Bruce Baugh: Like Unto a Sage

[womzilla]

Which means he's tasty on roasted meats.

Bruce Baugh is an sf and rpg fan and writer who has been, for many years, an online friend and one of the people in my mental catalog of "proof that not all libertarians are moonbat assholes". (The not-quite-exhaustive list also includes Jim Henley, nancylebov, and Greg Costikyan, and my college roommate Michael Grubb.)

In a short essay some time ago (sorry, no link readily to hand) Bruce was responsible for introducing me to the concept of "regulatory capture", about which I hope to write more soon; it's one of the few concepts of politics to which I was introduced by libertarians which strikes me as both terrifically important and not obvious. In short, regulatory capture is the process in which an industry which is regulated by the government will eventually traduce the regulatory scheme and turn it to the industry's advantage. Obvious recent examples are the consolidation of the broadcast media thanks to subversion of the FCC and the $600 billion big pharma boondoggle known as the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan.

So imagine my surprise to learn that Bruce has abandoned libertarianism. Imagine my pleasure to discover him writing the words in my head:

This is where I break most decisively, I think, with the idea that the big priority is to work for a reduction of state power. I agree that it would be well to have a smaller, much more tightly bounded and governed state. But I also think that the way the state operates matters: the sort of social stability that Hayek describes as crucial for the useful operation of markets calls for honesty, consistency, competence, and other virtues in government. The thing is, making that happen requires serious, detailed engagement with the operations of government. You have to find representatives interested in the subject, and staffers who can do the job right, and there are volunteer positions that gotta be staffed, and oversight, and a whole lot of things that can't be done by people who are standing aloof casting aspersions on the whole thing.

Thanks for saying it so well, Bruce. Thanks for being here, now.

(Pointer courtest of Electrolite. I read Bruce's blog, but I hadn't realized he'd updated recently because the BlogLines read of his RSS feed is flakey.)

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It didn't require libertarians to introduce me to the concept of "regulatory capture," though I didn't know the term until just now: it's inherent in, for instance, the 1950s warnings of that great libertarian philosopher Dwight Eisenhower against "the military-industrial complex." The history of campaign finance reform demonstrates the same thing: PACs were created by the 1970s round of campaign finance reform; 527s were essentially created by McCain-Feingold.

The question is: having identified the problem, what do you do about it? To me, the answer to all such problems is that reform (of government regulations, or anything else) must be an ongoing process, not something you do once and now everything's perfect.

If the libertarian answer is, "See, regulation doesn't work, so let's give up on having any regulation at all," that's akin to solving the problem of corrupt cops by not having any cops; or, to take an example perhaps close to many libertarians' hearts, to solve the problem of spacecraft accidents by ceasing manned spaceflight - something which many small-earthers (mostly non-libertarian) have seriously argued.

It's their solutions, not their analysis of problems, that disgusts me about libertarians. And communists.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

To me, the answer to all such problems is that reform (of government regulations, or anything else) must be an ongoing process, not something you do once and now everything's perfect.

Whoa, verbose, mon. Howzabout: "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," much cleaner...