[Movie clip, The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006, Columbia Pictures]
WILL SMITH: I remember that day, because that’s the day that I found out there was only $21.33
left in my bank account.
I was broke.
[Door rattles.]
[End clip]
BRANDON TURNER: So a fairly moving depiction of what poverty looks like in that clip.
And so I’ll start off with Professor Horwitz.
Do we have an obligation to alleviate poverty, and how do we do that?
STEVEN HORWITZ: Yeah, and I want to make one quick point about that clip, two related points.
One, we don’t know, from that clip, why Will Smith's character’s in that situation,
which I think is an interesting question.
I’d also note that, sort of, as we think about getting libertarian messages across,
we need more clips with that kind of emotional power, right?
That sort of depict the ways in which people can be wronged by forces outside their control
sometimes.
So I think one of things that we want to say about that—I want to say about that is,
look, if the question is how do we alleviate, how do we fix inequality—and really I think
what we’re really talking is how to alleviate poverty—is the question how do we bring
people up?
I think one of things that we can do is to focus on the ways in which governments sets
barriers in front of the opportunities for poor people to make themselves wealthier.
So if I could wave my magic wand, I think I’d do four things, four changes I would
want to see that would, I think, help address this.
One, we need to end the war on drugs, which is destroying poor neighborhoods, particularly
urban neighborhoods as well as rural ones, as well as all the other terrible things that
the war on drugs does.
But certainly it has decimated neighborhoods and made them uninhabitable and discouraged
businesses from operating there and providing work.
Second, we need to get rid of the minimum wage, which has knocked off the lowest rungs
of the economic ladder for millions of Americans, again, particularly the lowest-skilled and
those who need entry into the job market the most.
Relatedly, third, occupational licensure laws that make it more difficult—often at the
behest of incumbent, wealthier producers of products—to set up barriers to entry to
poor people who want to open, whether it’s anything from a hair braiding shop to whatever,
up to driving a cab, to whatever else it might be, that those opportunities are being closed
off to them.
And finally, something I mentioned earlier, I think one of the most important things we
can do is we have to get more competition into the schooling system.
Urban and rural—I live in the rural area, and I can tell you many of the public schools
there are just as bad as the same ones we see in urban areas.
Government has failed at providing effective schooling for poor people.
We need alternatives.
We need competition.
We need choice to find ways to help poor folks get the human capital they need to try to
avoid the kind of the situations we see in that clip.
JEFFREY REIMAN: I agree with most of that.
I certainly think that the war on drugs is a disaster.
I certainly think that it’s good to get more competition into schooling.
I think so far the results of that are mixed.
I don’t think it’s an obvious panacea that’s going to solve all these problems.
There may yet be other things that have to be taken.
About the licensure laws, I’m actually kind of libertarian.
I don’t even like the fact that I have to get a prescription from a doctor to get a
medication.
I’m a grown-up with a PhD.
I know the difference between poison and—.
TURNER: You’re already a doctor.
REIMAN: That’s right.
I’m already a doctor.
You would think, you know, I can marry people, you would think I can—as a philosopher.
Anyway, so I’m opposed to that.
The minimum wage, I think, is a more complicated question.
The economic studies that I have looked at or heard of suggest that the reduction in
unemployment because of that is very small and eventually made up for by the fact that
there is more money in the economy and therefore more demand.
I don’t think it’s obvious that this is a negative thing, but maybe it is; I’m open
on the empirical question.
The thing I just want to insist on is, when you look at this picture, don’t think about
Will Smith; think about that kid, okay?
Why Will Smith got poor is maybe his problem.
Maybe he deserves it.
Maybe he’s a crook.
Maybe he’s stupid.
Maybe he was lazy.
The kid doesn’t deserve it.
That’s where our real obligation comes.
TURNER: So let me put a question to you, Professor Horwitz.
Is there a role for government to play in the alleviation of poverty, ideally?
So, in other words, sort of, for writing up a treatise on political philosophy, what role
does government play in alleviating the plight of the least well off?
And then, attached to that, is there a role for the government to play in 2012 America?
So this particular government—is there a role that it can play—a positive role it
can play?
HORWITZ: A couple of things.
I mean, I think that we can imagine a world, perhaps, where the role of government is minimal.
