Me too. The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends. Welcome to Keith's night. Don't tread on anyone today. We have Gary chartier. He is the author of Anarchy and legal order along with economic Justice and natural law. He is a consultant speaker coach writer philosopher and teacher check him out. His website is in the description. Mr. Chartier. Thank you for your time,
pleasure to be here. What do you mean when you say we support markets? Well, I guess it depends on who we is but when I say I support markets, I mean that open exchange is both predicated on people's freedom to dispose of their labor and their insights and their property. And that open exchange is widely generally beneficial. I should have said to you. I was looking at your quote from Center for a stateless society. So something like markets, you
could think of slave markets. You could think of human trafficking today, are those part of this philosophy. Is that a shortcoming of philosophy? So on my view a credible Market order depends on underlying rights, right? It's not to talk about. Out the value of markets is not to say that anything and everything is in principle subject to third-party
exchanges. And so, since I think that people have a right, not to be subjected to physical force them to have their bodies controlled or injured forcibly and not to have their justly acquired possessions misappropriated, then that obviously gets in the way. Certainly of slave markets, and things like that. So I'm absolutely not saying anything and everything should be exchanged and don't think slave contracts are enforceable. I certainly don't think involuntary enslavement is ever.
Okay. So yeah, my my support for markets is not a support for not a support for enslavement. What is a freed Market? The reason a lot of us, thanks to the great William. Gillis. Use the Expression freed Market is to emphasize that very often in contemporary political discourse. We find people throwing around the language of the free market and seeming to mean by that not very free at all Market.
Very much. The market that we often have today in markets that are rigged markets that are Hamstrung markets that are riddled with privilege of various kinds. And so we talked about the freed Market that is the liberated Market to emphasize the difference between the kind of Freedom. We favor and the illusory Freedom that is sometimes affirmed of existing markets by those perhaps a bit more invested in the status quo.
Now, let's say I have a worldview where I want to make sure people in powerful positions are held accountable. Why should I support markets? Well, so people in positions of power because they're in positions of Power, are hard to hold accountable. Let's let's begin with that with
that recognition. Even when we have glorious words written down on paper that tell us that people in power, are accountable either because they're accountable to voters or they're accountable to Congressional investigators. Vestigators or they're accountable to journalists. The reality. Is that once you have power, it becomes increasingly and unsurprisingly easy for you to insulate yourself against power, against against inquiry, against assessment against accountability.
And so It seems to me that. Not to put too fine, a point on it. The best way to insulate people against abuses of power. The best way to protect against abuses of power, is to reduce the amount of power that that anybody has a my power here. I don't mean influence or something, vague like that. I mean, the ability to deploy physical force on a systematic basis.
And so by reducing the amount of free play for Forcible exercise of power and by increasing opportunities for consensual exchange, consensual interaction. And that's really as Charles Johnson suggest in the broad sense. What the market is the space of voluntary consensual interaction, then I think we reduce the opportunity for people with power to act badly. Now that doesn't mean that if you've got a structure in which people have power, there's no way to to try to hold them
accountable. Well, but I think we should begin with the recognition. That it's very easy. Once you have power to insulate yourself against attempts to hold you accountable. So the reducing the reach of power seems like the first step toward actually ensuring, you don't have to worry about holding abusive powerful people account. Now, I look at the marketplace and even a free market. I wouldn't really see them
catering to me necessarily. Whereas if I have a government, I constantly have politicians trying to please me trying to win over my vote. Does the existence of a state allow me as a citizen to actually engage in society and really be valued and have dignity or as the marketplace is more of a dog-eat-dog place of if I want to live with dignity. And be influential in my Society should I embrace markets or a
government? Well, so it seems to me that on the face divot we can see, you know, both kinds of Alternatives in principle and play in different different political and economic environments, culture matters and culture, obviously needs to include a recognition on basic moral grounds of Buddy's dignity allowing for that. However, allowing for the fact that sometimes people are treated badly by markets and sometimes they treated well by government officials. Nonetheless.
