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October 12, 2005

Freedom, Governance and Emergent Behavior

Many would argue — do argue, in fact, loudly, self-righteously and continually — that government not only can but should determine the nature of society. And by determining the nature of society, what they really mean is controlling the behavior of individuals: society is a myth, a convenient abstraction.

If "society" wrongs you, to whom do you turn to complain? How does "society" act to enforce its will? How does "society" even express its will? If you wish to plead with "society", to whom do you go with your plea? In each case, the only possible answers are direct and unfettered democracy, meaning that the mob expresses the opinions of society and it is to the mob you must go for justice, or tyranny, meaning that the government is the arbiter of all that happens and will take care of you, you poor deluded person thinking you know what's best for yourself.

We find our self edging more and more towards a strange combination of the two: the mob pushing the government, which then overacts and compels obedience. Take, for example, MADD's effort (apparently successful) to get the state of Texas to arrest people who are not driving drunk, in an attempt to further reduce drunk driving. Here we have an unreasoning and unreasonable demand, arising from moral self-suredness, that the government act to control individual behavior that is otherwise legal, to avoid the risk of later illegal behavior. If that is not a tyrannical act, I don't know what is. And yet this effort will pass almost unnoticed, along with the numerous other tyrannies, petty or outlandish, that government has foisted on the American public over the last seventy years.

The government is best which governs least. — Thomas Jefferson

For many years, I've noted (some would say "preached") that the role of government is not to form society, but to create a safe environment in which society could form itself. That government in a free country cannot effectively control society is evident from two facts: individuals are perverse, and the government is not ubiquitous. You cannot change the essential nature of people, as the various philosophical dead ends of the twentieth century (the pure Aryan, the New Soviet Man, etc) have amply shown, and were the government ubiquitous you would no longer have a free country, since the effect of government is forcible control.

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. — Frederic Bastiat

Let's look at the government efforts to change human behavior. There have been numerous attempts, even an all-encompassing "war on poverty", to raise people's economic status so that no one is poor. Yet for most of the time that this effort has been being actively undertaken, true poverty has been a rarity in the US: it only exists where individual will is weak. Think of how often lottery winners end up, a few years later, broke and miserable. Why is this? Because it is generally the poor who play the lottery, and the poor generally are poor because they make bad decisions. A person with money who makes bad decisions soon ends up poor again. Similarly, the many efforts at welfare created generations of people whose entire incentive was to not work, not put forth anything more than their hand, and those people sank into a deeper poverty (materially and morally) than they were in prior to welfare, despite being essentially given money. What fixed the problem? Welfare reform, where the amount of welfare you could receive was time limited. What has happened to those who have left the welfare rolls? In general, their material and moral wealth have both increased. Welfare is still necessary in some transitional cases, but by ending welfare as a permanent condition, by removing the power of government to control, human dignity and wealth as well as individual freedom have been increased.

Or let's look at the "war on [some] drugs". Here again, the government saw something intrinsically bad (people destroying their lives through drug abuse) and decided to "do something" (the universal rallying cry of would-be tyrants). Here, the government decided that simply making the drugs commercially unavailable would be sufficient to get people to take care of themselves. Well, we all know how that worked out, yes? But what interests me about the war on drugs is not the unconstitutionality of it, its creation of a black market, its probable effect in increasing drug use and certain effect in increasing drug-related violence and property crimes, nor even the naive belief that it's possible for the government, without becoming a police state, to prevent a product in demand from being supplied. No, what interests me most about this is simply that, past the first few hits, there is no benefit in drug use for the user. There are numerous drawbacks, of course, to one's financial state, family, friends, wealth, and so on. But once the pleasure is gone, which is very short-lived, from what I understand, there are no benefits.

