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Tuesday
May 13, 2008

A Corrupt Profession by Tibor R. Machan

There are those who believe that business is inherently corrupt--communists would be among those, and socialists. The very idea of striving to make a profit is treated by these people as morally objectionable. Of course, some even think medicine fits the bill, or military service. And there are animal rights advocates who believe the entire meat industry is morally base. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (74 messages)

Post 20

Wednesday, May 14 - 5:39pm

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Sorry, the Rand quote is utterly void of relevance to my point. Just because government is not a business it doesn't follow that governments don't employ people, that people aren't aspiring to government employment or office. Of course they do and have the right to do so in a free society.

Post 21

Wednesday, May 14 - 6:53pm

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Stan's Right to Have Babies.

I'll grant that the quote is tangential, but it does show that Rand believed, and I agree, that there is an essential difference between the government and the private sector.

The furthest I can see myself coming in your direction, Tibor, would be to concede that one has the right to petition to change a law or constitution regarding term limits.

Only private citizens as private citizens can have any rights as such. The presumption of innocence in a criminal trial applies to the accused, not to the peace officer. If a peace officer does not need to show that his actions are justified when he uses lethal force because of a presumption of innocence on his part, then where is the presumption of innocence of the unconvicted man he has killed? In such cases as the Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell killings the police had no right to remain police. They could not be convicted as citizens of murder without the presumption of innocence. But they could be removed from their positions as government employees without protesting that they had a right to be police officers.

No office holder, office seeker, candidate, politician, government officer or government employee can have any right that is not the right of any person. They may have limited powers granted them by their legitimate tenure of office or position. But those powers are not rights.

There cannot, therefore, be any right, but only the qualification to seek office. One can be recalled or impeached without having committed any crime. Qualifications for office do not address rights natural to persons or citizen. They are safeguards meant to protect citizens from improper government. (Address my counter examples from post 17 "Do foreigners or resident aliens have a right to run for office? Do children or outlaws have a right to run for office?") And hence, as dramatically as I can put it, the right to run for office without the right to hold office reminds me of Stan's right to have babies.

Ted Keer

Post 22

Wednesday, May 14 - 7:01pm

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Citizens have the legal right to run for office. That's part of being a citizen. To restrict it is wrong. Moreover, unlike in the skit, this right is one that most can exercise. (One cannot have a right that one cannot, in principle, exercise, such as a right to square the circle.)
(Edited by Machan on 5/15, 2:47am)

(Edited by Machan on 5/15, 2:48am)

Post 23

Wednesday, May 14 - 7:41pm

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From The Ayn Rand Lexicon

A recent variant of anarchistic theory, which is befuddling some of the younger advocates of freedom, is a weird absurdity called "competing governments." Accepting the basic premise of the modern statists — who see no difference between the functions of government and the functions of industry, between force and production, and who advocate government ownership of business—the proponents of "competing governments" take the other side of the same coin and declare that since competition is so beneficial to business, it should also be applied to government.

- Ayn Rand, "The Nature of Government" [emphasis mine]

Yes, but I know the full story, which I've posted here before. In fact, during this period, there were a number of anarcho-capitalists who frequented Rand's private parties, including economist Murray Rothbard and his crew of grad students and former students from City College. The issue was discussed but never taken very seriously, by most accounts. It's been reported by various witnesses that Branden took delight in personally insulting Rothbard, referring to him as "Rossbutt," in a parody of Rand's thick Russian accent.

What triggered the Competing Governments piece in the Newsletter and then in The Virtue of Selfishness was that Andrew Galambos visited to ask Rand's permission to make a movie of Atlas Shrugged. Galambos had a HUGE organization here in the L.A. area, with thousands of people continuously taking expensive - as in, $440 to $1,000 - 1970's dollars - courses at his Free Enterprise Institute. He had the wherewithal to finance the movie out of his own pocket. Galambos was also the ONLY activist then using the term "competing governments" to refer to his style of anarcho-capitalism, a term that he only used briefly and then dropped.

