The Nub of Gherald and McArdle's Argument

The Nub of Gherald and McArdle’s Argument

by Metavirus on 31 July 2009

I can understand where Gherald and Megan McArdle are coming from because I was once a fellow hyper-Randian traveler:

In my chat today, a reader asked me to respond to Megan McArdle’s lengthy case against national health insurance. The problem is that, well, there’s not a lot to specifically respond to. In 1,600 words, she doesn’t muster a single link to a study or argument, nor a single number that she didn’t make up (what numbers do exist come in the form of thought experiments and assumptions). Megan’s argument against national health insurance boils down to a visceral hatred of the government. Which is fine. Megan is a libertarian. That’s, like, her journey, man. But her attack on national health insurance seems a lot more about libertarianism than it is about national health insurance.

Megan has two primary concerns. The first is that national health insurance would succeed in reducing health-care costs, and that would limit the rewards available for medical innovation (drugs, devices, etc), which would in turn reduce medical innovation and prevent future generations from enjoying wonder drugs. “If you worry about global warming,” she writes, “you should worry at least as hard about medical innovation.”

Second, national health care gives elites license “to wrap their claws around every aspect of everyone’s life.” Her primary example is obesity. Megan believes that national health insurance will give the government license to decide that we can never really want a second chocolate eclair. She also believes that the real reason most every epidemiologist in the country is worried about obesity is because they hate, and are disgusted by, poor people.

When it really comes down to it, Gherald and McArdle both express exactly the same predisposition I once had (i.e, “Government = bad; Most stuff that government does = bad”). For better or for worse, my faith in that doctrine is now nonexistent.

{ 12 comments }

Metavirus filed this under: Conservatives, Economy, Health Care, Libertarianism, Policy, Recession

Gherald says:

August 1, 2009 at 3:15 am

In your linked post, you wrote: "The last eight years we spent under republican rule, with the almost wholesale implementation of every tenet of the conservative faith"

If by this you mean that libertarianism or anything resembling it was implemented over the past eight years, you are perversely mistaken. Quite the contrary; there was rampant deficit spending and an expansion of entitlements and the national security state.

You basically explain why you've lost faith in the GOP--in particular its practice of cutting taxes without cutting spending. Great, join the club.

But I don't see what this has to do with libertarianism or limited government. The GOP payed lip service to such ideas, but it did not govern that way. Certainly not during the last 8 years of power.

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- Metavirus says:
  
  August 1, 2009 at 1:13 pm
  
  of course no movement can be pure. power-rich republicans did all of the normal things that people do when they're drunk on power.
  
  but when it comes to what i view as the core nub of conservative thought vis a vis government (i.e, that it is bad and that everything should be done to "strangle it in the crib"), the past 8 years were an unmitigated success, at least in terms of showing how terrifying destructive that can be (e.g. after trillions in taxes were cut during a time of war, after a bloody hatchet was taken to much of the financial regulatory system, etc.)
  
  Reply
  - Gherald says:
    
    August 1, 2009 at 4:02 pm
    
    Again, tax cuts without spending cuts is not my view.
    
    And concluding GOP=bad, a view I share, does not entail government=good. Quite the opposite in fact, since any observer of our 2-party system has got to figure Republicans will be in charge roughly half the time.
    
    Matt Yglesias acknowledges this, for instance, and has said he would prefer a sane Republican party to one that runs Palinesque candidates that are easier to beat.
    
    If you've "lost faith" with libertarianism, then it must be due to something other than recent Republican control--or you're being incoherent.
    
    Reply
    - Metavirus says:
      
      August 1, 2009 at 5:15 pm
      
      "concluding GOP=bad, a view I share, does not entail government=good"
      
      correct, that's not my view. i merely lost my faith in the dogma that government = bad. i didn't turn that into government=good.
      
      "If you've "lost faith" with libertarianism, then it must be due to something other than recent Republican control"
      
      I've lost faith with all sorts of facets of republicanism, conservatism and libertarianism over the last few years -- for a variety of reasons. there are obviously some things i've held on to and a lot that i've ditched. when you've lost faith in the dogma that government is mostly bad most of the time, there isn't much left on the economic side of libertarianism.
      