Both of these illustrate the perversity of human nature: some people — a frighteningly large number of people — are simply willing to act against their best interests as others perceive them. Why is this? What do they get from staying poor or drug-ridden? I can only hazard a guess, because I cannot truly understand that frame of mind. My guess, based on observation, is that what such people long for is an escape from responsibility for themselves and their lives. If you are poor, others must take care of you; if you are drug-ridden, you cannot control yourself. In fact, it seems to me that this attempt to avoid personal responsibility pervades most of the attempts inexorably to extend the nanny state into our wallets and minds (from the Left) and our bedrooms and souls (from the Right).

But the "war on drugs" also illustrates the propensity for government to slip into tyranny. If, despite all of our efforts to control people, they still treat themselves badly, the answer must be ... more government attempts to control people. If you cannot eradicate a destructive behavior like using drugs by making the product illegal, then you can bend all other means of control towards punishing everyone involved in the trade, even where that has perverse outcomes. My "favorite" perverse outcome is the zero-tolerance law that would deprive you of your property if someone stole it from you and then used drugs on it. (I recall cases of people having their cars or boats stolen and taken for a joyride, and when the police found the vehicles and arrested the drugged up thief, they would then confiscate and auction off the property because it had been used in a drug crime. No, I'm not kidding.)

The same thing is happening with drunk driving. Moral suasion was insufficient to end drunk driving. Making drunk driving illegal and subject to punitive action cut down drunk driving, but didn't eliminate it. Increasing the penalties probably didn't even cut down drunk driving. Tightening the laws so that even non-drivers in a vehicle could not be drinking didn't fix the problem. But we're not done yet; oh, no! Reducing the availability of alcohol didn't fix it. Reducing the level of alcohol in the blood considered "drunk" didn't fix it. Prohibition of alcohol by the Federal government is unconstitutional¹, and dry-county laws don't help because you can get alcohol in the next county over. But perhaps if we arrest people for drinking in bars, yeah, that'll do it. All we have to do is government unrestricted power, and it can solve anything, right?

But even then, the perversity of human nature rears its grip: tyrannies are uniformly corrupt. (Indeed, one of the major flaws of the computer game Civilization was that corruption disappeared under Communism, which is blatantly counter-historical.) If the government has the power to control all, those who want the control to pass them by, or to hit their opponents or enemies, have ample incentive to bribe officials. And in a tyrannical government, officials have ample incentive to be bribed: even a tyranny cannot be everywhere at once, so why not take money for not doing what you didn't have the resources to do anyway? But of course, this is a downward spiral, that ends with true power being exercised by those who are the most corrupt and the most ruthless. What was that about the road to Hell and good intentions?

The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. — Star Wars

But if government cannot force people to act in society's best interests (or, for the well-intentioned fools, in their own best interest) with any consistency, then how can you possibly form a good and just society that will last more than a generation? Oddly enough, we already have the recipe, and it contains only two ingredients: individual liberty, and personal responsibility.

The first is laid out in John Locke's Second Treatise of Government, from 1690, which can be summed up as "life, liberty and property", and was slightly expanded upon in the Declaration of Independence with the realization that property was only one part of a larger need: the pursuit of happiness. When individuals are allowed to act in their own interest, they will sometimes fail to do so (that is part of the perversity of human nature), but as a whole they will produce a better society than if their actions are constrained. Not only are free people better able to perceive their interests locally, but the interaction of those local interests creates a series of beneficial emergent behaviors.

Dr. Von recently posted on emergent behavior (hat tip: Mark Safranski), so I won't go into it too much here. But there are two instances of emergent behavior that I would like to mention. The first is insect colonies, and the second is the working of a market economy.

