Tibor Machan's Columns
Bush's Swagger and Iraqi Freedom
"That we all have the right to be free is perhaps a fairly sophisticated idea. Actually, the claim made by classical liberals and, especially, libertarians is that the right to liberty is something everyone has by his or her nature as a human being. But that said, it does not follow that all will acknowledge having this right or care about it at all, even less that they care about others having this right." Column by Tibor Machan.
The Feudal and Socialist Nature of Taxation
"By this latter view taxation is an extortion scheme, nothing less. You are born and despite never having been asked whether you choose to sign up for various benefits, when they are delivered to you, you are forced to pay up. That’s exactly how organized criminals collect funds from those whom they 'protect.' If you do not pay, the protectors will come and get you and hurt you—in the case of the government fine or even jail you good and hard." Column by Tibor Machan.
Communists Given Unearned Sympathy
"Why is there this ridiculous nostalgia in the USA and probably many other places for a regime that murdered some 20 million human beings and that betrayed all of its own ideals of equality and compassion toward the downtrodden of the world? The Soviets were a fraud from start to finish, and even the principles to which they gave totally phony lip service are mainly impossible ideals that turn out to do much more harm than good...." Column by Tibor Machan.
Journalism, Competition and Objectivity
"It is here that the importance of a free press arises most clearly. For however much journalists might be willing to commit malpractice, when they compete with one another for readers, listeners, or viewers, they cannot afford to be sloppy for very long. Competition is a kind of quality management device." Column by Tibor Machan.
Welcoming Versus Blocking Innovation
"Only when various groups go to the government to get some kind of special favors, by way of subsidies, protectionism, or price supports, does the situation begin to go seriously awry, with the whole process becoming politicized and creating, in its wake, hostilities and feelings of victimization all around." Column by Tibor Machan.
Were The Founders Libertarian?
"...one of the main themes of the classical liberal...social philosophy had been that moral virtue cannot be commanded by government or anyone else, not if we are talking about adult citizens. Even Aristotle realized this when he noted that moral virtue required choice! Choice, in turn, requires freedom." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Government, having been left carelessly unrestrained and with too much power, manages to act as the old monarch—or socialist commissar—who thought he (or she) owned everything by divine or historical right, including our labor." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Yet organs like The Times insist over the last year or so...that preemptive wars are wrong, even criminal, without ever confessing that they have all along been the strongest supporters of political ideas that unabashedly and unapologetically endorse preemptive and precautionary public policies." Column by Tibor Machan.
Replacing Arguments with Name Calling
"Some of the major figures of public debate do not even pretend to argue, they just call each other nasty names. They do not even attempt to defend their views as correct but rely on badmouthing their adversaries in the hope of making their name-calling catch on with the citizenry. To achieve this, they add the humor factor, Al Franken’s professional expertise." Column by Tibor Machan.
Tibor Machan responds to Publishers Weekly's attack on his new book.
"It pains me when some of my fellow loyal champions of liberty speak as if liberty were something in America to which we could perhaps return. As if those good old days were rife with individual liberty across the land." Column by Tibor Machan.
Revisiting and Expanding the Laffer Curve
"Now the Laffer Curve is extendable into much more than the sphere of taxation-extortion. Any sort of government intrusion is subject to its insight....Indeed, statism as such is subject to the Laffer Curve analysis -- in most societies it is not significantly enough resisted for it to subside, let alone disappear." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Over the years attending libertarian meetings I have always been a bit uneasy about folks in attendance who think being forced to wear helmets while riding motorcycles or having to wear seatbelts in cars are central libertarian issues. They are and aren’t." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Within libertarianism, though, the concept 'government' is still unstable. Anarcho-libertarians, who argue for something they dub 'competing legal systems' or 'competing defense organizations,' claim that the concept 'government' means, essentially, 'a monopoly of legal services over a given territory.' This isn’t as clear cut as one might wish." Column by Tibor Machan. [Note: I don't agree with this column, but I publish it here to further the intellectual debate. - Rob]
"My point was, in essence, that rights are just not the sort of things animals other than people could have. Could animals have guilt, be blamed, feel regret and remorse, or apologize or anything on that order? No, and why so, that was the gist of my thesis: They are not moral agents like us, not even the great apes." Column by Tibor Machan.
Is Morality Illiberal, Un-Libertarian?