It seems to me that one reason you might at any rate, favor markets over governments, is that as a general matter? There are more options on offer in an Open Marketplace and your Need to say no is presupposed. Again, we're talking about the kind of Market that features rights of the sort. I've noted earlier and so as a result since you can say no people have in general, a an incentive to to treat you well, and I mean we often think perhaps that's a in retail
environments. We're treated fairly dismissively, but the reality is We nonetheless deal with a culture in which people don't and generally they don't in general laugh at the idea that the customer is always right, you know, we note that in some other societies in which you know, it's very easy for people to retain employment. Even when they behave quite badly, retail service can be very very Submissive and the customer is definitely not
treated as right are things. Perfect in our society. The answer is, of course not. There are real problems. There are some of them cultural some of them legal and structural, but the level of flexibility and the degree to which we enjoy, the most basic garringer of dignity, namely the
right to say no, really? I think gives us opportunities that interacting with the government doesn't and If you want to be reminded of that wait in line at the DMV, you know, you're not you're not there to get a service that you request your there to be, you know, put through the wringer by people implementing the rules that you had nothing to do with with creating, and they're going to be imposed on, you mean, obviously, the people, you deal with in government settings, can
sometimes be nice and agreeable. People. I'm not trying to suggest that we're talking about a bunch of moral monsters, but I think the institutional Don't lead government agencies and certainly government officials with considerable power to be all that interested in your in your well-being or your preferences. You know, you talked about government officials courting you and undoubtedly, they Court you, as you know, the member of a big pool of Voters or you know, taxpayers or whoever but
they certainly don't. Have much reason to be terribly interested in you as an individual because in fact you have no real option to say no and I think by contrast in a Marketplace, your ability to say no is preserved. And I think that matters a great deal for how you're treated. After the options you can front. I look at history and see women and minorities as being oppressed and the state as the correcting mechanism. For solving said oppression.
Why should I embrace the ideas of Center for a stateless society? If my primary focus is to uplift the downtrodden. So I think it's certainly right that we can look at history and we can see a great deal of exclusion and Nation sometimes maintained actively through violence and sometimes maintained through a variety of societal pressures. What's clear is that?
Governments are not populated by people who are forwards, first and foremost ascending to positions of power, in order to in order to make the world a better place. I think that's pretty straightforwardly because the one thing we know about people with power is that they're people who are interested in and adept, Acquiring and maintaining power. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in
positions of power. And that means as a general rule, that such people are likely to be less principled, more ambitious than the average, or they wouldn't be where they are, and they're likely to be susceptible to pressures to act badly in a variety of ways. So I'm not just saying that they have more power than the rest of us. And so, you know, like the the rest of us, they sometimes pursue their own objectives at the interests of others.
That's certainly true. But I'm also saying they're not as likely to be as principled as the rest of us. There's a kind of self selection process involved. So I begin with the assumption that we don't have good reason to expect that good things will happen as a general matter for people without power people who have been excluded and subordinate. Good things aren't likely to happen just because of the Goodwill of people who have power, people who have power can be expected.
Instead really, to pay attention to the concerns of the marginalized in one way or another only to the extent that they see some political Advantage for this. So I don't think first of all that appeals to the good intentions. Of people with power, are likely to get us very far people with power. I think can be expected to behave well to behave. Let's say in ways that reflect opposition to exclusion, subordination. Largely, you know, when they're
cultural shifts involved. When there are economic shifts involved, you know, we didn't, for instance, get legislation, addressing child, labor until the economy and culture had shifted enough. The child labor was on the out, anyway, I think that similarly if we think about the status of Ethnic and cultural minorities. And we think about the status of women and gays trans people what we should expect in. All of these cases is less than enthusiastic support from people
with power. I don't think because there are cultural issues involved often and it's a word nation and exclusion that we can just assume that market exchange on its own will be To address every concern that someone in an excluded or subordinated, group might him and I think there's there remain certainly room for nonviolent. Peaceful persuasive activism on behalf of inclusion and
empowerment. But I do think at the same time, it's worth noting that when people are motivated by irrational Prejudice when they are motivated, But bigotry, they pay attacks, right? That is to say they pay more in order to not do business with, not employ, not have as customers, not have a suppliers people in groups. They disfavor when they disfavor those groups on the basis of bigotry. And so there is, I think a built-in tendency for markets to push back against bad choices.
