Andrew Koppelman's Half-Way Hayekianism

My contribution to the Balkinization symposium on Andrew Koppelman's new book, Burning Down the House.

As Ilya noted, Balkinization is hosting a symposium on Andrew Koppelman's new book, Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed.  This book is a critique of libertarian political theory and its impact on contemporary public policy, with a particular focus on the more "radical" libertarians, such as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick, and a partial embrace of the less dogmatic classical liberalism of F.A. Hayek.

Ilya previewed his contribution here. My own (belated) response is now posted as well. Here's a taste:

Andrew Koppelman's Burning Down the House is a simultaneously engaging and frustrating book. It offers a refreshing center-left appreciation F.A. Hayek and provides insightful critiques of more rigid and radical libertarian thinkers. Yet it also strangely resists serious consideration of the broader application of Hayekian insights and is too quick to assume a conscientious Hayekian would be part of the today's center-left coalition.

Part of what is so refreshing about Koppelman's book is that his appreciation of Hayekian insights is so rare in center-left discourse. He understands that liberals should be more  concerned with poverty than inequality. Market-driven increases in standards of living around the world have been a boon for humanity, increasing lifespans and reducing human suffering. Moreover, there can be no meaningful wealth redistribution if there is not sufficient wealth to redistribute. Koppelman  also appreciates that the benefits of markets are not purely economic.  "In a diverse society, markets facilitate peaceful cooperation among people who radically disagree about fundamental values," he observes. (175) As a consequence, the market "stimulates not only competition but empathy." (176) . . .

Although Koppelman clearly prefers Hayek to the likes of Rothbard, he does not offer Hayek unqualified praise. Some of his criticisms are more persuasive than others however. He charges that Hayek has an "excessively crude understanding" of private property (18). Apparently Hayek's understanding is too "limited" because he lacks a full understanding of all they ways the state may recognize or structure such rights. (18)  It seems to me that it is Koppelman who is missing the point, for the contours of private property are not infinitely malleable if it is to facilitate a Hayekian market order and safeguard liberty.

Just as a central planner lacks sufficient information to direct a modern economy, property rights cannot be simply "designed" from the ground up to generate particular distributional consequences. Transferable property rights are the foundation of private markets, and thus are essential to the Hayekian order Koppelman rightly celebrates for generating wealth and prosperity. It is one thing to levy taxes to provide for public goods. It is quite another to treat property rights as mere "conventions" that can be "designed with their likely distributional consequences in mind." (98) Property rights without a solid core are much like the markets without prices against which Hayek inveighed. Indeed, the market discovery process Hayek described is dependent upon a system of secure and transferable property rights. . . .

Koppelman wants to argue that "the standard justification for most of the regulation we have now is Hayekian" (46) He identifies the pervasiveness of "externalities" to support this claim, but then turns around to acknowledge that "This argument will not, however, necessarily justify the regulations that actually exist." (49) He admits that "in any specific area of policy, imperfect markets need to be compared with imperfect government." (49) This is because "whatever the defects of an unregulated market, the effects of regulation are sometimes worse." (50) Precisely so, but then Koppelman cannot resist making broad pronouncements about the terrible consequences of limiting regulatory authority and magisterial benefits of expansive regulation. . . .

In short, a truly Hayekian perspective would require far more humility about regulatory interventions than Koppelman evinces.

You may read the whole thing here.

In a separate post, Koppelman responds to all of his commentators.

Comments

[juris imprudent]

Am I reading this right, that Rothbard is considered that influential in the real world and not just as a convenient strawman for the left?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

More likely it is just a continuation of touting the strawman to distract from the core, like the DNC supporting Trumpian candidates in primaries.

[gormadoc]

He was once, for a certain idea of the "real world," but he was also competing against other people who were at least as influential. He's the closest thing to a household name ancaps have but Friedman was actually a household name and Sowell continues to be influential without doing anything new, even outside libertarian circles. Rothbard seems more important than he is or was simply because he was loud and the only real figure of note in his tiny corner.

[gormadoc]

Among libertarian economists I suspect Hayek, Buchanan, and Sowell continue to be more influential than Rothbard.

[Brett Bellmore]

As a former ancap, I'm actually more familiar with David Friedman, (Milton's son.) than I am Rothbard. I think there might be something by him in one of the anthologies I have, and I might have read something by him in Liberty at one time, but I don't have any of his books.

[Brett Bellmore]

Rothbard's books, I mean.

[juris imprudent]

The irony being the Mises Caucus (deriving at least somewhat from him) running a hostile take-over within the Libertarian Party at what may be the low point of the party. That's not very influential, even at the margins let alone anywhere near the center.

[Brett Bellmore]

They pulled off the takeover by the dasterdly dirty trick of showing up in larger numbers. Call me crazy, but I find that to be counter-evidence to your claim that they're not very influential, at least in the context of the LP.

[juris imprudent]

The point is that Rothbard had such little influence within the party that the insurgency represents a new tack for the party to take - to the (if this is plausible at all) more radical side. That is a pretty strong counterargument to Koppelman's central conceit.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's multi-dimensional; They had a lot of influence with the members, not so much with the people who were in the leadership.