"If I ought to work hard, or do any other right thing, it is not true that others may force me. Indeed, if they did, I would not be doing what I ought to do but what I am made to do. Zero moral credit is earned this way. What is right or good for me is something I have to choose to pursue and obtain for it all to amount to anything morally significant." Column by Tibor Machan.
"I need, however, to assure these critics now and then that I have absolutely no loyalty to any particular big business. Indeed, I have pointed out over my entire career how the welfare state is far more guilty of handing out subsidies and other favors to big business than to unwed mothers or the unemployed. I am quite in agreement with Adam Smith on this—people in business, no less so than those in other lines of work, often collude to plead for special favors from government." Column by Tibor Machan.
Some Further Causes of Outsourcing
"Once again it is government, at the urgings of vested interests, that have managed to make the American job market too expensive for at least a portion of employers and thus has contributed to driving them to seek a more hospitable climate." Column by Tibor Machan.
Recommended "Protectionism impoverishes millions abroad, in Third World countries, who could be competing with you and your North American pals but are prevented from doing so by those like you who believe they are so virtuous when in fact they are steeped in the worst sort of chauvinism and prejudice in favor of members of your tribe. Those other human beings you so cavalierly dismiss from the human race have every right to compete with you and your fellows in North America but no, you will not let them. Well, I have no respect for your wish to keep jobs where you live. What makes you and your neighbors so special that they ought to receive this illicit, nasty protection against those who are now disenfranchised? Not a thing." Column by Tibor Machan.
Is the Right Kind of Liberalism Coming Back?
The classical kind. Column by Tibor Machan.
"...when folks come down on business, it has far less to do with actual misconduct than with rank prejudice: Making money itself is the target, striving for prosperity, unabashedly as people do in commerce, is what is being attacked." Column by Tibor Machan.
Martha Stewart and Her 'Crime'
"So, it was about envy, resentment, not any violation of anyone’s rights. They might as well indict all those high and mighty journalists, the big wigs, who have scooped their competition, for failing to play fair and allowing everyone to get the information when they did. How ridiculous!" Column by Tibor Machan.
Forcing Some to Make Others' Jobs Secure
"Once the job market is widened, there will be newcomers who will outbid the existing group of workers. That is what competition means, and any effort to keep the newcomers out is vile, comparable to how the Mafia does 'business,' not how free men and women are supposed to." Column by Tibor Machan.
Liberty and Freedom of the Press
"How annoying is it that journalists scream bloody murder whenever anyone goes near their liberty to scribble on endlessly about anything they like, in any form they prefer, with whatever illustrations they favor, but have no compunction about calling for government to meddle in everyone else’s profession?" Column by Tibor Machan.
Religion, Culture and Law in Free Societies
"Whether gays ought to marry or not is not the most important matter. What is far more important is whether other people may force them to refrain from marrying." Column by Tibor Machan.
"It is sad, though, that a man who left the Nazis and the Communists behind, as did I, would then opt not for a categorical rejection of the use of coercive force in human relations but merely a tempering of this, not allowing it to get too much out of hand." Column by Tibor Machan.
Collectivist Thinking Is Rife in the USA
"Sure, the Massachusetts Supreme Court affirmed the right of gays to get married. Did that shove anything down anyone’s throat? Not by a long shot, no more so than a court’s affirming the right to be free of enslavement or some other government imposed restriction shoves anything down anyone’s throat." Column by Tibor Machan.
America and the Right to Private Property
"So, in conclusion, in a system of politics modeled on distinctively American ideals and ideas-as articulated, mainly, in the Declaration of Independence and derived from the views of classical liberals such as John Locke-the right to private property, and, therefore, a system of free market capitalism loom very large." Column by Tibor Machan.
Wrong Response to 'Loss of Jobs'
"My own approach has been to never yield to the temptation to call upon government to play the tit for tat public policy game whereby some market distortion abroad is then answered with a market distortion at home or a domestic injustice is met with even more domestic injustice, via government regulations. Someone must begin with clearing the road to a free market place, and those of us discussing these matters in a certain region of the globe probably have a better-albeit often merely minuscule-chance of influencing politicians and bureaucrats within our reach than those operating elsewhere." Column by Tibor Machan.
The Federal Government Isn't Needed to Preserve Marriage
"OK, so the president is confused-the whole point of being free is that nothing much is legally required of you other than respecting everyone’s rights. But Mr. Bush is, in fact, trying to have it both ways, a limited government dedicated primarily to protecting our individual rights to liberty, and an intrusive federal government that is dictating to all what they ought to call their romantic unions." Column by Tibor Machan.
