Methodology: Logic first, then evidence

The confusion of correlation and causation is a problem that plagues all sciences: natural, as well as social. We observe two things changing over the course of a given time period. The question is: does the change in the one thing cause the change in the other thing, or is it merely correlated with it.

For example, we know that, in the vast majority of cases, eating food causes us to feel less hungry. We’re hungry, we eat, we feel less hungry. If we didn’t eat, we’d still feel hungry. Without the cause (eating), the effect (feeling less hungry) does not materialize.

Now, imagine that a person only eats their meals in front of the television, and they never watch television otherwise. This person would observe a strong correlation (or association) between watching television and feeling less hungry. They might even believe that watching television is a joint cause of them feeling less hungry: after all, in this person’s experience, it is only by eating and watching television that their feelings of hunger abate.

Luckily, this being a problem of natural science, there is an easy way to determine whether watching television is a cause or not: isolate the variables. This person should do an experiment: get hungry, and then try watching television without eating at the same time. Then, try eating without watching television. They will find that the television alone did nothing for their hunger, while the food alone did. Eating food is revealed as the cause; watching television as a mere correlation. Problem solved.

For many problems in the natural sciences, this method of variable-isolating, laboratory experimentation can help determine whether something is a cause of, or merely correlated with, a given effect.

In the social sciences though, this method is very rarely applicable. Virtually every aspect of human society is constantly in flux. We can use history and statistics to, imperfectly, observe individual aspects of society at various points in time; but we cannot observe what effects the changing of just one aspect has on the totality. This is because it is never just that one aspect that is changing; everything else is changing along with it. Without the ability to time travel, there is no laboratory experiment we could set up that would be otherwise.

Alright, so the social scientist cannot isolate his variables. Does that mean that correlation and causation will be perpetually confused; rendering the entirety of social science a hopeless muddle? We need not leap to that conclusion just yet. Human reason has another tool at its disposal for dealing with these issues: deductive logic.

Deductive logic starts with basic, well-known truths about reality (what we call ‘common sense’), traces out the various implications of these, and then uses them to shed light on more complex problems. Here is an example:

Premise 1: Whenever someone performs an action, they expect that that action will make them more satisfied.

Premise 2: It is very likely that the individual himself will know what will satisfy his own desires better than anyone else will.

Implication of Premise 1: When two individuals undertake a voluntary exchange of goods or services, both individuals expect that they will be more satisfied after the exchange is complete.

Implication of Premise 2: It is very likely that the individual himself will know what voluntary exchanges will satisfy his own desires the best; better than anyone else will.

Conclusion: It is very likely that allowing individuals to decide upon and execute most of the voluntary exchanges that they want will result in the maximization of their desire satisfaction. This should be taken into due consideration before proposing to coercively restrict any voluntary exchanges.

By using deductive reasoning in this way, we can first come up with a theory that makes sense, and then look for empirical evidence (via history or statistics) that might support this theory. Because it is often the case that two social commentators will agree on the facts themselves, but disagree on the proper interpretation of those facts. In order to determine whose interpretation we should accept, we have to determine, by examining the logic on which it is based, whose theory makes more sense.

For example, both Keynesian (left-wing/bigger government) economists, and Austrian (free-market/libertarian) economists, agree that in the 1930s, the United States was in an economic depression, and that after World War II, the United States was no longer in a depression. But they have very different explanations for how this came about.

The Keynesians argue that the war gave the government an excuse to go on a massive spending spree, a spree which boosted aggregate economic demand and stimulated the economy greatly, thereby putting an end to the depression. The implication is that, in the case of any future depressions, the government need not wait for a major war to break out; they could just engage in a massive peacetime spending spree and achieve the same beneficial result.

The Austrians, on the other hand, believe that the fundamental cause of depression-era unemployment was a mismatch between the wage demands of the powerful labor unions, and the amount of productive capital invested in the economy. If more productive capital had been invested, the wage demands could have been met without creating unemployment. Likewise, if the wage demands had been lower, less unemployment would have resulted. Other factors too, such as the uncertainty for businesses created by the Roosevelt administration’s radical economic innovations, and the sharp turn towards protectionism/economic isolationism, also contributed towards keeping the depression going.

World War II shook things up by causing the suspension of normal consumer life in the United States via strict rationing. Private citizens were forced to consume less than they had been, in order to free up resources for the government to prosecute the war effort with. Luckily for the post-war economy, the government’s great new demand for armaments and war vehicles enabled and encouraged private companies to invest heavily in the advanced manufacturing facilities necessary to produce these things. It so happened that after the war, these facilities were relatively easily converted to peacetime uses. The post-war economy was, therefore, much more capital-rich than the depression-era one, which allowed it to meet the wage demands of the unions without causing much unemployment (there were also fewer workers to find employment for, due to wartime casualties). The fact that the government’s economic policy was more stable in the post-war, and that the United States was in a prime position to provide much-needed goods to the countries who had been pulverized by the war, also helped greatly.

