Anarchists want to abolish the state, with all functions now performed by the state being performed by voluntary associations. So naturally, we object to “public employment” — the funding of services through compulsory taxation — in principle.
The question is, how do we get there from here?
Some things currently done by tax-funded government employees are legitimate functions that would still exist in some form in a stateless society. Mail delivery is one example. Education would no doubt be different in many ways in a free society — no compulsory attendance laws, and no processing of human resources for the corporate state. But teaching children is an important function in any society, and much that public school teachers do now would probably carry over without much change. Even some of what police do, like stopping violent crime and apprehending aggressors, would still be necessary — but without laws against victimless crimes, or any of the thuggish behavior regularly chronicled by people like Radley Balko.
Many government employees perform such functions in an environment where the state has coopted the function and crowded out alternative ways of organizing it.
If we view the state as preempting necessary functions, and interposing itself between the providers of services and recipients of those services, our ultimate goal is to devolve such functions into the realm of voluntary association. Removing the parasitic middlemen, who have inserted themselves into the relationship between service providers and recipients, is an important part of this process. Anything that strengthens the hand of public sector workers against the commanding heights of the state, also weakens the hand of the state and its plutocratic allies.
It’s hardly obvious, despite Scott Walker’s rhetoric, that reduced bargaining power for public sector workers will translate directly into reduced taxes. The upper management of government bureaucracies typically justify cuts in pay, benefits and staffing levels for those actually providing services in the name of saving the taxpayers’ money — and then more than eats up any savings with management featherbedding, junkets and “motivational retreats” for themselves. To the extent that public sector unions fight attempts at downsizings, speedups and cutting corners, they may actually be defending the interests of service recipients at the expense of their bureaucratic bosses.
In the case of public schools, anything that strengthens the hands of school administrators and education departments at the expense of the autonomy of rank-and-file teachers, also serves to impose the authoritarian educationist dogma on all of them. The biggest victims of such policies are frequently, not incompetents and illiterates, but those who teach their pupils to question authority and undermine the official ideology of the corporate state. The best teachers I ever had in the belly of the beast, the ones who led me furthest astray from orthodoxy, spent most of their time looking over their shoulders. If anything’s guaranteed to weed out such mavericks, it’s removing their job security and turning them into at-will employees at the mercy of idjut principals and superintendents.
The same is true of other taxpayer-funded services. It’s often the production workers who fight hardest against senior management attempts to downsize service staff and skim off the savings for themselves. An at-will worker with no union contract is a lot less likely to stick her neck out as a public advocate against the management of a post office or VA hospital.
And frankly, Walker’s attempts to depict public sector workers as privileged leeches for their pay and benefit levels rankles me more than a little, given my own status as a blue collar worker. The compensation and bargaining power enjoyed by public sector workers were once shared by a major share of private sector workers, before people of Walker’s ilk busted private sector unions a generation ago.
So while I object to government employment in principle, I’m uneasy about the standard libertarian framing of the issue with rank-and-file government workers as the villains and Walker as the good guy. If it’s a mistake to defend government workers as such, the people who rally behind Wisconsin’s state employees at least do so on sound instincts.
They perceive, rightly, that Walker wants to break public sector unions not out of any principled attachment to free markets, but because they’re unions. Unions, such as they are, are one of the few remaining vestiges of a middle class way of life, in an age of stagnant real wages and skyrocketing CEO wages and corporate profits. Walker, like other establishment Republicans, serves the interests of an unholy alliance between big government and big business. If you want to know which master’s voice he obeys, just pay attention to who he takes calls from.
Our goal is to replace the present system with a different way of doing things — not to vilify those caught up in it.
Translations for this article:
The true issue here is the fact that the government imposes laws restricting management from acting in its best interests, which is very much against the Libertarian philosophy. Such things as binding arbitration and not allowing management to hire new employees when the old ones decide to strike, and not allowing a private company to hire only non-union employees. And so many others.