On the part of, you know, social institutions and of business people and so forth again, not perfectly. I think they're absolutely is remains room for activism here. Because in one way or another, there may be sources of insulation against the expression of bigotry and Prejudice, but I think we should see markets as counting quite strongly against the long term. Viability of bigotry.
I know for instance that lets say in South Africa clear example in the 20th century of institutionalized subordination and exclusion that it wasn't the case that we had private businesses independently and freely maintaining consistent policies of apartheid rather. Those had to be maintained by law. Precisely because they weren't in the interests of businesses to to enforce and so here's the
other thing. We know that politicians not only aren't always prepared to act in support of the excluded and the marginalized but also that they will very frequently use power actively to enforce the bigotry of those. They take to be effective supporters.
So I don't think there's a kind of magic Response that shows that consensual institutions will perfectly address all problems, but I think we should be very skeptical about appeals to the good nature of states and we should certainly recognize the corrosive effect. The markets can exert on structures of privilege and exclusion. Now, do you see the state as sort of like a neutral tool that you could sometimes use for good?
Sometimes for bad? Sometimes it's efficient or do you say that the state is a you Meek Institution. So I think that in the nature of the case, a state is distinctive its distinctive because it's a monopolist. If we're going to use roughly, Max Weber says, definition, the state claims to exercise and at least reasonably successfully
does exercise a monopoly over. Let's say something like systemic Force. Okay, so the point is Not that whenever anybody exercises Force, the state is, they're reviewing and approving that or that the state is the only entity that ever does exercise Force. But it claims the right to determine when individual acts of force are, okay, and it in turn exercises forced systemically throughout the throughout the society. So that's distinctive, that's, you know, nobody else does that.
It's not like the mob Sofia which even in a society that's riddled by the mafia isn't sort of claiming public legitimacy. It's not claiming the right to do this, not calling the moral entitlement to do this. It just kind of does it and it's not, you know, like some other institutions. We might have, it's not like you defending your house from our from a robber, you know, with a crossbow or something. It's Society-wide and it's concerning violence in a
systemic way. So there's really nothing else quite like a state and As a result, it's uniquely dangerous. Okay, it's uniquely dangerous. So just quantitatively and exercises Dominion. Oh, are far. Wider range of forcible acts than any other institution. It's also dangerous because it's a monopoly. And, you know, we all have good reason to be deeply skeptical about. Monopolies, they deny us options and therefore, present us with take it or leave it in.
Sometimes, just take it possibilities. And that means that we can't by exercising Choice. Take other possibilities off the, you know, off the table, encourage others, to give us options. And so we have minimal options and we therefore have reduced services and high prices, you know, so we think About you know, what would happen if there were an awfully on shoes to use my friend driver, logs example, but think of an opulent anything
else. So the state is a monopolist, then with respect to the use of force with respect to two legal rights and to ultimately go procedures. Now, obviously, we can pursue other legal procedures. Kind of, you know, as long as the state doesn't get involved in precluding them, we can Sue. A mediation and arbitration and so forth. But ultimately, you know, those are legally efficacious only because States enforce, the
relevant contracts and so forth. So states are bad because of their reach because the the the extent to which they exercise violence. And because they are monopolists and exclude exclusive Alternatives and you know, so there Their Geographic monopolists, right? So whether you're talking about a small state, the size of that I can City or Monaco or a huge State, the size of Russia.
The idea is that if you want Alternatives as regards legal institutions, legal rights, if you want to get away from the reach of State than what you have to do is leave the States Territory and that can be economically costly. It can be emotionally and Logically culturally costly in a variety of ways. So while there is ordinarily, unless you have a particularly vile State like, you know, saying the states of, you know, in the old Soviet Bloc that actively prevented anyone from leaving.