It's quite common for the party establishment to systematically disagree with their voters. It's the case with the GOP, they're just better entrenched than the former LP leadership were.

[juris imprudent]

Having read Koppelman's response, when you praise Epstein as the most influential living libertarian (and recognize he is no Rothbardian) and then spend your entire treatise attacking a faction within the overall libertarian world (which isn't even the dominant one), you may have a deficit in your intellectual honesty. He should pal around with Michael Lind.

[Brett Bellmore]

Koppelman, credit where credit is due, is willing to engage with people he really disagrees with. Which is more than you can say of a lot of his compatriots.

But that said, he's when he says "critical review", you should read "hit piece".

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Warning Americans about the dangers of too much liberty is like warning an obese person about the dangers of anorexia.

[Social Justice is neither]

Is that Tess Holliday style anorexia or the classic version?

[Purple Martin]

In his 'responses' post, Koppelman says:

Mulligan protests that the libertarians she has known “deeply recognized human interdependence and believed private ordering was a superior way of caring for each other than government apparati.” I also know people like that, including some of the participants here. I like and admire them, but I don’t always trust their judgment. Libertarians are typically drawn to the hypothesis that a nongovernmental solution is always better. It is an hypothesis worth testing, and I say that libertarians have made and continue to make important contributions by insisting upon it (pp. 52-53). Sometimes it is correct. Sometimes it is a disastrous mistake.

That parallels something I recall writing years ago (not here). Took a few minutes to find it and (please forgive my my penchant for labor-saving mechanisms) it seems relevant, and to stand up:

Good points. Just two things I’ll clarify. On Libertarians, I consider full blown, down the line, no compromise Libertarianism the most attractive of worldviews; and a full Libertarian society the fairest and freest possible. If that means no Interstate highways (probably but not necessarily), and no government-managed, centralized Social Security or healthcare (certainly!) so be it. People would make free individual choices, and willingly accept the consequences (and many in the population would die much sooner, but consequences are consequences).

But as I said, I’m a pragmatist. I think probably only 10-20% of people (or less?), for whatever reason, have the ability to fully understand and accept the concept…to be and act Libertarian.

This in no way extends to either political leanings or intelligence. Today’s conservative Republican Party abhors true Libertarians…even Democrats are more accepting. Many very smart people are never fully able to internalize the link between free choice and accepting the consequences of that choice…others may understand and live that concept in their very core without ever trying to intellectualize it.

10-20% of a voting population is not enough for a Libertarian society to gain a foothold. Libertarian candidates get outvoted in a democracy, and authoritarian tyrants succeed because not enough of a population will ever behave as Libertarians. I hate to break it to some people, but Ayn Rand wrote Romantic Fantasies. Her characters (heroes and villains, those who triumphed and those who were trampled) acted the way they did, achieved the outcomes they did, because she wrote it that way (it’s fiction folks…the same concept those who cite the success of Jack Bauer in debates over torture, can’t quite grasp).

So, think “Civil Libertarian personal freedom, and global free-market economics…both Libertarian principles I support and try to follow. But I’m also rational pragmatist, which means the answer to the question, “what is the appropriate amount of government involvement or regulation?” is “the least possible, but not less.”

You’re on shakier ground with your attack on Reasonable. I don’t use the term to mean accommodating as you seem to think. The Founders, contrary to your assertion, certainly were reasonable men. Think, The Age of Reason. Reason has a hard, sharp, bright edge that neither necessitates nor precludes compromise, and neither do I.

[Ben_]

Let’s have randomized trials to determine whether regulations work. State the pass/failure criteria in advance and randomize participants.

Oregon did the randomization part with Medicaid. It didn’t help health much but people liked getting a giveaway. Had the pass/fail criteria been identified in advance, we could tell you whether it was a failure or not.

[Ben_]

There have also been hundreds of studies on closing education gaps — though many are not randomized studies . The answer is that education gaps can’t be closed. Policy to close education gaps is failed policy and should be replaced with policy to improve education of all.

[Brett Bellmore]

Education gaps can't be closed because they're not due to schools. They're due to parents and culture. With the wrong parents/culture, the best schools can accomplish nothing. With the right parents/culture, schools are nothing but a convenience.

But the left can't admit that, because they have a taboo against "blaming the victim", which is to say, admitting that anybody they feel sympathy towards might be causing their own problems. (Anybody they don't feel sympathy towards can't be a "victim".)

And that's a pity, because culture IS somewhat plastic. The left have proven that again and again. Often no in a good way, but they've proven it. But they can't bring themselves to try to change the culture away from self-defeating values, because, again, that would require "blaming the victim".

[Ben_]

It would be a big step forward for any of them to even admit what the studies say: Nothing works.

They’ll never do it though. Too much money and influence and opportunity for meddling in others' lives depends on the fiction that they can change things. They can hand-wave away any amount of evidence that says they can’t — just as long as the paychecks keep coming.

That’s a clear benefit to letting individuals run their own lives: no automatic built-in financial incentive to perpetuate waste or destruction.

[Nige]

'Nothing works.'

Yeah nobody ever, ever came from a difficult background and used public education to better themselves. Just doesn't happen.