Insect colonies, particularly ants and bees, exhibit an incredibly complex and intelligent behavior pattern, yet the individuals that make up the colony have essentially no intelligence, only a simple set of rules for their behavior. But each of those simple behaviors has its own reward. For an ant, for example, to get back to its nest, it must follow chemical trails left by itself or other ants. But due to the essential randomness of the outward wandering of the ants in search of food, the trails cross and re-cross. So how does the ant get home? It simply makes the smallest possible turn. Because of the nature of ants' movement outwards, this brings the ant home by the shortest route. However, this leaving of chemical trails has another feature: when food is found, the returning ant leaves a different chemical trail, and this trail is picked up on by other ants, who then take the shortest possible route to the food. By acting in their own self-interest, leaving different chemical trails as they move, the individual ants contribute to an act of apparent intelligence far beyond their ability to comprehend: the organization of the colony to efficiently gather food.

Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (generally called The Wealth of Nations) is the first description of which I am aware of an emergent behavior: the "invisible hand" that guides a free market. Essentially, the basis of a money economy (as opposed to a barter economy) is this: I have a product, or can provide a service. I need things. I have something you need, but you don't have what I need. You give me money for what you need, and I take that money elsewhere to get what I need. But if, say, you can go to lots of places to get what you need, I am limited in how much I can charge you; if I charge too much, you will get your needs met elsewhere for less. This results in a series of transactions based only on local knowledge: I don't necessarily know how much of what I have to offer is in circulation, but if you aren't willing to pay what I ask, it means that you probably know you can get it for less elsewhere. On the other hand, if I cannot produce fast enough to meet the demand, that means that I can make more by producing faster. It is utterly unnecessary to control the economy at the macro level: the invisible hand will do that.

But what is the invisible hand? In essence, nothing more than the presence of cues and the acts of self-interest they generate. If you need something that a lot of other people need, and I have it, I will sell it to you at a high price: I know I can find another buyer. Consequently, there is an incentive for others to produce what I produce so that they too can get relatively high income for relatively low labor, and can then use their income to obtain what they need or desire. As more people come online producing that good or service, the price I can charge goes down, because now you can go elsewhere to get what you need. The result is that, over time, supply expands or contracts to meet demand, and the economy produces pretty much exactly what is needed with very little waste.

That these simple, basic lessons in political economy are lost on most people can be demonstrated by the frequent calls for price controls, especially in the aftermath of disaster. If the government compels me to charge a lower price than I could get on the open market, there are two possibilities: either I will sell on the black market, to avoid regulation, or I will avoid increasing the supply since the additional labor nets me less income than it would otherwise. So attempting to, say, regulate the price of lumber after a hurricane to prevent "gouging" actually works to reduce the supply of lumber available to rebuild. Talk about a perverse incentive! Or look at Hawaii's recent regulation of gas prices. As happened in the US generally in the 1970's, it's a small matter of time before Hawaii runs short of gas. After all, if I can sell the gas elsewhere at higher profit, why would I bring it to Hawaii to sell?

So, just as the ant colony or the economy is self-regulating, so are interactions among free people. Let's take crime as an example. If robbing someone's house is likely to get me killed, I am less likely to rob someone's house unless losing my life is unimportant to me relative to the potential gain. I am not likely to lose my life, or even my freedom, if I rob a house where the owner has no incentive — or is not allowed — to protect his property. On the other hand, if I am likely to face an owner who is armed and will not be legally sanctioned for defending his property, my risk is much higher. Consequently, disarmed societies have higher property crime rates. Don't believe me? Look at the crime rates in England and Australia before and after those societies were disarmed.

On the other hand, if I can protect my property adequately, I am likely to invest labor into that property, to make it more useful to me. In doing so, I am also investing money in all of the various suppliers that make the things I need to improve my property. I am also as a result producing something (even if it's only my own comfort and ease) of value, that can be consumed by others. For example, whomever buys my property. This is not particularly evident with a suburban house, but consider a farm or a blighted neighborhood; in those cases, the ability to realize the gains from property improvements is a powerful monetary incentive to invest in the farm or in urban property.

The point of all of that is that simply being free — being secure in life and limb from random or capricious deprivation, being able to act in your own self interest, and being able to realize the gains accruing from your actions — leads to emergent behaviors that produce abundance, happiness, charity, health and justice. The more free a society is, the more of all this things it will have.