I still find that today in most places like North Korea. You do have, if you're not that kind of state the freedom to exit but exit at a very A high cost. And of course, the cost gets greater the larger, the state than a, the farther away. You have to go. If you want to evade its its reach and so the monopolistic power of the state makes it dangerous. It also makes it a course, at the same time, attractive to people who again are interested in using power for their own
benefit. There's a tremendous amount of power that's available and that Or can serve as a magnet for those who want to engage in Mischief, in various kinds. So, I don't think the state is neutral because it is a non-consensual monopolist that imposes. Its Authority on us, reduces our options and from which it's relatively difficult exit. We have real problems. Sometimes people juxtaposed rights of voice to, those of
exit. And there's the The claim that somehow we are affirming our dignity when we exercise voice, but the fact is any, but the tiniest of States isn't going to be influenced by our exercises voice in the vast, majority of cases, what I say either, as a voter or as somebody commenting on public matters is going to have very very little effect on general policies. So, you know, I think the notion that the state is neutral and we can look to it to do good
things. I suppose isn't just in here. Insane. In the sense that occasionally, you know, State, why do something good States, might do things that we might do ourselves under other circumstances, but the state is fundamentally. A clunky. Monopolistic violent, dangerous entity that attracts people who were up to up to missed you very frequently. I see such inequality in America today. We have billionaires and
homeless people. This is the result of free markets Miss allocating resources instead of focusing on people and their needs. It's just about money and rewarding greed. Why should I support markets? Well, so it seems to me that we can definitely see tremendous economic vulnerability. Even in A very wealthy Society
like ours. And so it's certainly understandable that people see the, the vulnerability of homeless, people and recent immigrants and others and can be deeply concerned deeply troubled by them. And I think very appropriately. So the notion however, that this is a result of the operation of markets doesn't seem to me to be right. I think that if We look and the drivers of structural poverty. We don't see markets as the
culprit. So understand there are broadly speaking, we might think about about others but roughly speaking. I think we can say that two kinds of poverty their situational poverty, that results because you know, I lost a job or there's been a natural disaster or something like that, but the structural poverty that's persistent on. Going and reflection of if you
will the rules of the game. So the rules of the game, I submit rules about everything from access to particular occupations to access to land things that affect the costs of living. These are not neutral features of the environment that are either created by By or sustained by markets. Instead. It's impossible not to see these as products of profound and dangerous political rigging of Market environments.
The great Charles Johnson wrote a piece that I think has been very influential in many of us, some years ago called scratching by how government creates poverty as we No it and that's a for many people. Be a kind of offensive title. They'll push back at that that can't possibly be right, but I think Charles does a great job of highlighting important ways in which that's precisely the case that say occupational. Licensing rules limit people's access to occupations.
That might make them money. Those rules also drive up the cost of services provided by others. I mean, just to take an obvious example, think about the costs of Healthcare in the United States. Think about how much might, how much care might be provided by Say by nurse practitioners that people instead have to obtain, either directly from licensed Physicians, or say from nurse practitioners who are operating Under the Umbrella of Physicians because of Occupational licensing rules.
And so as a result, people who try to provide medical services with The roles of licenses could be subject to various kinds of legal liability. It's not an option for them. So whether I'm entering a an occupation, I'd like to enter an occupation and I can't do so because of the high cost of Entry or in like, to obtain services from someone. And I can only do that from someone who's going to charge quite a bit because of, again, I cost of Entry.
That's a factor, we can think about the ways in, which access to land is limited by various used old. Al's zoning rules building codes and so forth. We can run through a range of economic factors like this.
It's interesting. There's a, there's a recent book by co-authored by a Libertarian Brink Lindsey and a progressive telling us who agree about the ways in which a number of important factors from, you know, from Equals land, use controls to the Sega intellectual property rules above all wealth, to the well-connected and keep a lot of
people economically vulnerable. So, I think certainly right to be concerned about the way in which the system creates vulnerability, but I would Vigorously, resist the notion that the way in which the system creates vulnerability is by allowing open market exchange instead. I think the system creates vulnerability precisely by rigging markets in favor of the privileged by m. And by the privilege here elderly.
We mean, those who are given privileged precisely by the vine, the political class, even members of the class properties in ways that serve to concentrate wealth in the hands of the well-connected. and exclude others, so I think that markets are not the cause of poverty. There, better seem as precisely. The, the remedy for them. now, does the Which one Trilogy dear McCloskey and more recently in a more popular treatment of the issues Cooperative art, Cardin
leave me alone. I'll make you rich highlights. What she famously has called the Great enrichment starting about 1800. The idea is that poverty, has been over the years, the natural condition of humankind, and even the wealthiest People a few hundred years ago, enjoy, you know, very few of the things that, you know, quite ordinary people in our society, regarded as quite natural features of
their lives. And whether McCloskey is right that the main shift, the since 1800 in allowing for the great enrichment has been the positive valuation of Entrepreneurship. Whether there have also been And as others have been inclined to claim structural institutional changes, provide a greater protection for instance, for for entrepreneurship and property rights. In any event.
