Joe Biden?! --- Political, Not Economic Post

Many of you might not remember this, but during the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, Joe Biden actually attacked Judge Thomas for being a follower of the 'natural law' theories of Steve Macedo and Richard Epstein.  The Senator from Delaware actually held up a copy of Epstein's Takings and shook it at Thomas yelling "Do you believe this book?"  or something to that effect.  I tried to find a YouTube clip of this but was unsuccessful.  Biden argued that 'natural law' doctrine was an obscure and out of the mainstream philosophy that had no place in constitutional law.  What bothered him the most was the idea that the law had some meaning outside the context of what the government says, and in particular that natural law would give priority to individual rights and property rights over governmental regulations.  But Biden wasn't prepared to have a serious conversation about political and legal philosophy, instead he waved a book in disgust at a Supreme Court nominee.  And remember he was the Chair of the committee at the time.  He doesn't understand concepts like 'natural law' or even 'the rule of law'.  He does understand state power, government regulation, and legal activism.

So unless the American people are far more idiotic than I think, the election just got a lot closer. The Democratics have an amazing capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and Obama choosing Joe Biden to be a running mate for "hope and change" when he is the poster child for political divisiveness and smug (yet ignorant) arrogance in political/legal discourse is another case in point.  And just think Howard Dean's "yeah" sent people over the edge, wait till they get a good look at the various comments made over the years from Biden and his striking displays of 'intelligence' and 'decorum'.

There simply is no hope for hope and change in 2008.  That is sad because we sure could use some hope and change concerning the policies in Iraq and overseas in general, and certainly back home with regard to the economy and the financial system.  Why hasn't any viable candidate appeared that believed in the policies of peace and prosperity, and instead all we get is more of the same policies that promote war, enhanced state power, and the strangling of the creative and productive freedom of the market economy?

Comments

[Steve Miller]

The American people are far more idiotic than you think.

[Roger Koppl]

Pete,
I share your angst. In 2004 the NYTimes Book Review published a letter of mine that closes with this cri de Coeur:

In this time of Republican hegemony, we need political leaders who will speak against the rising tide of state power that sells out to the highest corporate bidders and brings fire and sword halfway round the world under the false banner of pretended liberty. The best the Democrats can offer, however, is John Kerry's Republican Lite and Sherrod Brown's anti-trade demagogy.

Still, I wonder if you’re overreacting to Biden. I’ll settle for someone who respects the Constitution as it’s written even if I don’t like that person’s *theory* of the Constitution. As a scholar, I am obliged to speak the truth without compromise. As a voter, I can only pick the lesser evil.

[Brian Pitt]

Plumbing public opinion data certainly suggests, as Miller notes, that the public is pretty idiotic. However, I am not sure that the public wants "change." Rather, it wants more of the same!

Nevertheless, I am optimistic about an Obama/Biden ticket. These are two guys who appear to respect the principles, though undoubtedly irreconcilable, of the Constitution.

[DPrychitko]

Huh... I thought you wrote, a few months back, that everything is getting better, or something to that effect.

[Sameer Parekh]

Pete-- I had a similar reaction when I saw him questioning John Roberts. The guy is a pompous ass.

[Sheldon Richman]

Pete, are you suggesting the American people will care that years ago Biden scoffed at the principle of natural law or that McCain is capable of or interested in raising the issue? Surely you jest. :)

[J.Lo]

I've come across Joe from time to time in Delaware, and he's a decent sort. He has some acknowledged weaknesses in oratory and presentation, but that's not how he comes across in person. Think about the descriptions of him: arrogant, ignorant, foot always approaching mouth... Doesn't that sound a lot like the descriptions of McCain?

[Maxx Mantooth]

It is byond my abilities at present to make too many specific comments concerning our current candidates and with whom they associate.

However, I'll admit that it has inspired me to re-read "Why the Worst Get on Top" in Hayek's Road to Serfdom.

A little creative imagining, and it seems fairly relavent.

[matthew mueller]

My own take on politics is quite different. Now it is true that libertarians may never be satisfied until they see privatized roads, but for me I think liberalism has been on a gradual retreat since the 1950's. I read an article yesterday in the New York Times magazine on Obama entitled "Obamanomics" in which it described him as a "free market loving fiscal conservative." And this is not unusual. Nearly all liberals today believe in the free-market (though, admittedly, not to the extent that mose republicans do) and they have adopted the republican views on fiscal policy, i.e. the idea that you cannot spend unless you first tax.

I would ask you to compare intellecual liberals and policy makers on the left in the 1950's to those same people today. I think liberals are far more conservative than they used to be. Liberals do not believe in Abba Lerner's functional finance ideas anymore, bureaucratic control, or the cost-push theory of inflation.