And this is a point that of course libertarians have disagreed on.
We have from more anarchist ones at one end who think that all of those services can be
provided through the market or through civil society organizations—synagogues, and churches,
and mutual aid societies, and all that—to classical liberal types who would argue that
government perhaps has a role to provide something like a minimum income floor or the like.
I think those are all within bounds as a kind of libertarian position on what the role of
government should be.
So, again, if we’re going to write up that treatise on political economy, I think it
depends upon—differences among libertarians will play themselves out in how they see that.
We can have Rothbard kind of on one end and Hayek on another, and those are all in play.
So, do we need government to solve those problems?
I’d like to think we can do with the least government possible to solve those problems.
For me, the most interesting question is, let's see what happens when we get government
out of the way, and see how well people do, and see what we’re left with as a real problem
of poverty.
And then think about what kind of ways there are to deal with it.
In the world we exist in today, I think we are in a more complicated situation.
We can see the ways in which opportunities for poor people are restricted by the kinds
of things that I talked about before.
And at some level one could argue, if government’s going to restrict those opportunities, then
perhaps it has an obligation to sort of fix what it’s destroying on the other half.
I certainly think it’s really important when we think about these questions from a
libertarian perspective to not take away the safety nets before we create the additional
opportunities.
The right way to go about this is: create the additional opportunities by getting government
out of the way in the ways I talked about.
Then, once we give folks the opportunity to pull themselves up, then let's start to talk
about how much of that so-called safety net or—whether it’s a safety net or straight
jacket’s not clear—how much of that that we can live without.
And I think that’s the right way to go at it from a libertarian perspective.
That might not be a direct answer to your question, but as libertarians think about
these issues of inequality and poverty, that’s one way to go at it.
TURNER: So let me twist the screws a bit with you Professor Reiman.
So, on the one hand, right, we’ve got some very large, sort of government-led, causes
of poverty, right?
The rich have a tendency once they have climbed the ladder to pull the ladder up behind them,
right?
It’s this image that we have.
And so we have got government programs like the war on drugs, like the—we have a series
of wars that we’re engaged in, right, all of which tend to disproportionately affect
the least well off.
So in other words, libertarians have done a lot of work in terms of trying to describe
the ways in which the rich to tend to seize the mechanisms involved with government through
the things like professional licensure and these sort of things.
Do you see the power of those arguments?
Do you see the weight of those arguments?
REIMAN: Sure.
TURNER: In other words, is there a way to say, maybe to rephrase something Dr. Horwitz
said in the last session, where, government is the problem, government is the solution?
REIMAN: Well, I don’t believe government is the only problem, because I think other
things, like discrimination, are problems too.
And the government doesn’t make that happen.
But I am certainly sympathetic to the idea that there are restrictive licensing rules,
that people with power try to cut off access to competition from other people, and that
we should eliminate those things.
Where that can be demonstrated, they will have my vote.
I am very dubious about the idea that we can eliminate government here.
I mean here’s one thing: Steve talks about charitable organizations, mutual aid, and
so on.
This is something that’s always surprised me about libertarians, because after all,
if you say that this is charity, then you make the recipient—in a certain sense—is
diminished.
That person receives the free charity of other people who are better off.
If I’m right and inequality or some degree of inequality is a matter of justice, then
it shouldn’t be rectified by charity.
Charity means I give freely what I have out of my generosity.
Justice means I give what I owe, what people have a right to, and that I believe treats
people with greater dignity than charity.
Now that’s not to say that welfare programs treat people with greater dignity.
It’s to say that the idea that you do it by law, that you say these people have a right,
treats them with dignity.
And of course you should follow through on that.
So, you know, I’m skeptical of the idea that we can do this without that.
And if you asked me what we should do now.
Well, I would love to see Obama's proposal for encouraging preschool education.
The French have a terrific preschool system.
It’s government funded, okay?
It’s everybody, even the richest people, try to get their—want their kids to be in
it.
And it has a kind of equalizing thing, equalizing the starting points of people.
It’s beautiful.
I mean, there’s a required amount of budget that has to be spent on beautification, on
introducing the students to culture and art and so on.
Everybody goes through this.
Well maybe you can figure out a way to do this privately, without government.