According to Galambos, his reputation got him into Rand's party and ended up with a personal one-on-one to discuss the movie. Note that Galambos had an extremely forceful, often abrasive personality. He said what he thought. Tact was a foreign concept to him, and the number of ex-Galambosians in the libertarian movement is legendary. He got to where he was in life by being smarter and more productive than everyone else, not by being nice, and he was fully aware of that fact. I think that he felt that if you needed nice, then you weren't worth talking to to begin with.

Still, he and Rand allegedly hit it off, and she told him that she was interested in his ideas on how to organize society, specifically the "competing government" concept, which he used to refer to his overall model for governance during their meeting.

Then Galambos told Rand that there was just one stipulation he required for making the Atlas Shrugged movie:

This time, he told her, he wanted assurance that they would get a decent scriptwriter, so that it wouldn't be botched like The Fountainhead.

Post 24

Wednesday, May 14 - 7:53pm

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Dr Machan, not even Putin could convince the Duma of this! Do you also assert that age qualifications for office are wrong? I could see someone making an argument that a constitution without term limits might provide a better government. I can also agree that anyone who meets the constitutional qualifications for office is entitled to run. But based upon what principle, given my objections in post 21 and above, can one assert that there is such a thing as a blanket right to run for any office regardless of constitutional qualifications and limits? As a minarchist Objectivist I find your repeated assertion baffling.

Post 25

Wednesday, May 14 - 8:05pm

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I don't believe in competing governments either considering that it's a contradiction in terms, because a government by its definition is an enforced monopoly in some function, usually attributed the function of the courts at the barest definition of them. Therefore, they cannot compete. Unless you mean governments compete for territory or 'tribute', which isn't good either because all that does is keep us going back to square one (of being under the yoke of some jerk off that would have been tossed under the bus in any other situation).

So, again, I think it bears mentioning that my views are colored by dealing with governments, their corruption, and seeing how other people responded (specifically in fiction of Rand and Heinlein). So, I won't say that I'm unbiased by any means, but when I listened to the audiobook version of the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the professor did present what I believe is necessary to keep governments 'safe': obfuscation. Especially, a form of obfuscation that impedes the enactment of laws, such as his idea of making a 'congress' that could repeal laws with a 1/3 block vote, or that votes would be staggered in such a way as to prevent laws from being passed hastily. Granted, the character was an anarchist (and so am I), but his point stands quite well, that governments historically that have become centralized in any fashion become 'efficient' for their own means and wishes at the expense of citizens and non-citizens equally.

If there is to be a government, it should be framed in the same context that Heinlein put it in the novel I mentioned as something not necessarily needed or wanted, and not to be given means to efficient exercise of its powers to make laws (as to expand its scope). I think any other sorts of discussions on this issue would be fruitless because small-l libertarians, even among anarchists, cannot agree on much. :-P

-- Brede

Post 26

Wednesday, May 14 - 8:15pm

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I took a couple of courses from Galambos, dropping out of the third one in protest - but that's another story.

Galambos, the source of the competing governments controversy, was very careful in his lectures to distinguish between government and state. He defined a government as the means by which a society is "governed," which he distinguished clearly from "ruled." He referred to the example of a "governor" on a motor, that keeps it from destroying itself. Thus, within his paradigm, there was no contradiction. The social systems that "governed" a society could be a monopoly or a bunch of competing businesses, offering services such as arbitration, title insurance, or physical protection. His model was that of a thermostat, a negative feedback system that keeps things on track. A "state" on the other hand is a coercive monopoly on the use of force.

Post 27

Wednesday, May 14 - 8:55pm

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Take the Ninth Amendment, for instance. It states that we have rights not enumerated in the Constitution. Of course--like the right to sing or laugh or fiddle our thumbs or do whatever we choose to do that does not violate anyone's rights. Running for office would be such a right--not a basic one like life or liberty but one everyone has, nevertheless, in a free country. As to age limits, they are related to maturity, an objective precondition for holding office. Just like the right to enter into a contract, which kicks in only when one is of age.

Post 28

Wednesday, May 14 - 8:59pm

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It is odd that there are folks who repeated change the subject from what the main essay is about. Now suddenly some are talking about anarchism which, of course, my column didn't mention. Off topic, I say. It is as if they wanted to drive home the point that what the essay is about isn't worth discussing but they can bring on what is. Why don't they just write an essay about their topic then? (It also wastes the time of those who sign on to see what people have to say about the topic that got the discussion going.)