      Reply
      - Gherald says:
        
        August 1, 2009 at 5:18 pm
        
        You don't get it. It doesn't mean government=neutral or government=less-bad either. It's not a reason to lose faith in the idea that government=bad.
        
        If anything, my dislike of government has only increased due to Republicans' mishandling of it.
        
        So you're still being incoherent, unless you want to cite reasons for moving away from libertarianism that are not particular to the last bad, very un-libertarian period of Republican control.
        
        Reply
        
        PChun says:
        
        August 1, 2009 at 7:24 pm
        
        Part 1 of 2: What is this gov't =bad/good bs. Your drumbeat sounds more like an anarchist than a libertarian. What kind of non-reality based thinking is this? "Government" is a necessary group organizing principle that's there to be useful. Whether it's a small group, like how a family governs itself, or a larger tribe, city, country. Regardless of old stale political party affiliation arguments, that keep internally self-validating themselves even when they've become irrelevant, the emerging dominant politics is based on the question "What is useful and makes sense?"
        
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        Gherald says:
        
        August 1, 2009 at 7:29 pm
        
        I am not an anarchist, I am a minarchist.
        
        Government is a necessary evil. When I call it "bad" I'm just saying it's exceeded a more properly limited sphere of influence. The US government has certainly done so in almost every respect--sometimes egregiously so--which is why I'm generally in favor of less government involvement.
        
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        PChun says:
        
        August 1, 2009 at 7:27 pm
        
        Part 2 of 2: If more gov't involvement in a certain area is more useful, good (highways, public education, airports, military, environment, commerce regulation, healthcare, human/animal rights ); if less gov't is more useful in areas, good (privacy, religion, child rearing, self-care choices, private land use, competition..). If a useful idea comes from a Repub, good; a Dem, good; an Anarchist, good; a Libertarian, good. And a useless idea is a bad idea from wherever it comes.
        
        One size does not fit all, especially now in this vastly complex interconnected global reality. It's the new emerging politics that elected Obama and necessarily transcends old party lines. Partyliners for party's sake, wise decisions they do not make.
        
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        Gherald says:
        
        August 1, 2009 at 7:44 pm
        
        Here are some assorted libertarian-ish positions on the areas you list:
        
        education: disband the federal Department of Education, encourage privatization of schools, subsidize education with vouchers only (no direct payments to schools, let parents and students choose). Allow vouchers to be use for homeschooling curriculums.
        
        military: reduce size drastically (say, 50%, just to pick a number)
        
        commerce: end all agricultural subsidies, prevent forced unionization (equal opportunity employment for everyone, including those who do not wish to participate in a union—i.e., employment contracts cannot force the paying of dues)
        
        health-care: overhaul the individual market so contract terms are clearly enforced, end tax breaks for employer plans, direct any universal coverage subsidies through refundable tax credits or vouchers
        
        Reply
kevinista says:

August 2, 2009 at 1:30 am

"gubment came and took my baby!!" -- cracked out peter griffin

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Rooker says:

August 2, 2009 at 2:56 am

I thought that way once. Anything the government did made me wrap the tin foil tighter, because it was a sure sign of another totalitarian power grab.

Then Republicans gained control of all three branches of the US government and I got to see firsthand what happens when the government stops regulating large corporations and stops making sure that they are not being abusive to consumers. Eight years of Bush cured me of the mistaken idea that I was a republican, a conservative or a libertarian.

These days I look at evidence and research instead of letting Rush Limbaugh do my thinking for me, which is what I used to do.

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schu says:

August 2, 2009 at 3:23 pm

While anti-government positions are vastly popular we are usually caught on the horns of a dilemma. Which is worst, a large supervised government that tries to oversee all of our activities or an out of controlled corporate entity that runs over all of our rights and privileges in the name of profit and greed. The excess’s of corporate greed exceed the excess’s of the government bureaucracy. Can you imagine the chaos and grief after the economic melt down we have experienced if the Republicans could have passed the Social Security Reform Act? And how many people would have lost all their benefits in the stock market? And now, the same people who backed that wonderful idea are now leading the fight against financial reform and health care reform. All the corporations want is the continuation of their right to loot the US citizens and hide behind their multinational corporations. We need to figure out how to energized small business while holding back the corporate sharks and their feeding frenzies.

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