It's clear that pro-market changes in the past 200 years have made an enormous difference and they've been an enormous Difference by way of reducing poverty and offering greater empowerment. Do we need regulation in the marketplace by the state in order to keep us safe from those seeking to exploit, the vulnerable and take pernicious
advantage of maybe people in vulnerable situations. so obviously, there are There are Bad actors in any environment in which we're likely to find ourselves and those Bad actors can sometimes be expected to engage in fraud and to seek to manipulate vulnerable people. And I certainly think we ought to be, we ought to be not naive about that and we I don't think that a defensive markets can ever should ever.
Predicated on the assumption that somehow, you know, all Market actors are, are good people. And can always be expected to do the right thing on the other hand. However, I think it's clear that when there aren't various sorts of privileges, that insulate Market actors against Bad consequences for their actions, then even not particularly good. Actors, are likely to feel some incentives. To confront some incentives to
behave. Well, and so, you know, first of all, of course, there can be incentives provided by by legal liability, right? If you're, if you're engaging in fraud and I can, I can sue you for them. That's obviously going to be something you're going to have to take into account. But even when there's not a legal liability in place, we Can note that just reputational harm? Can be enough to encourage somebody to behave more responsibly.
And if I'm aware that well, perhaps What I've Done, wasn't the sort of thing that is Richard. Perhaps should be a trigger for legal liability, but that is really going to be seen as In one way or another manipulative, unfair, you know that that can certainly result in in reputational losses that will result as long as there's an open market in people's willingness to go elsewhere. On the other hand. I think it's worth emphasizing. That regulation is not some kind of been 92 land.
I'd say there are at least two things. We should be concerned about the first is that Regulations characteristically are employed across the board. They're structured an across-the-board fashion. They affect everybody in very much the same way and it's very hard for them to take individual circumstances into account. And the information that people on the ground possess can tend to be ignored when regulations are framed and enforced.
The other thing to recognize is that Regulations are going to be framed under the influence of the dominant players in a given industry and they're going to be enforced very frequently by regulatory bodies drawn from the dominant players and their in
the relevant industry, right. I mean, it's, you know, so you might occasionally have regulatory body in the given Arena, you know that features, you know, somebody who's been a longtime consumer Advocate, but I think it's rather more likely to have somebody Who moves from being, you know, a member of certain regulatory body to being the vice president for government Affairs. In a given business in the regulated area and back and forth. The kind of revolving door in that regulatory space.
So not only are markets, surprisingly good at protecting people against bad behavior. But on the other hand, regulations can both be clumsy and unresponsive. Lots of to situation particularities and they can be driven and enforced by people from the relevant Industries who want to use them to prop up their own positions and very
frequently raised. The cost of doing business for competitors, who might, for instance, be able to deliver goods and services at lower prices regulations can be used to keep them from doing that. There are great examples of this sort of thing. In a number of books, one of them I'd certainly recommend is the great late Butler Shaffer about the Schafer's book in Restraint of trade, the business
campaign against competition. And then there that's I think, nineteen eighteen to thirty eight or sixteen to thirty eight, something like that. And you know what Butler points out is the way in which The drive for greater regulation notably the mechanisms that were employed in the so-called first New Deal were mechanisms that were embraced by large. Well. Connected businesses. They weren't seen on the whole as bad.
By those businesses rather. They were used to maintain kind of steady rate of profit for big businesses and to keep them from being attacked by upstart competitors. That might Cut into their profits by serving consumers, more efficiently. And so that's not. If I was the only story with respect to any regulation, but I think that's an aspect of the regulatory environment. That's often overlooked. Do we need a state to provide antitrust laws to protect us from monopolies?
You know, so you can generally answer to that question is just no I think the state is a monopoly of course. And some of you know that I think I'd like to see him cross the laws applied primarily the state. But yeah, I think the the rise of antitrust legislation, you know, very often again, I think has been used to get in the way.