Science in the Service of Power?
"Fact is, housing developments are the dwellings of a vital life form in nature, human beings, no different from how nests are the dwelling places of birds or anthills those of ants or dirt mounds those of gofers or what have you. All living things transform parts of nature to suit their living requirements, and the same goes for human beings." Column by Tibor Machan.
'But Americans Aren't Getting the New Jobs'
"But this line of thinking-America first in jobs-disgusts me to no end, considering, especially, that this country perhaps more than any other is filled with people who or whose ancestors were anything but Americans not all that long ago. I find it difficult to fathom...that thoughtful Americans could think along such lines, begrudging foreigners their chance at a decent life. This kind of 'If they get a job, we must lose a job' thinking is so Neanderthal, so out to lunch, especially in this era of modern economic theory...that my little hope that the world might advance a step or two toward reason and peace and justice is nearly shattered, and I am very tempted to turn into a misanthrope." Column by Tibor Machan.
"I suggest that we be very, very careful about letting folks get away with claiming to be the authoritative representatives of either God or Nature. They are too often up to something invasive, intrusive, and aggressive when they see themselves in that light." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Or, perhaps, many of those who do the work that’s being replaced either by labor saving machines at home or by lower paid workers abroad simply cannot fathom having to be reeducated to meet the needs of a changing market place. This is what is most frightening-that the Democratic Party and all those who pitch their misguided economic views are really simply catering to the laziest folks in the labor force, those who are unwilling to cope with the need to make some changes in their preparedness for work." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Most libertarians do not see this as a deal-breaking dispute. They are mainly concerned with the central point: Who is to rule our lives? Is it to be individuals, within their own delimited sphere, wherein no one may enter who hasn’t obtained permission, where no governing may occur unless consent of the governed has been given? Or is it to be some self-selected persons or groups, people who either rule others on their own initiative or who claim to speak for everyone and impose their (majority, minority) plans on all, never mind consent." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Why was it a fraud to start with? Because government cannot-yes, literally, cannot-be compassionate toward people with other people’s money. You, I, our friends and neighbors can be compassionate, in the sense that we can consider some people’s misfortune, even bad choices, and reach out to them with our help, be this money or some service we could offer. That’s compassion. But when we see such misfortune and go out to rob a neighbor and hand over the loot to those in need, that isn’t compassion, conservative, liberal or any other kind!" Column by Tibor Machan.
"At the heart of all the frantic nauseating blabber about gay marriage is the desire to control people, to refuse to let them be, as if something truly insidious were to be unleashed by not invalidating their unions. Nothing is at stake in this prohibitionist effort other than the blatant prejudice of people on the Right against those who do not share their view of who may bond with whom. Sorry Limbaugh & Co., this is still America, not Iran." Column by Tibor Machan.
Misplaced Honor for Politicians
"Members of council...are as a rule undeserving of special respect. They do not hold honorable professions. They are, essentially, power brokers and wielders, not professionals standing up for peace and justice." Column by Tibor Machan.
Explanations and Lies About North Korea
"How can it be that major international agencies and news services are so eager to hide the full responsibility of the political system of North Korea for its murderous policies? How is it that even after the collapse of the Soviet Union’s catastrophic experiment with centrally planned socialism, the horrible famine brought about by the same system in the People’s Republic of China, modern officialdom is still hell bent on trying to make respectable the Leftist ideology responsible for it all?" Column by Tibor Machan.
"What should be obvious is that politics is impotent to help us with much of anything in the world and, more importantly, those running for office and meddling in our affairs appear to know this plain and simple. They might well not be so evasive, so duplicitous, if they thought they actually had some solutions to problems we face....But too many our journalists are ideologically on board with those who see the mighty state as the solver of our problems, so they keep addressing those who run for office and are in office as if they had a clue." Column by Tibor Machan.
"...none of the candidates, not one, is concerned with individual liberty, with the violation of individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on innumerable fronts." Column by Tibor Machan.
George Will: Conservative Welfare State Champion
"[Will's] official line, however, was that the welfare state is simply here to stay, so we might as well make the best of it. Kind of like saying, well robbery, rape, murder and kidnapping are pretty much here to stay-as are most crimes and human vices-so why not just get used to them and not throw a fit when they come our way." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Getting wealthy honestly is, after all, relatively new. It may take a while before we will all consider it as clean and treat poverty as filthy-since very few of the poor will have any excuse for being poor any longer." Column by Tibor Machan.
