I think it's also important to note what the overall goal of each chapter/article in this series is about. Each chapter is not meant to be the fullest answer or treatment of these ideas. My goal is to increase the exposure of economic ideas to those who have never heard them before, in the lowest entry barrier way possible.
In short, using violence or coercion to pursue a goal is not a moral good. But, that was not the question or issue directly at hand in this example. I simply said that wanting to help low-income families is an admirable ethical goal. Now the MEANS that we go about pursuing that ethical goal are what matter. I quite literally continue by saying "But if the solution is rent control, the economic consequences may hurt the very people the policy aimed to help." Pursuing something that sounds ethical but requires force to do so is clearly not the right path. My goal here is to get people who already disagree or may be ambivalent to the idea of the positive benefits of market forces to understand the simple logic behind them. On this margin, I believe this article holds up without compromising any position.
I do appreciate your focus on not ceding the moral highground. Yes, I am not being as hard-nosed as many other writers have been in the past (many whom I fully agree with), but my intention, as I have said, is not to provide every necessary argument, but the ones that I hope whet people's desire to want to learn more economics. By the end of my three chapters on Can Markets Be Moral (two more forthcoming) I think/hope you will see the narrative I am crafting. You can see the titles of those next two chapters at the second link above.
I get why you can’t answer every questions in a short article. But given two points 1) the initiation of force against property owners and 2) the people who are supposed to be help don’t actually get help, which is the more important moral issue that cannot be ignored?
What if a reader says that you are probably right that some renters are harmed by this policy but some old ladies still benefit from reduced housing costs? So they shrug and say, “rent control is better than nothing.” Or they say, as some has already done so, “if the owners don’t repair the property then we will just take it and give it to the socially responsible to do so.”
The short answer I would give is "it is clearly worse than doing nothing." Then I would see how they would respond next.
In the off chance that the conversation goes down the rabbit hole we would likely get into a much larger discussion that may ultimately come down to a case of utilitarian basis of rights versus more of a natural based theory. However, those priors are really, really sticky and going down the deep philosophical rabbit hole is generally counterproductive because one side in the discussion usually knows more than the other and both end up talking past one another.
My goal is to short-circuit that train of thought. I'm willing to bet that there are ways to show that the consequence of "rent control is better than nothing" leads to a net harm without having to devote time and energy into those priors. Specifically, I have worked for many years to build up other arguments that follow the approach Mises used in his famous work, Interventionism, that show the faultiness of this way of thinking.
The short version of that is: the government has more of an incentive to constantly fail at providing whatever "social good" people want than they have an incentive to actually follow through with it. (See: https://www.economicsfor.com/p/we-need-good-rules-more-than-good)
Also, as an aside, it looks like we live in the same city (according to LinkedIn). I'd love to meet up some time and talk further. To answer your three questions more directly:
1. What is the proper role of government? What makes a governmental entity different than a non-governmental one?
I would say if you can constrain a government to the simple task of enforcing contracts, private property rights, and courts then you've got yourself a winner. However, the follow up question is do we want/need GOVERNMENT or is what we need GOVERNANCE. Endogenous forms of governance have been shown to vastly outperform exogenous systems of government (see Leeson, Coyne, Boettke, Skarbak, Powell, Ostrom, etc.).
In my opinion, people don't want GOVERNMENT, they want what they THINK government provides.
The central thing that makes a government entity different than a non-government one is a monopoly on force, taxation, and dispute resolution.
2. When a government takes an action via law, what exactly is it doing?
The simple answer is they are dictating what should or should not happen backed by the threat of force through lethal means, taxation, or imprisonment. They are trying to cause social change through the threat of violence. More concretely, this also depends if it is legislative or administrative. If legislative then it is possible the government is operating under a well established constitutional system (a la Hayek, and Buchanan and Tullock) and creating a binding rule punishable and backed by the monopoly on force. The hope is that so long as it was done in a manner consistent with representation then it may be considered "just." However, if it is administrative then a non-elected body is creating statutes without representation but it is still able to use the monopoly on force.
3. Forget the economic consequences, what moral lines are crossed when a gun is placed to the head of one person to force them to "help" another?
If someone places a gun to your head then all moral lines are crossed and it is no longer a moral action. William Graham Sumner discusses this to an extent (The Forgotten Man), Kant also discussed this. The use of force causes an otherwise "moral outcome" to become immoral.
I generally choose to not get too far into the weeds on these because, again, as I have stated, my goal is exposure not comprehensive mastery.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond in such great details. I would love to meet up in person (assuming you're in Vegas and not Reno as indicated in your LinkedIn profile), but won't be back in the US until Sept. If we can do a Zoom call prior to that, please send me your e-mail via our new LinkedIn connection with some times (I'm in VN so ideally morning/evening) and I'll send the zoom invite.
I challenge you to check your underlying premises for this claim:
"Consider a city that wants to help low-income families afford housing. The ethical goal is admirable."
Some suggested questions to help identify the premises:
1. What is the proper role of government? What makes a governmental entity different than a non-governmental one?
2. When a government takes an action via law, what exactly is it doing?
3. Forget the economic consequences, what moral lines are crossed when a gun is placed to the head of one person to force them to "help" another?