Of benefits for consumers. Such legislation is sold as intended to benefit and Surrey. But you know, again in an environment in which, you know, there is the absence of barriers to entry, which people can start new firms, and try different ways of doing things, you know, a sort of de facto Monopoly that's exercised by, you know, a single player in a given Market
is ordinarily going. Going to be impossible to maintain, you know, if you think about even, let's say an oligopoly with a group of firms, trying to maintain a cartel to keep prices High reality. Is it's going to be very tempting for a given member of that cartel to to defect right to at least under the table offer better prices than the cartel itself is offering. And and so Because of that in general to maintain a cartel to maintain through a small firms.
What's needed is precisely regulation that excludes competitors or the requires competitors to go along with the cartel as long as I can compete with the cartel. If the cartel is charging a lot, then as long as it's You know, you know, it's gone a big profit margin that I can cut in two by entering the the relevant market, then I can certainly vary. I can certainly do so. And as a general matter are rational firm is going to be
aware of this possibility. Even if there aren't other players in the market right now, the possibility of injury is going to be sufficient General spoon to discipline around National irrational player and so on the one hand, as I said, I think I think antitrust legislation very often been used to, in fact inhibit vigorous competition. That's actually beneficial to Consumers.
You know, it's exercise the powers that Regulators have under under antitrust laws often exercised for the benefit of other Market players of other other firms that are playing in the market. Not For the benefit of consumers. And I think we can see by contrast that in a genuinely open market, maintaining monopolies is, is not something to be going to be easy indeed, again. We see that.
When there are Monopoly of this, they are maintained precisely by by regulatory support for existing players. So, we think about traditionally older say, You know, anglo-american law. I'm an awfully. It was recognized was something that you enjoyed precisely, because you've got a special privileges, special Charter from the government, you know, then people started to kind of talk about the fact of the novel is by analogy.
But the situation of that de facto Monopoly is characteristically very different in a situation where there's no forcible exclusion of Alternatives. And instead you're just Just talking about one or small number of current, participants of the given Market. It's important where that phenomena exist asked why it exists and whether indeed there is some regulatory barrier to
entry. And if there's Not Again, One, my want to ask whether indeed, the possibility of competition is still disappointing performance even by a limited number of players in the market. You know again, this is an ongoing process is not to say that any one moment. You know, any Market is behavior. We perfect officials. That's it. That's a piece of fantasy. A market is an ongoing process
of equilibration discovery. And so at any one point people may be making in one way or another ill-informed, bad decisions, but what markets do have is the ability to bring about ongoing equilibration, not perfect equilibrium, but but ongoing Discovery in the adjustment that has the potential certainly to be profoundly beneficial because What about the idea that in the marketplace, in order to live and survive? I have to work. I have to be laboring. I have to be constantly pleasing
other people. But if I embrace a state, well, I could get a universal basic income and others can do the working for me. I mean, why should I have to work to live? well, so ultimately the idea I think behind markets is that I as you say, I make money by pleasing other people by serving. I'm rewarded. I'm rewarded for the effectiveness with which I serve other people. And so since those other people are all of us, right? We all depend on each other. Of we need a mechanism for
securing cooperation. So it's not going to be the case that any society is going to function. Effectively. If most people expect than without serving others, without any kind of acceptance of reciprocal obligations and of responsiveness to others. They're going to be cared for. I think. It's a recipe, it seems to me for societal collapse. So obviously I think in decent Society will feature mechanisms for the provision of support to temporarily or persistently of vulnerable. People.
That's another matter. But if the general mechanism of operation, the society method of operation of the society, Doesn't involve people cooperating with each other to provide goods and services than others want than then the society it seems to me runs into a real problem.
We know that the division of labor in which people focus, on particular things, they develop expertise and they can use that expertise in a focused way that tends to yield widespread societal Prosperity, people can depend on each other. To participate in networks of extended social cooperation and can benefit from the from Demand on a Model instead in which everybody expects to be to be a ward of the state.