To nitpick in the spirit of fairness, a significant portion of the "standard libertarian framing" amounts to "a pox on both houses," not siding with Walker (e.g., Walter Block, who properly noted that the opponents of the rank and file, Walker and his flunkies, are the ones with the guns; I believe I've seen Wayne Root explicitly side with Walker; but who gives a frickity-frick about him?). But I couldn't agree more with the rest of this.
We libertarians, if we're really anti-government, should be siding with the rank-and-file employees, precisely because they're being insubordinate and defiant. They are ~doing~ what we ~talk~ about, regardless of whatever other ideological warts they have. I mean… teachers getting fake notes from doctors so they can go truant? How epic is that?
When this blows over — assuming it all "just goes back to normal", because who knows, revolution is in the atmosphere these days — I'll resume my own more critical view of public education, public employment, etc. But for now, I think it behooves libertarians to encourage defiance. Maybe they'll go back to work with a slightly more sympathetic view of "their charges", especially the "troubled" ones who they label as pathologically defiant. And that seems to me a very definite step in a libertarian direction.
Kevin, you've nailed it once again. This isn't about saving tax dollars, this is about further constricting the degree of say in the workplace held by people who make merely five figures.
I've been participating in the protests most days since it began, and am heading out again soon. There's a clear sense among the people there that everyone is threatened by this. That's why you see signs identifying protesters as non-union labor, private sector workers, and even business owners.
As for how we get to a more mutualized society… well, stay tuned. There's still a strong possibility that Walker will get this bill through, either as-is or piecemeal, spread over several bills. There's already talk of mutual aid groups emerging in response. I'll be pushing to make them strong enough and stable enough to become permanent and proactive organizations, not just soup kitchens.
Doesn't preserving a "middle-class way of life" necessarily imply a desire to keep America as a class-based society?
It seems to me to beg the question of whether the goal is to protect castes, or to level the playing field.
I recently offered this critique of the situation in Wisconsin, and made or less the same arguments that Kevin makes.
http://attackthesystem.com/2011/02/25/the-battle-…
My recent post Libertarian Mixed Feelings on Wisconsin
It strikes me that such a stance is neither about libertarianism (as I understand it) or mixed feelings. In fact it seems to be about justifying coercion through the state if it serves the purposes of those we deem to be economically under-privileged. So which is it? Do we stand against coercion or do we stand for a more "just" division of the spoils thereof?
I admire many people who label themselves as left-libertarian, but it's the public employee support on issues like this that make libertarian alliances shaky to me. If we were provided with a reciprocal example of a weapons firm who enjoyed the employ of the government given its monopoly on defense, would left-libertarians come out in support of members of that firm who demand that their "collective bargaining rights" (which, in its current usage, is a bastardization of free association) and compensation be protected? Does the relative part that they play in the over-arching coercive machinery of government entitle them to more or less of the aforementioned spoils?
I can understand a general support for labor in an open market. I can understand criticizing those who may mistakenly believe that such moves will result in lower taxation even if it will not. I can also understand criticizing the motives of the people behind the move (although that honestly has no bearing on whether or not the move is correct). What I have never understood, and still fail to understand, apparently, is the inconsistency with which libertarian principles are applied when the beneficiaries of government privilege fall upon a favored class of citizens. When right-of-center libertarians dismiss arguments against corporate privilege because of what they consider to be the malevolent intentions of "class-warriors", left-libertarians correctly hold their feet to the fire on principle. If right-leaning "vulgar" libertarians can be called to fall upon the libertarian sword for such inconsistencies, so can the left-leaning libertarians.
And remember Kevin that Walker exempted the police (state!) unions from his bill – talk about featherbedding with their success in obtaining months or years long paid vacation for thugs who brutalize non-violent people.
I hope no libertarian is framing Walker as a good guy. Very good article, Kevin.
