Welcome to my fourth installment of Comments on Comments. I’ll start off with one response in reply to #3, and then move into newer material.

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In Comments # 3, Francois says:

I think self-management is the only way to reconcile wage work with the concepts of Anarchy and freedom. Small business would still be allowed to be owned given that they did not receive State support, but after a certain siz (sic) all businesses should be sold to their employees (in the transition to Anarchy, given to the employees) and self-managed.

I suppose I’m unclear as to what is meant by “self-managed” and what would constitute a small business of tolerable size? As the number of individuals involved increases from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4 or 8 or 27, the likelihood of reaching unanimity in decisions decreases (I want to say “exponentially,” but I’m not sure that would be mathematically correct) especially involving matters of a personal nature. There are countless examples of work that simply cannot be done by a single individual, or cannot be done by a group small enough to make unanimity in decision-making a likely outcome, so I assume that “self-management” is not the literal, individual “self,” but rather something else. (Please pardon my naïvète.) I still maintain that valuable hierarchies based on merit or knowledge (e.g., the Chef, the Chief Editor, the Foreman, etc.) may still arise, and that there is nothing wrong with these so long as they remain voluntary arrangements.

But I think the property rights approach holds equally, even if we assume the literal “self,” in that all work is done by independent and solitary contractors, there is still a necessary and uncontestable organizational hierarchy that persists: I am paying the bricklayer to pave my driveway. If I tell him he can’t smoke on my property, well then, he can’t smoke on my property. He can choose to forego a day’s worth of Marlboros, or he can choose to pave other driveways. He can try to negotiate a different arrangement with me, but unless I permit it, what he cannot do is smoke on my property. I write the rules with regards to acceptable conduct on my property, because it’s mine.

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I blogged about Bush’s plan to destroy private schools — the unintended consequences of federal subsidies for private schooling. I suggest that the radical solution is to “eradicate the entire, rotten infrastructure of public schooling, severing the ties between local governments, property taxes, and education.” Joe McHugh comments:

Two separate issues here: systemic and funding. To change the system radically, we don’t need a radical change, just a basic one: force public schools to compete with their private/charter school counterpart, ie vouchers.

To level the playing field and provide equal opportunity to all students in a given state (I’m in MI), funding should be appropriated at the state rather than local level.

I’m always of the opinion that a local tyrant is easier to dethrone than one in Lansing, or one in Washington, but I’m a still skeptical when you say “state level” I read that as: taking money from Birmingham taxpayers to pay for teachers, students, and textbooks in Detroit or Morenci. Of course, what I want is “no tyrants at any level,” and the corrolary, no taxpayers.

The macro-system of education is no less dependent on government, and taxes are still paid in amounts disproportionate to the schooling “consumed,” your property taxes don’t rise when you have a second kid, nor do they fall when you send them off to Cranbrook. A voucher simply allows people a modicum of freedom in determining which particular school your child should attend, but it doesn’t strike at the root of the problem, it keeps education reliant on state subsidy.

To really force public schools to compete would be to permit wholesale secession. If you send your kids to private schools, you shouldn’t be forced to also pay taxes which fund the public schools your kids aren’t attending. And if you don’t have kids, you shouldn’t have to pay to put your neighbors’ kids through school, either. At some critical mass, public schools will no longer be sustainable without massive tax increases. As the taxable population base declines in favor of private schools, public schools will become increasingly more expensive per pupil. At the same time, as more students enter private schools, the effect is the opposite, and private institutions may achieve economies of scale, broadening the quantity and quality of programs offered thereby. Absence of ridiculous extra-curriculars (like choir or band, baseball or badminton) license requirements means that qualified, knowledgeable individuals instruct the students, regardless of whether they have a degree from a University, which should trickle down into lower costs.

Bear in mind that true competition means that your kid doesn’t have to pay for a gym class if he doesn’t want to learn how to square dance. He doesn’t have to take Spanish, or learn geometry if he wants to be a math teacher or a bricklayer. He doesn’t have to subsidize a football stadium, a marching band, or teachers’ unions and a 180-day calendar, either. He won’t have to go to school with the kids down the street, which means that if you save enough and work hard enough, even if you live in the slums and are surrounded by good-for-nothings, you can send him to a school where he can escape those elements. Vouchers may be a step in the right direction, but they certainly don’t change the nature of the system, and it is the nature of the system which is broken.

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On Libertarians Are Not Idiots, Eric Sundwall comments:

“…Love the whole ‘Market Anarchy Carnival’ bit btw.”

Eric, thank you. I believe it was Francois Tremblay’s idea. In any event, I am hosting the next edition due out on February 29. Feel free to submit your own original anti-state or pro-market posts for inclusion.

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Via email, dwz sent me a great opinion piece about Mayor Kwame Kilpatric of Detroit (MI). Ellis Washington argues:

The grand dragon of the KKK himself couldn’t have envisioned a more Faustian conspiracy against black people and their own vested interests.

I have blogged occasionally about Kwame and/or Detroit. The recent scandal involving an extramarital affair with his aide and a $9M settlement to cover it up is simply the icing on the cake. He’ll probably get re-elected.

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I am getting an increasing amount of blog-spamming, that is, phony or automated trackbacks. The trackbacks all say something generic like “read the rest of this great post here.” I characterize these trackbacks as spam. Thanks again, akismet I’ve noticed that recent posts about health-care, and election politics are particularly magnetic for this sort of spam. I’m sure other bloggers experience this, is there a name for it?

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I have noticed that sometimes people assume that I’m talking about the way things are, as opposed to the way things would otherwise be. I think a rule everyone should apply when reading my posts is that generally speaking, when I talk about a “free market,” I really mean a “free market,” not the current market which some refer to as “free,” or any iteration or variant of corporatism. Unless there is some compelling reason to conclude that I’m theorizing about state-capitalism, assume that I’m not. If my arguments have lacked clarity in the past, or if they do so in the future, please let me know so that I can fine-tune them. I don’t want to be imprecise if I can avoid it.

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You can always use the Contact Me page if you don’t want to leave a comment. Again, all comments except spam are generally welcome, and I will make an effort to respond to each one.