Post 29

Wednesday, May 14 - 9:07pm

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Sorry, Tibor, they're reading the absolutely irrelevant part of my quote in post 19 and running with it. Mea culpa.

Post 30

Wednesday, May 14 - 9:38pm

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I would like to point to the Anarchism topics such as "Police Forces and Courts of Law" in the Dissent Forum. The horse has been flogged. The axe has been ground.

I am with Ted on restrictions for running for office. The president must be 35 and cannot serve but two terms. Some state governors cannot succeed themselves. I would consider property ownership a valid requirement for office. Heinlein offered military service and allowing some alternatives in the same vein, I would support that as well.

Dr. Machan's stipulation, "in a free society" needs to be clarified. He is saying that in some better world this would be the case, but here and now it is not, or perhaps need not, or cannot be the case.

I think that age restrictions would be irrelevant in a free society. Intelligence matters more. If a 10-year old can get the votes, then, indeed, "a child shall lead them." This came home a long long long time ago when I was 15 and elected to student council with As in civics and I had a cousin turn 21 who did not even know who or what he could vote for. And it was my Mom who pointed it out to me, "Do you honestly think that Joey should be allowed to vote but you shouldn't?"

Dr. Machan quoth: "Sadly that darn village green is growing by leaps and bounds--next your haircut will be part of it."

Ah, yes indeedy-do, good neighbor! Barbers and beauticians are regulated here in Michigan and probably where you live, as well. In fact, I just had a beautician cut my hair and illegally use a razor to trim over the ears. Silly as that may be, I point out that politicians per se seldom think of this stuff on their own. The people demand it. In my criminal justice classes at Washtenaw Community College, my constitutional law instructor, being from Ohio, used to make fun of Michigan's many larcenies. "Larceny from a cranberry bog" she called it, explaining that some contributor to a state legislator's campaign suffers some loss and rather than applying existing law demands that a new law be written making their special loss a crime.

But you see, the Constitution (state or federal) is powerless to stop this. The people will demand and enact amendments, if that's what it takes. It has not much to do with politics per se, and everything to do with philosophy. Change the prevalent philosophy and the details of the constitutions do not matter much.

Post 31

Wednesday, May 14 - 10:41pm

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The Howard Foundation Solution

I favor much higher age qualifications than we have now exactly in order to fight corruption. It would prevent political careerism. There is also the Howard Foundation argument. And too many politicians have never actually held a job. (And no, political office is not a job.)

Second, one would hope the elderly wouldn't be in it for the kickbacks. As it is now, politicians retire in order to spend their "productive" years as lobbyists.

I have no great objection to military or property qualifications, except that some people may be excluded from military service due to handicaps, or be well qualified but become indigent due to some natural disaster. It would, for instance, be just too cumbersome to amend the Constitution to say that no person shall serve as president who has not been honorably discharged after a term of no less than two years in the military service of the United States unless that person shall have been discharged due to a wound or other disability incurred in combat or the proper exercise of his duty excepting through his own negligence or when he has been determined to be fit for modified service but has opted...

Post 32

Thursday, May 15 - 2:43am

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I, too, may not have personal objections to, distaste for, some of the limitations imposed on aspiring politicians but that isn't what is at issue. I am concerned with whether in a free society such limitations are proper. Do they not violate the principle of the right to liberty of conduct? Many in this community insist that prohibiting the use of self-injuring drugs, for example, is such a violation despite the widespread acceptance of those prohibitions. Or take all the restrictions on property use, all the building and zoning codes. I am questioning restrictions or bans in another realm of peaceful conduct; I am suggesting they, too, involve the violation of our rights. No one's rights are being violated when a person runs for office a second or third time; it is perfectly peaceful conduct. So why is it prohibited in a free country? Go figure.

Post 33

Thursday, May 15 - 11:03am

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Tibor:

Regarding the issue of term limits and other restrictions being placed on political offices, I am afraid I am not clear as to your objections. If it was decided that the political system would be better if career politicians were eliminated, and that setting term limits were the best way to do that, then so long as this is an objectively implemented universal rule, I do not see why this is any more objectionable or wrong than implementing a mandatory shift time, dress code, or other set of condition on a job.