Some Further Thoughts on Government Regulation
Column by Tibor Machan.
"Notice how from the fact that Rosen believes something should be available but isn’t (in quite the abundance he prefers), it is supposed to follow that government should provide it, which means, of course, that government should go out and extort the funds from us all and make 'the literary and musical tradition of a culture' available....The sheer desires of these people...routinely become public imperatives, and individual rights should be violated all over the place in order to satisfy them." Column by Tibor Machan.
Does Liberty Serve Selfishness?
Recommended "What selfishness amounts to in this charge is not complicated: When freedom reigns, we can all do what we decide to do instead of what others-the king, the majority, the ruling elite, the party or the bureaucrats-want us to do. Wanting to do one’s own thing, to advance one’s own causes, is deemed selfish by many, indeed....But when you grow up and do in time carry your own economic weight, then to insist that you want to be the judge of what your efforts should support, what your time should be spent on, who gets your money or other resources, well that kind of selfishness is exactly right. Because it also implies that whenever others insist that you devote your energies to causes they deem vital, they must convince you. That is what civilized conduct means-not coercing people to serve purposes they haven’t thought of but convincing them to do so." Column by Tibor Machan.
"When one discusses politics, a charge frequently leveled is that one’s views aren’t realistic but too purist, too idealistic. Champions of all kinds of political ideas hear this but in America it is put to libertarians especially often. This is because libertarians undeniably advocate public policies that are very close to what the basic principles of the American political system would imply." Column by Tibor Machan.
"My suspicion runs in the direction of Mr. Herbert’s being captive of a certain view of human nature. In this view everything that people do is actually just something that happens to them. No one is ever responsible for anything, not the good, nor the bad they do. The world is simply a complicated daisy chain of unstoppable events...." Column by Tibor Machan.
"...the point of having a wide selection is not to provide various individuals with many alternatives-most individuals know pretty well the small selection of alternatives they want and can go right to where that small selection can be found. When they shop, for example, they do not go everywhere goods are on display at a grocery or department store but merely visit the small region where their preferred selections are available. The point of having a very large selection overall is to make it possible for all varieties of individuals to find something they would need or want. It is all about individualism, the rejection of the ancient doctrine of one size fits all, not about pleasing everyone with all the selections that are produced." Column by Tibor Machan.
Freedom and Its Supposed Liabilities
"...in a free society the wrong-headedness of people tends to turn on them, not on others. Because of the institution of private property rights, free men and women all have what the economists so quaintly call the 'exit option.' They can leave the purview of anyone who is being reckless, irresponsible, mean, impolite, or self-destructive. Sure, at times it is difficult to part from such people....But because strong fences exist between us in a free society-we, as adults at least, need to choose to be with others for an association to exist, we cannot be lumped together by tyrants or even the majority-in the end we can leave those who mess up to stew in their own juices." Column by Tibor Machan.
"There is no market failure in sight with any of this in evidence; all we have is some dissatisfaction, just as some of us are dissatisfied with the fact that no one matches our romantic aspirations, no one will play tennis with us or be our dance partner....Indeed, the beef about market failures is with life itself-not everything one would like to have is there for one to get." Column by Tibor Machan.
40 Million Without Health Insurance?
"Life does not guarantee perfect satisfaction for all, even in the department of meeting elementary needs. But before we conclude that our society is in desperate straits because 40 million lack health insurance, let’s look at the figure in full context and consider what it may or may not mean. It may well be that those 40 million people are not the same ones from month to month, year to year, but switch places all of the time. (This is true about poverty, for example, where on average people remain poor for only about five years.) So, very possibly, the many of the 40 million uninsured are, in fact, uninsured for good reasons-they fail to work hard enough to afford it or they really don’t need it for significant stretches of their lives." Column by Tibor Machan.
"However, when one knows that these feats are produced on the backs of millions of tax payers -- folks from whom wealth is confiscated at the point of a gun, ultimately, and who might very well have had vital objectives to pursue with the aid of their wealth and were cruelly deprived of this -- there is no way to take part in all the hoopla." Column by Tibor Machan.
When Taxes Are Not Seen for What They Are
"In short, mainstream public policy rests on the morally obtuse conviction that extorting wealth from the public is perfectly OK. That mainstream belief, however, is just as wrong as the belief that citizens of a country are subjects or that workers are serfs." Column by Tibor Machan.
Democrats, Poverty and Rich Bashing
"...it is worth noting just how low politicians are when they want to achieve power. They do not hesitate in the slightest about going to the people and counting on their ignorance and worst attitude." Column by Tibor Machan.