Conservatism, I afraid to say, has triumphed.

[Geoffrey Lea]

I'm going to sound like more of a Stiglerian than the Anarcho-Caplanist (ht to Roderick Long on that one) I am, but I don't think it's really idiocy per se.

Instead, I think much of this mess is attributable to the fetishism inherent in following "the plan." Individuals turn to the state, and encourage its growth because they see it is *the* primary form of co-operation, and we're all taught since toddlers that nothing is possible in this world without co-operation. I'm willing to wager that most people equate co-operation at the level beyond you and me or a firm with the state. Dan Klein's work on the two coordinations and the people's romance goes to what I'm getting at here. The insight of economics, from Leonard Read and I, Pencil, to Hayek and the Use of Knowledge all the way to Mises and Human Action chapter 8 cannot be underestimated. The market *is* co-operation, but the average person just doesn't see that.

Instead, they think we need a great coordinator, and the state is as good--if not better--a service as anything else. After all, the government has all these beneficent, benevolent, and wise people working for it. The problem is just having the right plan and the right people. And that's what this is all about. Case in point: ask the average citizen if he would prefer a system of law derived from our limited understanding of man's nature (natural law or rights), or one where the best legal experts got together and made laws up and decided which were good or bad (legal positivism of various stripes). In light of this, I would be surprised if the eventual exposure of Biden's position has much of a negative effect. Sure, many people will realize what he's getting at and it will strike a dissonant chord. Some will be outraged, and some of those may change their vote. Others will incorporate their consternation at this point into the rest of their views. In the end, I think (and this is a completely empirical point, for which I have naught but anecdote) most people will shrug and say something akin to "it's all about the plan." Politics becomes for them about getting the right planners with the right plan.

And so the great political dance of democracy continues, to the same old sad dirge-like music. And if you think this tune is new, I suggest Athenian history from ~480 to ~404BC. One word: demagoguery.

Again, I don't think it's because the public is full of idiots. Rather, it's because the public is populated, by and large, by people who are ignorant of the alternative ways to organize society. Think of how deep the insight is that the greatest "plan" is to have no central plan for society. How do we expect people to know that if we, as economists, don't help them to understand it? And if--and as long as--we fail to do so, we shouldn't be surprised when the public goes clamoring for any shill with a smiling face willing to pitch to them a grandiose scheme for solving social problems with the state.

[Roger Koppl]

Good point, Matt. Even the (mainstream) left is more or less pro-market today. That's a big change in recent decades.

[Steve Horwitz]

Well "pro-market" and "free market" (the latter being Matt's words) are two different things. I agree on the former about the Left, but not so much on the latter.

[Roger Koppl]

I'm not tracking. Can you explain that distinction, Steve?

[Steve Horwitz]

One can be in favor of "the market" in general terms, but not think the market should be "free" in the sense of "unhampered."

I think the left is more sympathetic to markets (as opposed to command and control) than it used to be, no question, but it hardly thinks, generally anyway, that said markets should be "free."

[Roger Koppl]

Do you think the right is better *in practice*?

[Steve Horwitz]

Nope. They talk a good game about "free markets" but practice something more like "pro-business."

AFAIC, Roger, if the Democrats came up with a candidate who was even HALF-decent on economic issues (Obama is not), particularly one who could clearly articulate the case for free trade as the greatest poverty reducer around, and was good on civil liberties and serious about getting us out of Iraq, I'd be the happiest guy in town.

Even so, it's hard to argue that the Democrats would be any worse than the Republicans on the size of the state and they are, generally, better on other issues.

[Tyler Watts]

"Why hasn't any viable candidate appeared that believed in the policies of peace and prosperity, and instead all we get is more of the same policies that promote war, enhanced state power, and the strangling of the creative and productive freedom of the market economy?"

Ron Paul? Ah, not "viable," of course, for whatever reasons. Still, it's a little sad to see such an extensive lack of enthusiasm and endorsement from libertarian/classical liberal/free-market intellectuals for their cause's greatest standard bearer in at least 40 years. Either it comes down to a single-issue purity test (e.g. immigration/citizenship, abortion), or most libertarian intellectuals just don't want to be associated with Ron Paul's natural constituency. So, Paul is left looking even more kookish because there are very few respectable intellectual supporters to offset the zealous, somewhat ignorant, wing-nut supporters.

Maybe we're doomed to the fringes...

[DPrychitko]

In support of Steve's comment above:

Last year's Federal Register (2007) contained over 70,000 pages. That's seventy thousand pages. My guess is that it would take up roughly twenty feet of shelf space.

As of yesterday, this year's (2008) contains over 50,000 pages so far.