I agree with you that mandatory building/zoning codes are a violation of our rights since they impose restrictions on what we can and cannot do with our personal property. These laws unfairly transfer ownership rights from the property holder to a political entity. In the same way, restrictions on political contributions are also wrong because these laws also limit the right to determine how to dispose of one's personal property and transfers some of that control to the government. However, I do not see how this translates to the realm of elected public office. No on has a "right of access" to an unregulated political position any more than they have a right to any other job. These positions can be objectively defined as we best see fit and then everyone is allowed to vie for these positions equally under the stated terms. It is unclear to me how this translates into a rights violation for any of us.

You say:

> No one's rights are being violated when a person runs for office a second or third time

and this is true. But I do not see that this is the issue. When deciding upon the rules for how government is to be structured, we are trying to establish a system that best protects our rights and minimizes the possibility for corruption and other bad behavior or results. We have plenty of evidence to demonstrate that often, the longer a politician is seated, the greater the power they are able to wield. We also see that the need for politicians to get elected frequently causes them to pander to groups with the promise of wealth redistribution schemes in exchange for their votes. This second problem of promising to steal from Peter to pay Paul is one thing for a novice to make who currently has no political power and therefore the ability to guarantee results, and quite another thing for an established politician who has quite possibly acquired a position of political pull which makes these results much more likely. Isn't the idea of setting a single term limit on all political offices just a sensible idea to attempt to limit corruption and no more wrong than demanding that airline pilots not take drugs? If you want to be a pilot, then you can't take drugs. If you want to be a politician, then you only get to do so for one term. I do not see how this infringes on anyone's freedoms.

Or to look at it another way, how is placing a term limit on a political office any different that separating the powers of government into three branches? If you think that term limits abridge the freedoms of office seekers, then don't restrictions on what actions a particular office holder may exercise do the same thing? It seems to me that if we strip away the right to impose term limits as being somehow philosophically untenable in the name of personal freedom, then it would also be an argument for saying that there is no justification for not granting dictatorial powers to the President, since limiting his authority is also a restriction on personal freedom, when there is no guarantee that any particular person would necessarily abuse the power of that position.

Please understand that I'm not accusing anyone of advocation these positions. I'm just trying to look at the logical implications of the argument against term limits. Maybe I'm not seeing some critical facet of this issue.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 34

Thursday, May 15 - 12:02pm

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In regards to political campaigns, I agree that restrictions on financing are unconscionable. However, I would support an open book law - in other words, like a public company, your financing sources must be an open book. This would mean that donations could be fully known by the public before they chose to vote. I don't see that as a problem, because it would simply be a qualification for running.

Post 35

Thursday, May 15 - 1:58pm

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As I said before, I may like all of the rules governing running for office but I do not see how anyone can legitimately prevent another person from running. It's not a matter of having access to the office but of the right to seek it. Any job may be sought by any adult person, with no assurance that it will be obtained. But to seek it seems to be every citizen's right. Of course, maybe the job itself can have restrictions placed on it by those who are seeking applicants. Perhaps that is the way to see term limits and such. Not that one may not seek the job but that some are not qualified by the terms laid out. So perhaps seeking office is fine and dandy but the office is only available for one term or two and only to tall people or 40 year olds and above. This, however, seems to violate the spirit of "equality under the law." May such rules be set as terms in a bona fide free country? (Notice how so much of the post you offered is about what "we" decide. Who is this we and why should their preference be decisive? Here is where the issue of this being public office not a private place of employment kicks in.)

Post 36

Thursday, May 15 - 6:47pm

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Tibor,

Here in NC there are certain judgeships that are open only to members of the bar. Should non-lawyers be able to run for such offices?

BTW, I'm opposed to this relatively recent restriction.

Post 37

Thursday, May 15 - 7:55pm

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I'm with Tibor on this one. If the state is seen as an organization vested with the sole ultimate power to protect our rights and derives what questionable legitimacy that it has from the fact that a majority of those governed at least had the opportunity to cast a vote to influence who should have that "honor," then second-guessing the electorate by posing term limits, age limits, intelligence or education standards, et al, on the candidates both defeats democracy and undermines the legitimacy of any election - not that that is necessarily a bad thing in itself...