So if individual liberty produces a good and just society, why is personal responsibility also needed? In a word: sustainability. A system of absolute liberty coupled with lack of consequences quickly devolves into libertinism, nihilism and excess. The reason for this is that there is no controlling mechanism to prevent self-interest from becoming selfishness. This is why the ruling elites in a tyranny, or the very rich in an aristocratic society, become so horrible (the root of liberal discontent with the rich, by the way): their insulation from the consequences of their actions breeds very, very bad behavior, including exploitation of those less fortunate than themselves and bending the rules to obtain rents (in the economic sense). Look no further than Ted Kennedy for a prime example of the depravity and self-exhaltation of a life of liberty without consequences for one's actions.

By removing the consequences of a person's actions, one removes the incentive to act correctly. Why produce, which requires work, when you can be indolent and still fed? Why respect others, when it will not result in any negative effects for you if you are disrespectful? Why consider your rhetoric, if you know you cannot be called to account for inflammatory slanders?

Yet our society has spent the last hundred years progressively (no pun intended) removing any consequences for bad actions. We can be sexually irresponsible, knowing that medicines or abortions are available — often at taxpayer expense — to insulate us from the consequences of our irresponsibility. We can be financially irresponsible, knowing that bankruptcy laws shield us from stupidity as well as risk. We can be irresponsible about where we live, knowing the government will rebuild our flooded house for the fifth time. And so forth.

The reason that we have removed the consequences of our actions is the toxic desire for equal outcomes, what the "progressives" call equality or justice or fairness. If we accept that people are different in their abilities and desires (which is self-evidently true), then it follows that they will differ in their attainments: a clumsy person will never be a good ballerina, nor a foolish person a good judge, nor will a slothful and stupid person likely be wealthy. But in the progressive conception of equality, these unequal outcomes are simply wrong: why shouldn't a mediocre mind be a great philosopher if he desires? His mere inability to produce useful philosophy should not hinder, say, Noam Chomsky from being recognized for it, should it? Well, I suppose that depends on whether or not you want a useful and productive society, or one that allows you to congratulate yourself on how equal you are. The practical outcome of this doctrine is that incentives for good behavior are reduced, and good behavior becomes more rare as a result.

Similarly justice, where it is defined as the ability to get the "right" outcome regardless of law, custom, morality or truth. After all, the progressives say, it is not right to make the poor suffer for their bad decisions, when "it's not their fault they are poor", again ignoring all evidence that it is very much the fault of the poor if they remain poor; the rules for not being poor are simple enough, and available to everyone regardless of how much money one starts with. It's only bad decisions, not a society stacked against them, that leads to poverty in America. Even the crippled and orphans and so on are cared for by the state to the degree that they enter adulthood with a good chance of a productive and happy life. The practical outcome of this doctrine is that those who make good decisions and improve society are penalized in favor of those who make bad decisions and are a drag on society.

And again similarly with fairness: why should someone get less of something he wants than another? Even if the relatively deprived person is unwilling to work, argue the progressives, this should not be held against them. It's not fair that a person might not have a nice house and two cars and other things they desire, if someone else can obtain those things through an effort that the deprived person "cannot" make. The practical outcome of this doctrine is the transfer of wealth from the productive to the unproductive through taxation and government handouts.

But all of these come down to the same thing: removing a person from the consequences of their actions and decisions. And the consequences are also the same: an increase in bad behavior and a decrease in abundance, happiness, justice, charity and health.

So if we want to create a good and just society, all we need to do is to overthrow the idea of equal outcomes, restoring personal responsibility as the guiding principle of justice, and getting the government out of our lives and economy as much as possible so as to increase individual liberty. It's been done before; it can be done again.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. — Thomas Jefferson

Posted by jeff at October 12, 2005 5:33 PM

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Posted by: Matt McIntosh at October 13, 2005 10:44 AM