My recent post TGIF- The Wisconsin Labor Brouhaha
While in principle I heartily support freedom of association, and by extension the concept of collective bargaining, I reject the legitimacy of what is little more than an exclusive labor cartel for a state mandated and protected function. When the 'consumers' have no readily accessible alternative (parochial and private education being prohibitively expensive, especially since school tax is not deductible even if one home-schools) then the taxpayers are essentially hostages to whatever agreement the powerful union can wrangle from all too manipulable representatives. In this equation – the consumers/taxpayers are hardly in a position to negotiate. Pubic educators are almost exclusively required to join the union, making both accountability and merit based pay more difficult to ascertain and implement. Perhaps education doesn't lend itself as readily to 'right to work' principles as does my industry – cabinetmaking – but being self-employed I do not work for "Cosmodemonic Cabinets Inc.". I would not take kindly to being required to join a union just to ply my trade, nor would I endorse creating a cartel requiring the public to buy cabinets and furniture from a state mandated and authorized purveyor.
No. While public sector unions do deal with public agencies, they of all people, are well aware that the government does not have an "endless supply" of money. Moreover, they exist not specifically to counter corporate interests, but powerful interests for the sake of individuals– be that coal miners or teachers. Denying the right to collective bargaining to any skilled labor pool simply makes it easier for powerful groups to penalize individuals, often at the expense of quality.
Supporting the unions isn't about "justifying state coercion". It is completely logical to stand against coercion AND stand for a more just division of the spoils.
I'm reminded of the analogy of a man walking into a room and taking everyone's wallet. He then demands that from now on everyone else should respect his property rights and trade only in a free market. Are the people of the room justifying coercion and contradicting libertarian principles by demanding that he give as much back as possible? Are they ensuring future coercion by him through doing so? I don't see how.
Unlike people who work for a state weapons firm, public teachers do not inherently create tools of oppression. It is a very poor analogy to compare the two. You may as well equate the guy who delivers the mail to the scientists who develop WMD. I don't think it makes sense to brand anyone who works for the state as "guilty". Though the existence of the state itself is objectionable, not everything the state does is always objectionable.
Also, assuming that lowering government spending will be followed by lower taxation is incorrect. The state has already taken the money, and whether you support the unions or not isn't going to change the amount they take in the future.
I don't necessarily think it's so much that the libertarian framing is that Walker is the good guy, it's more that an analysis of the bill in question, the budget repair bill, reveals that it's more libertarian than not. See for example my analysis here http://northparkstreet.com/2011/02/the-libertaria…
"Unlike people who work for a state weapons firm, public teachers do not inherently create tools of oppression."
Firstly, I honestly and wholeheartedly disagree with this quite a bit – and given the nature of any given teacher's importance in the formative years of a child or young adult's life, I would hope the reasons would be obvious.
"It is a very poor analogy to compare the two."
The fact that you find this to be a poor analogy just reiterates the problem. Responses like this, coupled with the last couple of posts by Carson (as much as I want to like the guy) are the reason why I just have to shake my head at left-leaning libertarians sometimes.
This highlights the EXACT issue I brought up – that most left-libertarians push aside their libertarian principles when certain classes they favor fall under scrutiny. Quite frankly, if we're still talking about "libertarianism", it isn't particularly obvious to me that you should defend theft in one instance because you find the ends more favorable. On the one hand you have a school system that are the recipients of stolen funds and on the other hand you have a weapons firm that is the recipient of stolen funds. I find it quite agreeable that, faced with a choice between only these two, we should defer to the school system. However, how that relative preference justifies the defending of either as it currently stands is beyond me. If you're a libertarian, you should be fighting against BOTH.
Likewise with the class issue. If the workers of a weapons firm interfaced with the state in the same way that a teachers' union does, and state representatives happened to be pushing to lower the wages and/or benefits of the lowest workers on the totem pool (not the managers, etc.) am I to expect that you'd be against this too – because we're kicking the less privileged thief in the nuts instead of the guy who's getting off with even more? Again, to hell with all of them at the end of the day. Preference is one thing. Defending a guy who gets caught stealing a phone because another guy got away with stealing a car is something different altogether.