I doubt it.
I don’t think you can do it for the poorest.
But I would say I would like to see a system like that in America.
Something like it.
I think that’s something that government could at least help get started, even if we
thought of a better way to do it than have government fund it, but I think that will
be unavoidable as well.
TURNER: Steve . . .
HORWITZ: Just two quick comments here.
I think, one, it’s doubtful to me that it actually does respect the dignity more of
poor people to turn them dependent on government.
But the other question is whether charitable—what about the dignity of the giver?
Right?
At least within charitable and other kinds of organizations givers are giving because
they think it’s important.
They think it’s valuable.
They want to help.
I think that respects their dignity more than taking money from them when—
REIMAN: But I think the dignity that is challenged here is of the poor.
I don’t think that the rich charity givers have a problem about dignity that I have to
worry about.
I’m worried about the poor—
HORWITZ: And I am too.
But again, it’s is not clear to me—especially when at least the studies that I know indicate
that folks who benefited, historically, who benefited from charity and mutual aid, got
off of those and got on their feet more quickly—that seemed to respect their dignity in a much
more important way.
One other point real quick I wanted to make about the comparison to Western Europe: I
think it’s important to point out that a lot of those countries have systems different
from ours and do have larger welfare states and often more targeted in certain sorts of
ways.
But those countries also have higher unemployment rates and lower labor-force participation
rates.
If we want to talk about dignity of people, we want to talk about the opportunity to carve
out one's life and to earn a living for oneself and to do the things that one loves regardless
of what one earns at it, I think it’s important to make sure that we maximize and employment
opportunities for people.
I think that’s a shortcoming in many of those societies that have chosen to trade
off that kind of supposed security against more dynamic growing economies.
TURNER: Okay let me, so let’s move to the final segment, then, which is the second round
of questions.
So I think last time we started—so we’ll go back this way: Steve do you have a question
that you want to ask for Jeff?
HORWITZ: I’m curious, Jeff: So how, in your idealized world what would that role of the
market be?
And, how do you see those limits of inequality?
Where, what would you want to do about it?
And how would you know that inequality was too great?
I mean, where, I mean, you’ve talked about how, you have this kind of libertarianism
in that it’s not inequality per se.
So I’m just curious, where are the problems you see in markets?
And where are those limits?
REIMAN: Well, first of all let me say, I am a believer in capitalism.
I am a believer in the free market.
I have recently written a book, which is, I’m sure you’ll love this, A Marxian Defense
of Capitalism.
You think that’s logically impossible, right?
So, you know, I believe in, I believe that the main contribution that comes from the
market, and this is a moral thing, is dramatically increasing the standard, the material standard
of living of people.
I think this has been going on now for a long time.
I think it’s going on globally now because of the spread of capitalist reforms.
It’s going on constantly in America, even in the face of inequality.
I agree that the poor are better off now materially than they were 20 years ago, then 40 years
ago.
Here’s one statistic which I just really love.
In 2009, 82 percent of Americans below the poverty line had air conditioning.
Think about that.
Imagine what they had 20 years ago or 40 years ago.
So that’s a way in which capitalism is working, but I mean that’s very general.
That is across the board.
It doesn’t quite get to individuals like the kid in that movie.
There I think that there are questions about discrimination, about poor education, and
related ideas like that, which, I don’t think you can just exclude the role of government
there somehow because—dogmatically.
Maybe government can be replaced; maybe not.
I think that we’ve had a welfare system which treats people as the objects of charity,
has treated them in a very condescending way and that contributes to dependence.
I’m all for changing that.
But I’m not worried about the dignity of charitable givers.
I’m worried about the recipients who think, only because of the kindness of these more
successful people do I get it.
It’s not because I deserve it, that the society owes me some kind of fair share.
TURNER: Jeff, I want to give Steve a chance to respond real quick and then wrap up.
HORWITZ: Real quick, I think the only comment I’d make there is the assertion that government
isn’t the solution to these problems or perhaps isn’t necessary, for me, is not
a dogmatic assertion, it’s an empirical question.
Has government worked at these things?
Can it work at these things?
That’s the question.
REIMAN: And I think it’s got a more mixed answer: it’s worked some and failed some.
So let's make it work more.