Yeah, be sure and check out my post in that thread. It lists a lot of Block’s writings on that subject.
However, (granted I haven’t read many of them), I’m very disappointed with his reasoning. I find it incredibly unconvincing. He sounds like he’s trying every which way to have his cake and eat it too.
The one he always recommends first is “Ron Paul and Matching Funds”. There he addresses the argument that you are only getting your own money back by using these services, and then goes further and makes the argument that even if you were a Martian who came to Earth having never been the victim of the State’s extortion, you would still be justified in accepting any government largesse, on the grounds that the State has no claim on the wealth it has stolen.
This is just an incredibly poor argument in my view. The next piece that he recommends is his email correspondence with a high school graduate who is about to attend undergrad school and is uneasy about taking government financial aid.
This is an interesting piece, as you have this high school kid coming back with the same objections to Block’s reasoning that I would. Every time Block writes to him, I pick out flaws in his argument and then I read on and see that the kid points them out in his response. What gets me is the kid is that sharp, and in my view makes the better argument, and yet somehow ends up getting convinced of Block’s perspective (it would seem “starstruckness” had something to do with it.)
Block actually alleges there is no difference between actively applying for and accepting State aid for college, and walking on a public sidewalk. This is just utterly unconvincing to the point of basically being ridiculous. The kid points out that he has no choice but to use the roads, but he could easily avoid getting the financial aid. Block responds by saying he could easily avoid the roads too by becoming a hermit, or committing suicide. Seriously?
When the kid responds by essentially saying he needs to be mobile to survive, but getting free money to pay for college is hardly necessary for his survival, Block makes the argument that by taking money from the State he would be effectively making the State weaker…and thereby being a good libertarian. By not taking the money, he is (reductio) a statist, as he is complicit in allowing the State to keep wealth it illegitimately gained when he had the opportunity to relieve it of said booty.
I suppose if I overthought it enough, that might start to make rational sense, but to me, it’s incredibly unconvincing…and I’m someone who’d like it to be true (i.e. a solid argument). I see no possible way that would suffice for a statist who is not sympathetic to a libertarian persuasion and trying to see it that way.
The kid makes the (accurate in my opinion) point that:
“I would be getting counterfeit money from the Federal Reserve and borrowed money. You might argue that the state doesn’t deserve this money either, but I would still be ADDING to the problem. Because of people like me, our government needs to get more money somehow. I don’t know if I could live with myself if I was part of the reason our federal government was so big.”
And this is something Block never really counters. He just says “If I could get the government to give me $1 million in welfare I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d use the money to further weaken them. Merely taking it from them in this manner would weaken them.” And then later, after the kid points out they could just print up more, thus (a) countering any real “harm” you may have done to them, and (b) making things worse overall, Block just says
“Suppose I took $100 of yours. But, you have a printing press in your basement, and could print up as much more as you want (well, within some limits). Would you better off, worse off or the same if I hadn’t stolen $100 from you. Obviously, you’d be worse off from my theft. Ditto for the government.”
Is he fricking kidding me? This is economist Walter Block talking here, and that’s his rebuttal? What the hell?
So as far as I can tell, the best argument I’ve seen so far is that using the public services you effectively have no real choice (other than suicide) but to use, (a) it is a monopolized system that you cannot opt out of…kind of like copyright (see section “Copyright, Public Domain, Hypocrisy, and Ignorance” here). It is forced upon you and you have no other option…thus going about your life does not ipso facto mean you agree with it, nor does it make you a hypocrite. (b) you are merely getting your money back.
If anyone has literature (including anything in any of that list of Block writings) that could add to that, I’d love to hear about it.
I actually think that’s partially along the lines of bitbutter’s actual follow up film that is currently in the works.
I can definitely understand the apprehension of mentioning the privatization aspect, but I think it’s unavoidable because the very first response you inevitably get is “but who would build the roads?” (and yes, I do mean you personally). I agree you don’t want to start there, but you do have to have that argument ready to pull out when that question predictably comes. The ignorance is too great for it not to. Sometimes it’s as if their entire argument for government is “well I can’t think of any other way order would come about. So the State is necessary.”
Evidently they’ve never heard of the logical fallacy.