[Ben_]

There have been hundreds of studies. None of the policies close gaps. Anything that helps an underachiever do better also helps overachievers. Gaps stay the same or even get wider.

Anyone who cares can go read it. Meanwhile, you can just keep making unintelligent noises to try to distract them.

[Nige]

The best chances a kid from a home that doesn't value or support education, or which is otherwise dysfunctional or has beliefs that run counter to a rational understanding of the world, overcoming those obstacles is access to high quality public education which parents or guardians are legally obliged to let them attend.

You really like to hide your racism behind utter bollocks.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd say you like to hide your complete disinterest in empirical facts behind utter bollocks, except that you seem to be OK with being out in the open with it.

Look, the programs DON'T WORK.

Oh, and Head Start? Within a couple years, all the affect of that goes away, too.

[bernard11]

Part of what is so refreshing about Koppelman's book is that his appreciation of Hayekian insights is so rare in center-left discourse.

Actually, it's not rare at all. It's commonplace. His basic idea of the market as an efficient information-processing mechanism is generally accepted, I think, on the center-left.

More broadly, DeLong says of Hayek,

His magnificent insight was that the market economy is an unrivaled mechanism for crowdsourcing innovation and mobilizing human brainpower to make the world richer (provided that property rights are enforced).

[Brett Bellmore]

Then why does the left keep seizing on anti-market solutions, like minimum wage laws, single payer, opposition to school vouchers?

Is it some other key insight they're missing, like the fact that government failure is as much a problem as market failure?

I'm genuinely curious here, because understanding Hayek should cause you to shy away from all those things.

[Aunt Teefah]

center-left =/= left

[Brett Bellmore]

In theory, yeah.

In practice, which of those contra-Hayekian notions I listed are NOT mainstream leftist ambitions?

[Aunt Teefah]

You're right that that left supports minimum wage and single payer healthcare, and opposes school vouchers. But among the center-left, it's a mixed bag, with plenty of opposition. There's tons of center-left "policy wonk" types that hate the minimum wage, and an alarming number of centrist Dem pols that love charter schools and vouchers.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, the center left is kind of the right-fringe of the left, rather than being a substantial faction?

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, politics is not a 1-dimensional continuum.

[bernard11]

Because understanding Hayek's good points does not require that one accept all his conclusions, or al the conclusions that his followers draw.

It is entirely possible to believe that thinker X made some sensible points without believing that X uncovered the key to the universe.

Secondarily, it is important to understand, as perhaps Hayek - and certainly Rothbard - did not, that he world is a complex place, and that it is not sensible to try to infer everything about its operation from some set of axioms.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, I do understand that. I'm curious what counter-insight you'd appeal to, to justify positions like I listed.

[bernard11]

Empirical evidence, as opposed to praxeology?

Recognition that a free-market approach to health care without government involvement is silly, and that the serious question is how to structure the system, not to rely on simple-minded slogans?

Considering the plausible real consequences of policies, rather than, again, sloganeering.

BTW, there is not uniform opposition among liberals to school choice programs. I myself would like to see some careful experimentation. The difficulty is that the right wants to yell, "the market, the market," as the ultimate solution to everything. There actually are many very good public schools, so maybe we should start with those as an example, rather than starting an ideological crusade.

[Nige]

You can fix government failures, market failures, often exacerbated by government failures, just proliferate. Climate change, for example, is a massive market failure, but it's been allowed to become so huge thanks to government failures. The market will not fix or address climate change, only governments can. Refusing to do so in a meaningful way is a government failure.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's exactly backwards: You can organize to privately work around market failures, but trying to work around government failures is typically illegal.

It's failure on the part of an institution that can shoot people who don't do as they're told, remember. That makes government failure much worse than market failure.

[Nige]

That... doesn't really address anything I said. Of course, private institutions influence governments to make some things that suit them illegal, and always have. They do this because they have money, thus markets corrupt governments. Also don't you, a private individual, have the right to shoot people in certain circumstances, just as governments do?

[bernard11]

You can organize to privately work around market failures,

Usually not.

How do you organize privately to work around monopolies, environmental problems, etc.?

[Brett Bellmore]

Didn't say it's easy, but you at least don't get shot for trying to do it.

[juris imprudent]

I'll also comment on Koppelman's ignorance of non-governmental fire fighting. I belong to a volunteer fire company, which is quite common in the rural parts of the country. There is no policy saying we won't respond to people who don't pay us; this makes me at least a little suspicious about the exact nature of the TN case mentioned. I wonder if this isn't as tortured an interpretation of an event as "shouting fire in a theater" is to free speech.

[juris imprudent]

Oh my, it's even better than I imagined. From the South Fulton FD page (which is part of the South Fulton municipal website):

Rural fire protection is available to people living outside of the city limits. The annual fee is $75 due July 1st – July 15th. After July 31st, penalties apply.

So this is a municipal agency offering the service to people outside of their immediate service area. And this is policy in both the city and county governments there.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Golly, look at all the sesquipedalian words in the title and introduction. It's enough to cause an English teacher to grow a pox. An English teacher who is also a lawyer has a seizure.