"... it was pretty much taken for granted by all who chimed in that when people who are unprepared nonetheless decide to have children, the state ought to force the rest of us to assume responsibility for them whether or not we choose to do so. In other words, the rest of us, some of whom have chosen not to have children, some who chose to have them with reasonable preparations for bringing them up, are to be forced into involuntary servitude, partial slavery actually, because these so called parents have acted irresponsibly." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Champions of individual liberty can never rest because there are simply too many people who would much rather conscript others for their own purposes than do what they believe needs to be done themselves-or at least recruit volunteers to help them. No, instead the bulk of humanity is bent on coercing others to work for them, regardless what the goal happens to be, good or bad." Column by Tibor Machan.
"The explicit message from Scalia is that 30 libertarians are so morally obtuse and callous that they would simply watch someone drown, without any moral compunction. By Scalia’s thinking, libertarians as such pay no heed to a fellow human being in distress." Column by Tibor Machan.
"The free market, like life itself, isn’t about fairness. Yet, oddly, at the end of the day it comes closer to it than all the alternatives-no near-socialist system has ever managed to distribute power and wealth without some folks at the top getting the bulk of it and few ever having the chance to take their place. On that score, at least, the free market is far more fair-we all have a pretty good chance to get into the game, provided we keep at it." Column by Tibor Machan.
Individualism, Reaffirmed by Science
"Yet, individualism is nearly inescapable as a central feature of the human condition. We are all unique-none of us is replaceable as the human being we are. Just consider the loss of a friend or other loved one-there just isn’t any escaping the fact that once a person is lost, there is no one to take his or her unique place." Column by Tibor Machan.
'If You Don't Like It, Leave!'
"No obligations may be imposed on us other than to refrain from destroying the liberty of others in society, including their liberty to live, act and pursue their goals, or to produce for themselves and their loved ones what their lives require." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Yes, Virginia, it is the pro-regulation crowd, led by the likes of Ralph Nader, who help promote the growth of huge corporations. Only such large firms can stand up to the government-and the trial lawyers who make use of the regulations to beat up on business-with somewhat comparable legal power." Column by Tibor Machan.
"It is not CEOs who lay off employees, ultimately, but customers. They are the ones who turn to another vendor for the goods and services they want, not those from whom they used to buy these goods and services in the past. Or they are the ones who decide to cut down on their purchases, save the money and redirect it, by way of their banks, to enterprises that are in demand by customers somewhere." Column by Tibor Machan.
A Bit of Good News on 60 Minutes
"What was so clear about the process is how corrupt it is. The mayor of one town where eminent domain was being misused like this openly admitted that the term 'blighted' had been used quite arbitrarily, to mean nothing more than that they don’t want the place there any longer. So, words can be distorted for the sheer purpose of getting away with out and out robbery, to seize property that clearly belongs to someone, usually for some price the victim does not want." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Domestically and internationally it looks more and more like the forces of Left and Right have reached a rapprochement. They will no longer fight each other on very much but agree to unite so as to bring about order. Sure, some of their objectives may remain slightly different-the Right will tend to fret more about our souls, while the Left will likely keep attending more to our pocketbooks. But these are mere details." Column by Tibor Machan.
Fox News Ain't So Fair and Balanced
"It is, finally, pretty hypocritical of news people to belly ache about any censorship they fear from government when they often support government regulation – which is a form of prior restraint – of other professionals. Isn’t it time to level the playing field and make all professionals free, unregulated agents whose conduct may only be interfered with when it actually constitutes violation of someone’s rights?" Column by Tibor Machan.
"If anything unites most criminals it is their belief that instant forceful action is best. Robbing, raping, murdering or assaulting others to get what one wants from them seems to them more effective than peaceful means to their ends....Now check what it is that motivates most political action. It is to get some goal achieved without having to wait for the results of a process that is peaceful, non-coercive." Column by Tibor Machan.
"Now some of this is true-in many of the world’s countries the poor are largely poor because others have the legal power to keep them so, to take from them their earnings or property and prevent them from ever rising above a state of bare subsistence. These countries are mainly dictatorships or one party states or, elsewhere, fiefdoms or feudal systems. Even there, however, some of the poor are poor not because they are kept such but because they make no effort to prosper. Some don’t make this effort out of religious or philosophical convictions, others because they are unwilling or, yes, lazy." Column by new Root Striker Tibor Machan.