Hey Binh, I appreciate your comment. I think you will appreciate what I have said elsewhere found here: https://www.economicsfor.com/p/we-are-better-when-exchange-is-voluntary.
I think it's also important to note what the overall goal of each chapter/article in this series is about. Each chapter is not meant to be the fullest answer or treatment of these ideas. My goal is to increase the exposure of economic ideas to those who have never heard them before, in the lowest entry barrier way possible.
You can see the full extent of the project here: https://www.economicsfor.com/p/efbp.
In short, using violence or coercion to pursue a goal is not a moral good. But, that was not the question or issue directly at hand in this example. I simply said that wanting to help low-income families is an admirable ethical goal. Now the MEANS that we go about pursuing that ethical goal are what matter. I quite literally continue by saying "But if the solution is rent control, the economic consequences may hurt the very people the policy aimed to help." Pursuing something that sounds ethical but requires force to do so is clearly not the right path. My goal here is to get people who already disagree or may be ambivalent to the idea of the positive benefits of market forces to understand the simple logic behind them. On this margin, I believe this article holds up without compromising any position.
I do appreciate your focus on not ceding the moral highground. Yes, I am not being as hard-nosed as many other writers have been in the past (many whom I fully agree with), but my intention, as I have said, is not to provide every necessary argument, but the ones that I hope whet people's desire to want to learn more economics. By the end of my three chapters on Can Markets Be Moral (two more forthcoming) I think/hope you will see the narrative I am crafting. You can see the titles of those next two chapters at the second link above.
I get why you can’t answer every questions in a short article. But given two points 1) the initiation of force against property owners and 2) the people who are supposed to be help don’t actually get help, which is the more important moral issue that cannot be ignored?
What if a reader says that you are probably right that some renters are harmed by this policy but some old ladies still benefit from reduced housing costs? So they shrug and say, “rent control is better than nothing.” Or they say, as some has already done so, “if the owners don’t repair the property then we will just take it and give it to the socially responsible to do so.”
What would your response to that be?
By the way, this point was made 70 years ago.
https://newideal.aynrand.org/rand-on-the-uncompromised-defense-of-liberty-from-the-new-expanded-edition-of-letters-of-ayn-rand/
The short answer I would give is "it is clearly worse than doing nothing." Then I would see how they would respond next.
In the off chance that the conversation goes down the rabbit hole we would likely get into a much larger discussion that may ultimately come down to a case of utilitarian basis of rights versus more of a natural based theory. However, those priors are really, really sticky and going down the deep philosophical rabbit hole is generally counterproductive because one side in the discussion usually knows more than the other and both end up talking past one another.
My goal is to short-circuit that train of thought. I'm willing to bet that there are ways to show that the consequence of "rent control is better than nothing" leads to a net harm without having to devote time and energy into those priors. Specifically, I have worked for many years to build up other arguments that follow the approach Mises used in his famous work, Interventionism, that show the faultiness of this way of thinking.
The short version of that is: the government has more of an incentive to constantly fail at providing whatever "social good" people want than they have an incentive to actually follow through with it. (See: https://www.economicsfor.com/p/we-need-good-rules-more-than-good)
Also, as an aside, it looks like we live in the same city (according to LinkedIn). I'd love to meet up some time and talk further. To answer your three questions more directly:
1. What is the proper role of government? What makes a governmental entity different than a non-governmental one?
I would say if you can constrain a government to the simple task of enforcing contracts, private property rights, and courts then you've got yourself a winner. However, the follow up question is do we want/need GOVERNMENT or is what we need GOVERNANCE. Endogenous forms of governance have been shown to vastly outperform exogenous systems of government (see Leeson, Coyne, Boettke, Skarbak, Powell, Ostrom, etc.).
In my opinion, people don't want GOVERNMENT, they want what they THINK government provides.
The central thing that makes a government entity different than a non-government one is a monopoly on force, taxation, and dispute resolution.
2. When a government takes an action via law, what exactly is it doing?
The simple answer is they are dictating what should or should not happen backed by the threat of force through lethal means, taxation, or imprisonment. They are trying to cause social change through the threat of violence. More concretely, this also depends if it is legislative or administrative. If legislative then it is possible the government is operating under a well established constitutional system (a la Hayek, and Buchanan and Tullock) and creating a binding rule punishable and backed by the monopoly on force. The hope is that so long as it was done in a manner consistent with representation then it may be considered "just." However, if it is administrative then a non-elected body is creating statutes without representation but it is still able to use the monopoly on force.
3. Forget the economic consequences, what moral lines are crossed when a gun is placed to the head of one person to force them to "help" another?
If someone places a gun to your head then all moral lines are crossed and it is no longer a moral action. William Graham Sumner discusses this to an extent (The Forgotten Man), Kant also discussed this. The use of force causes an otherwise "moral outcome" to become immoral.
I generally choose to not get too far into the weeds on these because, again, as I have stated, my goal is exposure not comprehensive mastery.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond in such great details. I would love to meet up in person (assuming you're in Vegas and not Reno as indicated in your LinkedIn profile), but won't be back in the US until Sept. If we can do a Zoom call prior to that, please send me your e-mail via our new LinkedIn connection with some times (I'm in VN so ideally morning/evening) and I'll send the zoom invite.