As far as what the government is ultimately going to spend or tax – that's actually something to argue about. But unfortunately this isn't the major point being argued by left-libertarians. What we have instead is a general support of the smaller thief in retaining his growing share of the loot from the larger thief. If we're just going to assume that it won't ultimately affect total taxation at all, then you might have a defensible position. But, honestly, I don't think it's a completely unjustifiable position in thinking that restricting future public employee outlays for wages and benefits would decrease the total amount spent by government over time. I'm pretty pessimistic about it – but it doesn't strike me that supposing the opposite is a solid defense either. We could be talking about cutting the defense budget in half tomorrow to lessen our tax burden and someone defending it could make the same argument…I'm guessing you'd support it nonetheless.
I'll say this much – if that point of contention was what left-libertarians were basing their defense of the unions on, I'd give them a pass. Unfortunately, as on your post, it's just a side-note. There are a lot of great left-libertarians out there and many times, on any given issue, they hit it right out of the park. Unfortunately this isn't one of those times. I'll say it again because it bears repeating: left-libertarians who defend the state or agents thereof and whom push aside their libertarian principles to support the interests of labor deserve the same criticism and scorn that they treat right-leaning corporatist libertarians to.
How are the unions guilty of theft? Is everyone who has received government money or services guilty? Better stay off those public roads…
I see nothing un-libertarian about being a drain on the state’s funds. It seems to me that the people who want to transfer power from the state to the general workers should be applauded by libertarians, not labeled as criminals.
I think you have it about right, as usual, Kevin. I think that where we stand on this issue really depends much more on other values than on libertarianism vs authoritarianism. These workers are *for the most part* just regular people who want to do certain jobs, like schoolteachers, and the state system is what there is. Demonizing and scapegoating them certainly isn't going to do anyone any good. So I find myself in support of them as against the state-corporate oligarchs in power, though my support is pretty lukewarm.
My recent post Re- The Battle of the Budgets
@ Masebrock – thank you for both points.
I'll take the theft one further – it is not just the use of public funding for roads, education (primary or through government loans for higher etc.) – but if someone is going to call someone a "thief" for earning a necessary paycheck for feeding his/her family, let us make sure to extend it to all the private sector workers who are also thieves. Since money is fungible, that rank-n-file customer service employee at the private company that receives direct or indirect government subsidies is equally a thief. That self-employed craftsman who eagerly buys up materials and supplies that are subsidized by the government – contributing to a lower cost that may be leading the craftsman to purchase those materials – is also a thief.
The second point on the "transfer of power" hits at the underlying government coercion – control of money. there is no libertarianism if one group (or oligarchic groups) controls the means of self-sufficiency power through the control of money for the benefit of those who play the money-control game.
@ Martin – "The true issue here is the fact that the government imposes laws restricting management from acting in its best interests, which is very much against the Libertarian philosophy."
But the government also imposes laws restricting workers (union or non) from acting in its own business and having the power to do so. The difference is how the power is tilted.
"Such things as binding arbitration and not allowing management to hire new employees when the old ones decide to strike, and not allowing a private company to hire only non-union employees. And so many others."
Yes – as long as we also go after how the government makes it difficult for workers (union or non) to effectively strike and call employers – as part of the society – to task.
What I really would like to see from folks at C4SS is a re-education of people on the nature of unions, much in how they have attempted to re-educate people on the nature of free markets as opposed to the State Capitalism we have now that masquerades as a free market. I had a discussion with a friend about the Union uprising in Wisconsin and he over and over used the word extortion to describe the tactics of unions. I think what really needs to be explored is how unions (much like everything else infected by State control) have abandoned their roots for raw power via the State. I think this would go a long way towards setting the record straight much like you have called out the State Capitalist economy as a fraud perpetrated on people by equating it with a free market. Look forward to more writing on this. Good work guys.
Extremely well said, my friend.
I don't think that it's a libertarian principle that government should be running schools and hospitals more cost-effectively. The libertarian principle is that government should not be running them at all. But Walker's bill doesn't have anything to do with that.