I think that's a, that's a really, a really serious kind of problem because it means that people in general have given up on cooperating with each other from usual betterment. And instead have just expected that they will, they will depend on others and they won't affect exploit others. So yeah, I don't think we should you, you know, vulnerable people
as inherently exploitative. If we have a society that eliminates those structural features that make and keep people poor, then we will dramatically reduce the risk.
Ask of poverty but we recognize there is situational economic vulnerability again thinking about in case in which people are orphaned or case in which you know, the natural disasters before my eyes and I think it's very important to have mechanisms for Mutual Mutual Aid networks that provide people with support in case of that kind of ability. And I think Both for our own benefit. And as a matter of I think appropriate concern for others.
We had good reason to participate in such networks, but that's very different from supposing that the right way of handle things is to have the state just provides or the uniform support for people as a general alternative to work, you know, so, of course there have been Libertarians and various
sorts. One thinks of, you know, among the leading 20th century Libertarians, High Friedman, certainly contemplated the possibility of something like, you know, basic income schemes, but you know, because they weren't Anarchist on here talking and what's broadly, an anarchist mode, but you know, we can certainly understand why a Libertarian might think in those terms. And certainly I think of basic income scheme that you
mentioned. Is vastly preferable to the sort of crazy quilt of, you know, complex Market distorting mechanisms for economic support that you know, existing state institutions provide, but I think it is important to recognize that where those kinds of basic income schemes are provided by states that, you know, in society, people on the scene, the wisdom of anarchism yet.
You still can't have a culture and a set of economic A tutions that assume that a society can operate without its being the case that most people participate in networks of extended social cooperation, providing goods and services that other people want. I want everyone to have health care. Why should I embrace the ideas of markets? So, what we have, what we might want to say about Medical Care is I think deeply related to what we might want to say about poverty.
Right? So very often concerns related to the accessibility of Medical Care.
Are related to the high cost of such care and at the same time, the inability of people with limited resources to obtain access to. So I think that the first thing again, if you want to contemplate a market-based response to the concern that you articulated is to think hard about the need to eliminate those institutions and practices that make and keep Poor and as I've suggested the whole range of things that we might want to eliminate there that make it
hard for people to earn income as they prefer. And then raise the cost of living when they do have income, make basic goods and services from you know, housing to food and so forth. Harder to contain the other thing. No here. That's especially important. Begin with is that medical care itself is rendered. Ridiculously inexpensive, ridiculously expensive in a variety of ways.
And so, first of all, as I've suggested that, I've already suggested licensing requirements for for medical care providers. Various kinds obviously positions with many others as well. Those licensing requirements drive up costs. Adequate but think about other kinds of details as well. We can think about everything from medical device happens to drug patents to the FDA approval process for drugs to the licensing mechanisms that are
employed to limit. The availability say of hospitals, Uncle certificates of need that have to be Pained that are basically designed to limit competition in the relevant area. And so There's a broad range of things that dramatically increase the cost of medical care to people, you know, say if we think about insurance as something that's that's needed, certainly for catastrophic care for, you know, Big Ticket items like, you know, cancer surgery.
Then it then it certainly matters that insurance is Not always readily available. And then indeed, there are cartel lysing rules that prevent the sometimes the sale of insurance across state lines, things of that nature as well. And so, for all of these reasons, then it seems to me Medical Care is much more expensive than it needs to be and then we reasonably expect it to be Even as at the same time, people people in general are less well off than they.
They certainly should be in a free market. And in particular, the most economically vulnerable are rendered much more vulnerable there. So I think we can close the gap there between the people's needs and what's available in a way that involves eliminating eliminating. The Privileges, the prop up the cost of medical care and that reduce people's incomes in there for their assets, to directly and certainly, through Insurance
mechanisms so forth. So, I think that, in addition, the kinds of mutual Aid networks, that I referred to earlier that were important aspects of the provision of security, to people in the face of health challenges in the Interval 20th, centuries. Certainly, it seems to rain can be re-established and power the Caribbean in the 21st century. So, I think it's entirely reasonable goal to want to expand access and the quality of care.
And at the same time. I think it's important to recognize that the state is the only way to do that and that states have indeed. It seems to be played important roles in dramatically. The increasing cost of care. My friend, Roger Guang has a great great essay drawing on the historical, work of people like David Beto and David Green, an essay called how government solve the healthcare crisis.