This discussion is again reminiscent of the argument over the right of the president to unilaterally declare an American citizen an enemy combatant and thereby strip them of all rights to habeus corpus, an attorney, confronting their accuser, a timely hearing, etc., etc. Some people respond with "Nothing we can do to those people is bad enough. You must be an Al Quieda sympathizer. They don't NEED a trial. String Em UP !" But this begs the question of whether the people so incarcerated are in fact guilty. The purpose of a trial is to assess that issue. Giving the executive branch the option to short circuit the judicial branch and become judge, jury and executioner on its own is a clear and major breach in the foundation of what freedoms we have left.

Similarly, the one of the selling points of democracy is that it is inclusive - except of course for convicted drug users, who are often barred from voting on the very laws or candidates who take positions on drugs - but that's another topic. Any restriction on who can run, who can vote and how much you can put behind a candidate is an inherent violation of the basic democratic process. It separates those who are now the ruling class from those who are ruled without representation. Democracy is not objective, nor is it Christian, or Shinto.

Democracy merely reflects the will of the majority, a concensus of what we are willing to put up with and a substitute for civil war. Instead of intelligent, educated, rich, or of former military service as qualificaitons, a devout Christian might stick in "faithful" and demand that any candidate must pass muster before a council of bishops of his or her personal persuasion. By laying on various qualifications, you successively restrict candidacy to those who match a particular demographic, again pre-electing without the electorial process even needed any more. This is a road we do not want to go down.

Post 38

Thursday, May 15 - 8:20pm

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This is, in effect, Phil, the advocacy of simple majoritarian democracy: "then second-guessing the electorate by posing term limits, age limits, intelligence or education standards, et al, on the candidates both defeats democracy and undermines the legitimacy of any election."

If the electorate wants to vote in Hitler, kill all the Sikhs, pass a referendum mandating female circumcision, who are we to second guess them?

Government is not a business. Our government is not a Democracy. It is rule by constitutionally limited law - not omnipotent factions. If Miley Cyrus wants to run for President, and everyone who watches American Idol wants to vote for her, who are we to second guess them.

In reality, so long as they understand and follow the Constitution, I'd prefer to be governed by people selected by lot than people able to be re-elected without limit.

Post 39

Thursday, May 15 - 9:28pm

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Under Objectivism are two topics of immediate relevance.

A Rational Government Would Look Like This
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ObjectivismQ&A/0200.shtml
Monarchism vs. Republicanism
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ObjectivismQ&A/0241.shtml

In that second, I said:

I believe that no form of government is better than any other. All have strengths and weaknesses, absent a calculus of statecraft to prove which is better. What matters most is the dominant philosophy of the culture.

As often as I have agreed with the substance or intention of Phil Osborn's many insightful posts, I have to stand foursquare against his ringing endorsement of democracy. There is nothing special in it. Moreover, even among Objectivists who should know better, the word "democracy" has been substitituted for "constitutional republic." No true Objectivist could be in favor of democracy -- certainly not one unlimited by a strict constitution.

That brings up an unanswered point.

Dr. Machan said that "in a free society" we would not need to limit the "rights" of voters. I question that.

He is saying:
1. We do not now live in this rationalist hypothesis of a perfect world.
If we did, we would not need to limit the "rights" of voters.

2. We do not live in this rationalist hypothesis of a perfect world.
Therefore, we do need to limit the "rights" of voters.

But he dodges the implication of that assertion. As we do not live in a perfect (rationalist hypothesis) world, just exactly which limits on the so-called rights of voters would be appropriate?

We here also fall into this rationalist fallacy. If you read the posts -- mine as well -- you will see people conflating their "perfect world" with our very real world. Of course, as interesting as such rationalist constructs may be in analyzing the world, the fact is that they are UNREAL. All that counts is the real world with real people. What then, I ask?

In the context of this topic, I assert that politicians are no more or less corrupt than any other profession. Moreover, I point out that politicians only do the bidding of voters. If voters are "corrupt" then the problem is philosophical, not constitutional. No constitutional arrangement can prevent the people in a society from destroying themselves.