Democratic or Republican administration, blah blah... this is anecdotal evidence (place as much weight on it as you judge appropriate) that we do not have a free market economy.

I'm not saying we don't have a free market system from a libertarian perspective. I'm saying it as an economist, and in particular one who specializes (like Pete) in comparative systems and comparative political economy (again, place as much weight on my area of specialization as you judge appropriate).

[Jacob]

We have no viable candidate for hope and change because Ron Paul isn't young and pretty enough, if you want the honest truth.

[sean andrews]

I've looked through the archives of the hearings and can find no such fear of a conversation--and nowhere that would indicate he was swinging Epstein's book around. In fact, in several places, he seems to have a relatively deep (for a Senate hearing) conversation about natural law with Thomas.

here, starting around page 5 of the pdf:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh102-1084pt1/107-175.pdf

and several other times throughout the hearing.
such as here
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh102-1084pt1/267-279.pdf

and here
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate/judiciary/sh102-1084pt1/127-131.pdf

Far from him not being interested in having a conversation, he just seems to disagree with the fundamentals of your (and Epstein's) philosophy of law. At the time, it's worth noting, Thomas didn't seem to either. He may not have the level of discussion that a tenured prof would, but he seemed to know his way around the issues fairly well. And, for the record, you seem like the last person eligible to fault someone for smug arrogance.

I was pretty disappointed in the choice of Biden, (and, for that matter, Obama) but pointing out this discussion gives me some faith that, perhaps, Biden might be able to counter balance the Libertarian Skinner-Box Obama's UofC pals want to put us all in.

[Steve Horwitz]

Sean:

A picture of Biden waving around *Takings* can be found here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/08/24/joe-biden-and-limited-government/

[sean andrews]

Thanks for the photo...it helps illustrate two things:

1) how dangerous Biden is: I mean look at how animated he is "waving" that book around--he could really hurt someone!

2) Just where Dr. Boettke's memory of this act came from. It was helpful of CATO to remind him of this shocking experience. Memory is a funny thing.

In all seriousness, the description of Biden's line of questioning is pretty accurate, but this is hardly evidence that, "Biden wasn't prepared to have a serious conversation about political and legal philosophy" or that he didn't understand any of the concepts listed above: he just understood them differently, which, in a true show of what libertarians mean by freedom, means that he doesn't understand them.

The full text shows that Biden was concerned with how Epstein's understanding of Natural Law in the takings clause would effect the way the government could regulate pollution, the expense this would create for taxpayers if they had to compensate for supposedly lost business in that case, and, on the other hand, the way people from the Heritage Foundation would interpret "natural law" as a morality code which would limit privacy, vis a vis abortion due to the "natural rights" of the fetus. In other words, he was asking which way Thomas interpreted these weasel words. He may be club footed about this, and I'm certainly not saying that he's a legal genuis, but he wasn't just waving books around without some substance to his line of questioning.

I'm not trying to defend Biden per se, but I don't think it right to impinge his character because he thought, perhaps, that full blown libertarianism was a radical project of change--a fear he attributes not only to himself, but which he seems to have been alerted to by writings of Reagan's soliciter general, Charles Fried. Granted, this is an Austrian Economics blog so I suppose it makes sense to simply accept that as a universally valid ideology. But from the comments, it seems like a fairly provincial echo chamber. Unfortunately, it seems, there is one "royal road to science" and only "idiotic" Americans would find anything but Austrian Economics the correct path. Realizing that Biden is not anointed in this creed, they should duly reject him as providing hope or change. As an outside observer, I'd note that, if this is the standard you set for progress, you may be disappointed.

[Yuki Torusawa]

Thai minister to visit Raw material for Leathergoods Business Association and Thai Business District Federation in BIG&BIH 2009 to encourage trade and investment

BANGKOK, Oct 13 – Thailand’s Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakhasai is scheduled to pay a visit to Raw material for Leathergoods Business Association and Thai Business District Federation in BIG&BIH October 13 to encourage trade and investment of life style products.

Mr Chanin Jitkomut, the President of Thai Business District Federation (TBDF) and the director of Raw material for Leather products Business Association (RLBA) leads Thailand’s private sectors of Trade Mart to show their products in BIG & BIH October 2009 (Bangkok International Gift fair & Bangkok International Houseware Fair).
It is expected that the visiting of Commerce Minister to Trade Mart will boost up the confidence, including sale target within the fair.

“We will discuss possible relaxation in some kind of the SMEs that prohibit to join in the fair, the revival of the meeting as soon as possible with main sale agents is a good mechanism to ease all those obstacles”, he said.

[New Jordans]

This post makes me realize the energy of words and pictures. As always your things are just gorgeous and I am grateful that you let us look in! Have a good week!