm
That is ableist language
Comment by mb —
April 13, 2010 @ 1:46 pm
Hilzoy –
In that post, did you actually name a single libertarian who “opposes” fair trade coffee, much less one who opposes it in the sense that liberals oppose trans fats?
Comment by David —
April 13, 2010 @ 1:57 pm
Where’s Randina? I’m certain that he’d find a way to oppose it.
Comment by mb —
April 13, 2010 @ 2:17 pm
Oh, and before anyone retorts that buying fair trade coffee and eating trans fats are not the same thing — duh — the point I’m making is that when libertarians “oppose” some non-coercive activity, whether it be buying fair trade coffee or wearing Che Guevara T-shirts or behaving boorishly or whatever, it’s very different from when liberals and conservatives oppose something. When libertarians “oppose” such things, they don’t typically mean that “there oughta be a law.” Kind of a significant difference.
Comment by Patrick D —
April 13, 2010 @ 3:55 pm
Aside from Gene’s logic point, bashing your previous tribe is not unusual behavior. The small number of libertarians I associate with are former Democrats. One of them worked on the Dukakis campaign. Even at the height of the Bush/Cheney insanity I found myself defending the Democrats against their pretty vicious attacks.
Other factors may be that they grew up in “blue” regions and currently live in a “deep blue” one. Maybe they just didn’t have enough exposure to Republicans to hold a grudge against them also.
Not sure you’ve made a conversion yet, Jim, but you are certainly on a journey. Interesting to observe. Out of curiosity, were you “born” a libertarian or did you “convert”? If you were a convert, did you convert because you were attracted to the ideals or kind of end up there after being disillusioned with something else?
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
April 13, 2010 @ 10:11 pm
I find the news that you’re on Facebook more shocking than the news of your conversion.
Comment by Jesse Walker —
April 13, 2010 @ 11:08 pm
Jim doesn’t post on Facebook much, but he posts there far more frequently than he posts here. (Speaking of which: Happy anniversary!)
Anyway, there’s two reasons why libertarians attack Fair Trade coffee:
1. A category error that confuses certain sorts of activity within the market for activity outside it. Charles Johnson (Rad Geek, not LGF) blogs about this a lot. It’s the same sort of error that leads some libertarians to assume that “community organizing” is innately oppressive or that unions must inevitably be arms of the state.
2. A belief that Fair Trade coffee doesn’t accomplish what it’s supposed to accomplish. Kerry Howley quotes some people who believe that in this article.
#1 is not defensible. #2 is, though obviously the specifics are debatable.
Note: Reason #1 does not mean “They oppose it because they don’t like hippies.” You can love hippies to death and still commit the same error. I should have tried to rein in this whole hippie-hating cliché during the Randal O’Toole debate, if only because I know Randal and he pretty much is a hippie. But better late than never.
Comment by de stijl —
April 14, 2010 @ 3:24 am
Farmers markets, like Fair Trade coffee, also tends to draw the non-coercive ire of many libertarians. I don’t get the hate.
I put it down to the ever-popular obligatory hippie punching.
Does Reason still do the monthly “Why Farmers Markets Suck” post?
Comment by b-psycho —
April 14, 2010 @ 10:34 am
Funny enough, I love farmers markets & wish there were more of them. Primarily for taste reasons though: realizing the problem with mass agribiz doesn’t control what I eat, what I like to eat does.
Comment by Jim Henley —
April 14, 2010 @ 10:35 am
Oddly enough, I was just reading a new Joel Salatin column with the title, more or less, “What the Foodshed Movement Can Learn from the Big-Box Stores.”