We are all Extreme Empiricists Now

By Michael Giometti –

Since President Obama took office, we have been treated by his supporters to the rhetorical ju-jitsu move of the “give the guy a chance; he’s only been in office X days/weeks/months” variety. Such appeals to extreme empiricism, where philosophical opponents are admonished to put off judgment until some indefinite point in the future when, supposedly, sufficient information is available, is a manipulative dodge meant to forestall legitimate debate. It belongs in the same dustbin as a similar dodge employed by others in time of war: “don’t express opposition to the war; we need to display unity and support our troops.”

The unreasonable nature of this tactic can be brought to light quickly by asking those using it if they would abjure from reasoned opposition if a new and different president in the present circumstances advocated the invasion of Canada or the expulsion of the Jews as remedy for our ills, be it the general economic malaise or our “broken health care system.” The historical record is replete with actions like these being touted as national tonics in times of crisis. The answer is obvious.

No, to judge the president’s policies we need not wait for some utilitarian standard of success or failure to be met sometime in the future, perhaps after the maximum amount of damage is done. We are well able to discern deductively, for example, that inherent moral wrongs have already been committed by the president, his administration, and his allies in Congress (not to mention, his predecessor) in their misguided attempts to “stimulate the economy.” The canon of classical liberalism is filled with unassailable a priori arguments for the moral requirement of freedom from a natural law perspective.

Moreover, such expressions of natural law have been codified in our positive law at a fundamental level in our federal (and state) constitutions and should ensure that positive law adheres to these classical liberal tenets. Of course for about a century now, however, any appeal to such underpinnings is almost always laughable window dressing. Such alarmingly statist measures as handouts to, and even equity purchases of, private financial institutions and other entities (with all the attendant government influence that brings) are fraudulently dressed up as necessary expedients well within the purview of the federal government in time of crisis. It shouldn’t take much imagination to understand the horrible immorality and illegality of this ham-fisted expropriation of the property of supposedly free citizens—of not only this generation, but probably the next few as well. Also somehow considered within the pale is the rewriting or voiding of valid contracts freely arrived at by willing and legally competent parties, as well as the theft of the average American citizen’s wealth through inflation of our money supply by means of government-sponsored counterfeiting—er, sorry--monetary stimulus.

Just as we can immediately infer, deductively, the moral impropriety of current policies, we can infer the self-defeating nature of the utilitarian consequences thereof. Those writers mentioned above, as well others-- most notably the economists of the Austrian school such as Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard have provided concrete proof as to the efficacy of freedom. For example, it is the Austrian School which has provided the only coherent explanation of the occurrence of boom and bust in the economy. The sine qua non of this theory is none other than the above-mentioned coerced, government-sponsored inflation of the money supply, which, perversely, is all too often (as now) touted as a cure for the business cycle!

Likewise, in regard to the supposed need to fix a health care system that is already at least half-socialized, we are led to believe that the road to utopia is—wait for it--more government involvement. Again, the moral and legal problems of the theft of citizens’ money (and choices) to build this rickety edifice are brushed aside, as is the powerful inductive argument against such a course as presented by the spectacles of such medical “utopias” as Britain and Canada. Thomas DiLorenzo provides a comprehensive argument here for returning more freedom to this realm.

Far from being a prudent prescription for our recovery, these policies, ironically, represent more of the same poison (namely, overweening government) that has laid us low to begin with. The medical technique of homeopathy, where pathogens are countered with medicines that in the absence of illness have similar effects upon the body, may be effective in treating the human body, but as legal and economic theory it’s a death sentence to the body politic. Policies such as these, which are at odds with the ideals of a free, civilized society, not to mention the binding legal embodiment of these ideals in our constitutions, cannot work to restore those ideals. Nor will they, not coincidentally, yield practical benefits—quite the contrary; to be sure, any future evaluations of the utilitarian consequences are bound to confirm this—but maybe only after it is too late.