Hood’s Conjecture

Oh wait, maybe that was Jonah Goldberg. Read both of them last night.

But Gene, unjustified wars are free, and stimuli cost money.

Oh boy do I hate Hood-style libertarianism. Like it should be blindingly obvious to everyone that the stimulus package is WAY MORE HORRIBLE than torture, executive branch lawlessness, and killing tens of thousands of people for no good reason in a country that never posed a threat to us.

I took (x + drug prohibition), but the more I think about it, the less I like the options. Not enough information. If I voted again, I might vote the other way..

Stoners are annoying as it is (short-term memory "issues" = terrible/confusing conversations, jokes, and stories). Add welfare to the mix and they'll never get out the door. Nothing against my stoner friends but I don't want to encourage them. Option A please.

Well I voted twice. I voted once, got distracted, then came back and voted again, just because I couldn't resist the temptation to see if it would actually let me vote twice without clearing my cookies. Sick, I know, and unfortunately I didn't even cancel my first vote out with my second.

Anyway my vote was for X+1 and ending drug prohibition. I know at one time I was convinced maximizing personal and economic liberty were basically equally desirably in a moral sense. But since 9/11, I've been convinced we should be willing to use more expensive counter-terrorism techniques than one's that violate our liberties if that's necessary for our security (granted that's probably a false dichotomy, but then again so is Will's question, on purpose). It may just be an emotional answer--a larger welfare state would be a bad thing, but the tragedies of the drug war are much more obvious and visceral (violence, imprisoment, etc.,) than say, seeing a bunch more people living off the government and the rest having to pay higher taxes.

In other words, though both the drug war and the taxation required for a welfare state involve government coercion, expanding the welfare state and increasing taxation would not really increase the actual amount of government coercion we're subject to, while ending the drug war would substantially reduce it (not to mention related criminal violence). If you're getting held up for $100 or $200 , you're still getting held up. But if they can't send in a SWAT team just because you're engaged in an activity that doesn't harm anyone but yourself, that strikes me as a helluva an improvement over the present state of things. Granted, I suppose for sufficiently large values of '+1' the welfare state becomes intolerably big. Though I've been reading a lot Ken Macleod lately, so maybe not (I'm still a libertarian!).

I predict that the 'welfare state with no prohibition' option will win handily.

This libertarian's biggest complaint about the welfare state is not its size, but rather how it imposes central planning and screwy laws on big sections of the economy. I'm ok with redistributing money to the relatively poor, but please: just give them money. Don't create an insane monstrosity like Medicare.

Hey y'all. I know I could have phrased it better, but I slapped this together.

If I was to do it again, I'd see try to isolate people's indifference point. How much would you be willing to pay in terms of increases to the welfare state to end drug prohibition? This also depends on how one defines welfare state. Is it just transfer payments-- TANF, etc. -- or all that plus the whole social insurance apparatus. Because I would be willing to increase the generosity of means-tested transfer programs by maybe 500% to end the drug war. But there's not a lot of room to move in the entitlements. Here's one for you... If there was a button that would simultaneously end drug prohibition and give us a Canadian-style health care system, would you push it? I'm pretty sure I would.

I'd be willing to increase transfer payments enormously to end the drug war. The Rothbardian framing of the question aside, I'd almost certainly push it. Markets can figure out ways around inefficiencies created by government interference, but there's nothing redeemable about putting peaceful people in cages. I could go on, of course, but I already know you get the idea.

Not to mention it would take a truly enormous increase in transfer payments for them to be more expensive than the war on drugs. So even if the concern is only cost of government we'd be better off with more welfare than the war on drugs.

A very good poll, Will. This is what our choices are like with parties and candidates. Different issues bundled together, take 'em or leave 'em.
BTW, it is interesting to note that the DEA was started in 1972 with a total staff of 2775 people and a budget of $65.2M. As of 2007 it had swelled to 10,759 folks and a budget of $2.3B. That might be a nice topic of discussion as to the worthiness of the DEA's existence, no?

a pyramid scheme

Ending the catastrophic and barbaric Drug War is worth putting up with a LOT of welfare state b.s.

If Hood's Conjecture does turn out to be true I'd say it's because everyone has a stake in the size of the state since we all pay for it, whereas not everyone is impacted (or realizes that they are impacted) by prohibition.

I haven't read Hood's article, but from the snippet you posted, I think the reasonable interpretation of his claim is not that libertarians would trade drug legalization for an arbitrarily small decrease in the welfare state. Rather he intends "bigger" and "smaller" to mean "biggish" and "smallish," respectively. And if that's what you intended your poll to ask, then you really do have a problem with the x-notation. You need units, otherwise they're presumed arbitrary, and every libertarian will give the trivial answer "no drug prohibition."

I had to go with no drug prohibition because the black market kills people, and welfare just makes 'em dependent.

I('m sure you 're aware that this is a leading questiion, and and a non-random sample of libertarians...)
I went for welfare minus drug prohibition. HOWEVER, that is solely under the condition that the welfare is doled out as cash to the poor, and not spent by congressmen for their educational programs, bailouts, farm subsidies, and eponymous institutes.

Is the assumption that welfare statism and drug prohibition are pulling us in different directions? That they're distinct political forces?

Which party/ideology is pushing for smoking bans?

He picked a terrible social issue to counterpose, because really legalizing drugs would have vast implications for the economy, particularly health care. Daniel Klein here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_-IHM00cc

This was my thought as well. To counterpose Drug Legalization and economic rights suggests a profound misunderstanding of libertarianism. Putting aside the fiscal effect ($10B-$14B as estimated by Jeffrey Miron, 2005), what is economic liberty but the unencumbered right to enter into voluntary transactions? Maybe the correct posing involves trading decriminalized use with similar sale and trafficking penalties for an increased welfare state.

It would have been better if you'd posted a percentage, e.g. "size x" vs. "size x * 1.5" (a 50% increase).

As is the results will skew towards x+1. But I voted for the larger welfare state anyway because I figure it's like the Netherlands.

My own conjecture is that responses to this poll correlate with age.

It'd depend entirely on unit size. How much is +1, exactly?

The question is that it is too bare. I chose bigger welfare state and no drug prohibition because I thought of something more like Denmark or the Netherlands versus the U.S. If drugs were treated with the same seriousness as jaywalking, speeding, or delinquent taxes with a smaller welfare state, that would be different. Absent anything else, it is hard to weigh any evils against one another.

It obviously depends on the size of the increase. I think the better way to frame the question is would you be willing to tax drugs (including any Pigovian taxes) without offsetting taxes down in some area?

Will,

You could really go Web2.0 on this one and poll your Twitter followers on the same question with PollDaddy: http://twitter.polldaddy.com/

I had no idea! Well, I need the data all in one place, so I will implore my followers to come here.

Excellent. Had been hoping you would rise to the Goldberg/Hood bait. Will post some thoughts myself tomorrow. Probably.

I assumed x + 1 meant plus $1. My response would have been different if it were $1 trillion dollars.

He just said bigger and smaller.

His syntax allows for an interpretation that isn't trivially false, so we should probably parse the sentence in a more charitable manner on linguistic-pragmatic grounds. His claim is probably false in the non-trivial case too, though.