It might. But reducing government spending is not the same thing as reducing government taxation. Governments have no fiduciary responsibilities and their decisions about how much or how little to tax are based on political factors, not fiscal ones. Of course, I have no desire to see government spend more money on anything; but I don't think that if it spends less money, the rest of us are going to get some kind of refund.
Where in the column did Kevin defend either? As far as I can tell, the point of the column was not to defend the demands of government-sector workers; it was to point out, contrary to many non-left libertarians' claims, that the counter-demands of State Governor Scott Walker would not advance any particularly anti-statist goal.
My recent post Friday Lazy Linking
I think if public sector unions there isn't a limitless supply of money they are doing a fine job of disguising it. I see little recognition from public employees that the individuals paying their salaries and benefits might be getting tired of seeing increased taxes. Please show me the "quality" of a public education because I keep seeing reports of it dropping even with throwing more and more money at it. Please show me the quality of a unionized police force. Show me the quality of the typical drone at the DMV.
IMO vouchers to the school of your choice may be a much more cost efficient way to improve education than what we have now. IMO paying a local private security firm may be cheaper than to pay for a union cop not to mention they would have some incentive to actually protect and serve.
From my perspective unions are more about job protection than productivity and quality.
Definitely some of that here:
http://c4ss.org/content/4163
My recent post Santa Claus- America’s Most Wanted Fugitive
Public workers have been taking a 0-1% raise for the last 15 years and their compensation is comparable with private sector workers of similar education levels.
Fully privatized education is really just for-profit education would result in expensive cadillac schooling for the children of the wealthy and race-to-the-bottom conditions for the poor. That trend is already evident in existing for-profit/charter schools. They are a scam and nothing more, and the only reason they seem to work on any level is that public education has been attacked for many years for the exact purpose of justifying privatization.
Instead, we should be getting rid of the overhead like administrators and other useless bureaucrats, eliminating most restrictions on teachers; and letting them manage their own classrooms and schools, organized as clusters of adjacent teachers, individual schools, districts, and larger regional and global federations (the last especially for determining standards and curricula), all with the input, funding, and assistance of the parents and local communities.
Amazing… You're calling Anarchists insufficiently idealistic!
But teaching children is an important function in any society, and much that public school teachers do now would probably carry over without much change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU
Which is really a comment on Anarchism-as-Costume, and not a comment on anarchism.
Think about it.
That isn't, at any rate, obvious to me. I expect that many kids would be home-schooled or educated in other informal ways in the absence of compulsory attendance laws.
My recent post Santa Claus- America’s Most Wanted Fugitive
I feel that the uprising in Wisconsin is essentially a good thing, since it's by everyday workers at the bottom of the hierarchy. However, I vehemently oppose "public" schooling.
“If we view the state as preempting necessary functions, and interposing itself between the providers of services and recipients of those services, our ultimate goal is to devolve such functions into the realm of voluntary association. ”
Originally, in the US the local governments were formed as a voluntary associations. Read about the history of the pioneers and how they formed local governments to maintain law and order, settle disputes, and provide for mutual defense (from the french, british, and spanish) and how the local governments cooperated to form what would become the state wide governments. In those days they chose the toughest badass in town to be the sheriff, the best soldiers to general the militia, and the fairest wisist person to be judge, the most honest person to be town clerk. It was easy because everyone knew everyone else in town.
This is exactly what you seem to be talking about. There is no way for a large number of people to cooperate and keep everyone 100% satisfied. Many people still consider our government a voluntary association. If a few anarchists disagree why should the vast majority dissolve it for the sake of a few dissenters?
If you could have your way, and dissolve the current system, and replace it with voluntary associations, why do you think we would develop anything different than what we have today? It is the people who are greedy for power who will corrupt the system to obtain power as has happened since the pioneer days. That is one of the fundamental problems in human society. How will your system be different. How will you prevent new tyrants from filling the vacuum?
Thanks,