Scandinavian Illusions

My Big Government friend linked to me an article by Jeffrey Sachs called Libertarian Illusions which you can read here. There are many straw-men and arguments that could easily be dealt with, but for the purpose of this post I just want to interact with one paragraph. By doing so, hopefully we can see it is not the facts that are necessarily in dispute, but presuppositions that we bring to the table. Here is the paragraph:

Yet political libertarianism is not much of a guide to real-world politics. Modern history has shown that activist democratic governments, ones that provide public goods and help for the poor, do not really threaten liberty. In Scandinavia, for example, where the governments are much more activist than in the United States, democracy is very vibrant and far less corrupt than in the U.S. In fact, by keeping mega-income under control, the Scandinavian countries have avoided the kind of plutocracy -- government by the rich -- that has engulfed Washington.

Notice the unstated assumption. What "real-world politics" are we talking about? Well, he offers an example of foreign countries, Scandinavia. By this example, since we don't look like them, then liberty doesn't work. But as he admits, we do not have libertarian philosophy in power. So how could contrasting our government with Scandinavia's be relevant?

But notice again, the unstated assumption is that he gets to determine what works and what is right. By setting the framework of the debate over Libertarianism, since he gets to determine what works, then anything not meeting his standards is bad.

Then we get an example of how his conclusion shines through based upon what are his starting assumptions. But even worse is that Jeffrey changes definitions so that the unwary reader thinks he is actually for Liberty.

Modern history has shown that activist democratic governments, ones that provide public goods and help for the poor, do not really threaten liberty.

How in the world can a government be empowered to steal private property and provide public goods be about liberty? By definition, liberty is being free from from exactly that! The assumption is that government is good and helping the poor by stealing from one with property is good. Why? We are never told. It is just right by Jeffrey's fiat of morality. He get to determine what is moral and what isn't. This is a lousy epistemology and leads to "might makes right"? In this case, the government is right because they say so.

...the Scandinavian countries have avoided the kind of plutocracy -- government by the rich...

Now how is government by a tyrannical populace that can simply vote your private property into their possession something to think is right? But what is interesting is that this picture of Scandinavian countries is just not accurate. Here is a description by one author at the Mises Institute:

Furthermore, Scandinavian nations are not nearly as socialist as leftists claim they are. Although the United States ranks higher than these nations on the Index of Economic Freedom, Scandinavian nations are more free in several decisive areas. Denmark has greater business freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom while having comparable property rights and trade freedom scores to the U.S.

So if there is less corruption, can we really consider it to be the results of socialism? If it is due to socialism,which it is not, then why not compare the other countries that practice the same thing such as Greece? Due to the turmoil going on there, it is easy to see one overlooking such problems.

Now there seems to be a contradiction here. Is Scandinavia free or not. This is where presuppositions come into play.

For another picture of Sweden read Per Bylund's article, How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden. In this article the author demonstrates how past generations go from thinking

Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. Independence and hard work was the common perception of a decent life, and the common perception of morality. That was less than one hundred years ago.

To

A common perception of justice among the "grandchildren" is that individuals have an everlasting claim on society to supply one with whatever one finds necessary (or enjoyable). In a recently televised discussion on state television, the children and grandchildren of the welfare state met to discuss unemployment and the common problems facing young people growing up and entering the labor market. The demand of the "grandchildren" was literally that the "old people" (born in the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s) should step aside (i.e., stop working) because their working "steals" jobs from the young!

In conclusion, we should not allow American Leftists to define the framework of the debate. We are all now experiencing Socialism's effects on our culture. We now have a Federal Government that is broke and has spent our grand-children's money. The promises of the State to save our culture has been broken, whether on the Left or the Right. And of course it never was meant to. By keeping perpetual crises in the minds of its citizens, the politicians can keep making promises that will never be kept.