What Category Error?
I’m a liberal, I think government should do all sorts of things like regulate businesses, provide health care, subsidize wages, provide a safety net, tax carbon emissions, invest in green technology etc etc etc. Am I a liberal fascist? Am I committing a category error in thinking that our government can do things that most Western governments can do? Jonah Goldberg thinks so:
This gets us to an important point that I haven’t discussed too much around here. People ask me why I’ve become more libertarian because of writing this book. The simple answer is that the one thing libertarians grasp better than conservatives or liberals is the danger of the category error when it comes to the role of government. While there are certainly plenty of radical individualists swelling the ranks of libertarianism, libertarianism is not in fact an ideology of radical individualism. Or at least it need not be. The fundamental insight of libertarianism is that the government is the government. It cannot be your mommy, your daddy, your big brother, your nanny, your friend, your buddy, your god, your salvation, your church or your conscience. It is the government. A big bureaucracy charged with certain responsibilities, some of which it is qualified to carry out, many of which it is not.
There’s a small point of agreement I have with Goldberg here. I get creeped out when people start talking about the federal government as a method to create greater national unity, common purpose, establish a cultural glue or anything like that. It just so happens that most of this rhetoric comes from conservatives and centrists. It’s national greatness conservatives who have an outsize conception of government, it’s those who look at the War on Terror as a way to unite the populace around a common purpose, it’s those who want a draft or mandatory national service, it’s those that see the government’s role as policiing the culture who are objectionable. Liberals, or at least liberals who I like, are a technocratic sort who don’t’ really see government as anything more than a tool with which to advance certain liberal goals like equality of opportunity, substantive equality, fairness and, in general, justice.
Nowhere in, say, a nationalized health system, or at least one with heavy governmental involvement, is there an implication that the government is “your mommy, your daddy, your big brother, your nanny, your friend, your buddy, your god, your salvation, your church or your conscience.” In fact, it’s because “it’s the government” that liberals like it for initiatives like health care of environmental protection – it just so happens that government qua government is good at some things.
One thing that good, honest intellectuals do is contend with the strongest version of their opponents position. Now, very few consistently doing this, but Goldberg’s condemnation of modern, technocratic left-liberalism is a great example of picking the most extreme , objectionable case and then condemning everything similiar to it. Sure, “The Moral Equivalent of War” (but, of course, real war is much worse) is a scary document, and communitarianism kinda freaks me out, but to
say that America’s liberalism, which has a heavy strain of individualism, pragmatism and market-orientation, is some kind of early 20th century Progressive fantasy ideology might be described as…committing a category error.
The question is not neccessarily whether the government should do something from a moral perspective, but rather can it do it more efficiently than the private sector. If not, which is usually the case, then is the loss in efficiency worth the Good?
The government can provide national health care to everybody, but it will be less efficient in providing that care, so are the returns from providing it greater than the externatilities of not providing care to everybody?
Fear and Loathing in Georgetown
March 6, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Just to clarify:
The Good means the Platonic Good.
Also, be careful of people who argue that a single payer system is more efficient because of administrative costs. Often they ignore the fact that single payer systems are less likely to root out fraud than private systems.
I have seen arguments that say the costs of administering medicare/medicaid are lower than private insurers, but I am convinced that private insurers root out fraud more, so the costs are not apples to apples comparisons.
Fear and loathing in Georgetown
March 6, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I think it is not at all clear that government provided health care will be less efficient than our current system.
Fact of the matter is that we don’t have a true free market in health care. First off, seniors have Medicare, which is certainly not free market. The ER departments of hospitals have to admit anyone who comes in, which are putting huge financial strains on them. And even among “normal” adults, most get their health care through their work affiliation, which has very little in the way of individual choice– individuals as a rule don’t “shop” health care.
So we have a distorted health industry where you can’t really choose your own health care insurance. How this is supposed to be anything like efficient (in general– I concede the fraud case, but I challenge whether that is the dominant factor in effectiveness here) beats me. And national health care isn’t some untried thing– there are many examples of it, and their overall cost factors have not been rising as fast as the US.
Dean Chung
March 7, 2008 at 6:12 am
Agreed. I am just saying it is not clear. Most of our opinions on it are based upon the idea of whether we think it is right from a theoretical perspective, ie health care is a basic human right or not. I am just saying regardless of whether you agree or disagree we all have to look at whether the outcomes are an improvement or not. The overall cost factors do not measure outcomes. Moreover, our imperfect but generally free market system does provide a profit motive for companies to create new drugs and medical techniques, and a single payer system may inhibit that incentive. However, preventive care will be increased under a single payer system, so maybe more people going to the doctor earlier will mitigate some of that.
I am actually very conflicted on the whole thing. I see pros and cons with both.
Fear and loathing in Georgetown
March 7, 2008 at 11:14 am
Matt it would be nice if you could give a more sustained reaction to Goldberg’s book. I think the clue to his book lies in your last sentence
“Sure, “The Moral Equivalent of War” (but, of course, real war is much worse) is a scary document, and communitarianism kinda freaks me out, but to say that America’s liberalism, which has a heavy strain of individualism, pragmatism and market-orientation, is some kind of early 20th century Progressive fantasy ideology might be described as…committing a category error”
matt
March 10, 2008 at 4:09 pm