And he's concerned here with the way in which the cost of Medical Care was dramatically reduced by the availability of same mass, purchase on the part of people in in the mutual Aid. Edwards in the 19th century. The crisis here was precisely that from the standpoint of the politically influential players
in situation. Namely organized medical profession, you know, the prestige and especially the remuneration of Physicians was decreasing, say a mutual Aid group could, you know, hire a physician full-time, you know, that didn't seem to reflect the kind of professional work, you know, Prestige than two positions wanted, it certainly meant that That, you know, we don't want the young Physicians, can do this and make money, as they enter the profession into
this, have the effect of driving down. What the incomes that established Physicians were able to able to gain, and the Practical effect was that they actively encouraged legislators to get rid of these. These Arrangements. They sought to blackball their own members, who participated in of course. Increasingly these medical societies Had State privileges that had to do licensing. And so by calling members really gave them the power to exclude. Those whose competition was
driving down their incomes. So so the point is that we should recognize not only that markets can provide much less costly medical care that is on offer right now, but the to look in the state is a bit of a problem because the state can be seen as a player precisely in the increase, of course. It's in the influent ation of access that we can find final question, sir. Thank you so much for being
generous with your time. Is the employee-employer relationship inherently exploitative, as in? I have to work for someone in order to live and they reap a surplus value. Only employing me knowing they will make money off of me. Is this inherently exploitative? Thus immoral. Thus in need of abolition. So I think that the short answer is no, then we have to get into
a more complicated answer. There are a variety of Market distortions, which shaped the background conditions against which the employment relationship very often occurs. I think that many of us in employment situations, don't necessarily find those terribly appealing. It's not a lot of fun often to be pushed around by people above us in organizational, hierarchies. And we may find that those organizational hierarchies. Well, often some reasons that brought equals Theta function.
Alright, so we think about the way in which, you know, big ironical States. Confront. Broadly speaking two kinds of problems, right? They confront incentive problems. Makers who try to manage the economy, very often, confront incentives that involve them in the choosing for their own benefit and the benefit of their cronies rather than for those of
ordinary consumers. And they also confront the informational problems because as mises and Hayek showed us, the, you know, information that's needed to make economic decisions is distributed throughout Society of the Grassroots level with no one person has Has what could
happen? Well, those same problems occur in large organizations and while not perhaps the same degree, nonetheless, hierarchical Corporation, often involves, you know, decision-makers who don't know what's going on at the Grassroots level don't have the information that's on offer there. There aren't prices to provide that information as there are in a market economy. And those top-level decision makers.
Often again are acting for their own benefits more than for the benefit of shareholders or Of employees. So I think, you know, there really are economic pressures that might well be expected to yield smaller flat or organizations in which, you know, there would be more opportunity for participatory decision-making or indeed for participatory ownership as in Partnerships or go or coops.
And I think a lot of us might benefit from them some Sometimes. However, what and what seems to be happening is that the state is responsible for whole range of privileges that can insulate a large well-connected organizations against the pressures that might otherwise lead to their replacement by s'mores latter alternative. Again, it's always more complicated than that because for instance, you know, while self employment offers a lot.
More freedom. It can also offer a great deal of responsibility and therefore pressure. If you have to, you have to come up with a start-up cap on will yourself, that can be a much tougher and more risky undertaking. And so therefore I think some people might quit quite reasonably in some circumstances prefer to work for others, rather than to work for themselves, but I think, even in those cases, if we had reduced pressure. Sirs for if we eliminated the
the support. I think that's provided to top-heavy hierarchical organizations then even in organizations in which employment was the primary source of Labor rather than than self-employment. We worked for others was the primary source of Labor. It might well be the case. I think of you you see more pressure for fairer and more participatory organizations that took advantage. People's knowledge and also treated them with greater dignity.
I don't think they're for employment is in principle, exploitative, but I think many employment situations aren't very pleasant. I think most of us prefer not to be pushed around. And I think in a genuinely open market, we might expect to experience a good deal lesson that the books are Anarchy and legal order, law, and politics for a stateless society and economic Justice and natural law. Check them out at Gary Sharda. She got net Link in the description.
Sir. Thank you so much for your time. Have a great day. Thank you for having me.