The implication of all this is that future depressions can be solved by encouraging more capital investment, by assuring businesses that future policy changes will not be detrimental to their interests, and by withdrawing support from labor unions who demand wages that are too high relative to the economic situation.

Okay, so we have two very different interpretations of the same sequence of historical events, resulting in two very different implications for future policy-making. It is imperative, for the sake of our economic well-being, that we determine which theory is correct. In order to do so, the empirical facts are not enough; we must examine the logic behind the two theories.

On this front, we have an easy winner: the free-market Austrians. The theory on which the Keynesian interpretation is based doesn’t make sense. There can never be a problem of aggregate demand for goods and services being ‘insufficient’. Until we reach a state of paradisiacal super-abundance, people will always want as many (or as high quality) goods and services as they can afford. The economic problem is never one of consumption; it is always a problem of production. Economic progress consists of a society being able to produce more and more, and better and better, goods and services, with a smaller and smaller quantity of human labor.

Seen in this light, the notion that a war could possibly be an economic boon is absurd. Wars redirect human effort away from improving society’s material standard of living and towards destroying lives and economic goods. They might accidentally result in some peacetime benefits afterwards, but society would almost certainly have been better off if it had just focused its efforts on peacetime improvement directly.    

Therefore, because the Austrian theory has both logic and evidence on its side, we can accept the causation that it posits. And, since the Keynesian theory does not have logic on its side, we must dismiss the causation that it posits as mere correlation.

In sum: in the social sciences, the correct procedure is to start with a logical theory, and only then to look for historical evidence that might back it up. Failure to do so will invariably result in the confusing of correlation with causation, and the consequent suggestion of some very bad policies. 

The 'Silly Consumer' Problem

Free-market capitalism is an economic system that is highly suited to catering to the desires of the consuming public, as expressed through their purchasing decisions. Free-market advocates consider this to be one of its most praise-worthy features; but not everyone agrees with this assessment. The argument is made that the consumers often make very poor purchasing choices (due to ignorance, short-sightedness, addiction, marketing, etc…), and because of this, a system that is designed to cater to such desires is not actually all that great. Is this a fair criticism of the free-market? Let’s take a look.

First off, I would like to acknowledge that consumers do often make decisions that seem pretty silly to me. But the key part here is ‘to me’. At the time of making the decision, the consumer in question thinks it makes perfect sense to them; otherwise, they would not have made it. If another person were to prevent this consumer from making that decision through force, the consumer would probably feel frustration and annoyance; rather than the satisfaction of having their desire fulfilled.

This, of course, only holds with high certainty in that moment. It is very possible that the consumer who is prevented from making a decision that is considered silly by an outsider, while feeling frustrated at the time, will actually feel thankful later on. For instance, the consumer who is intent on spending $1000 on prostitutes one day, may feel grateful that he was prevented from doing so the next. But here, we run into a quandary: how do we really know that the consumer is better off without the prostitutes than he would have been with them? Sure, he may be happy to still have his $1000 the next day, but is that happiness greater in magnitude than the happiness he would have received had he gone through with his hedonistic plans? It being impossible to compare the magnitudes of two ‘happinesses’, especially when speaking of someone other than yourself, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty. Perhaps the man would have been best off had he blew all his life savings on prostitutes, and then gone out in a cloud of cocaine that very night! We really have no idea whatsoever about these things.

Given all of this indeterminacy, it is wise to just forget about other people’s happiness, and to just focus on your own (which is already difficult enough). What kind of society would you rather live in? One where you are free to make your own choices, or one where your choices are made for you by the wielders of political power? Would you rather be a sovereign individual, or a slave? Many people, if they are being honest with themselves, will recognize that they would actually prefer to be a slave, and there are no objective grounds on which to say that this is an inferior preference. However, it is not my preference, and if these people are intent on imposing their slave society on me, I shall fight back.

Alright, so I will fight their slave society, but then can I really fault them for fighting my sovereign individual society? After all, am I not trying to impose my idea of a good society on them, just as they are on me? Not entirely. Because the thing is, micro slave societies can exist inside a sovereign individual, free-market society. Under free-market arrangements, it is likely that entire city neighborhoods will be owned by either a single landlord or a single condominium association. As owners, they would have the right to set rules that tenants or condominium members must follow in order to live in this neighborhood. These rules could include some paternalistic ones (no smoking, no consorting with prostitutes, no drinking sugary pop, etc…), provided there were a demand for it from real estate consumers, which there could well be if enough people had a slave mentality.

Thus, in this way, people with a slave mentality could opt-in to a micro slave society within the larger free-market society, simply by moving in to a neighborhood with a paternalistic rule set. By contrast, if the larger society is a slave society, it is impossible for a person with a sovereign individual mentality to opt out of it. They must obey the paternalistic dictates of the government, or be subjected to harsh physical punishment. The conclusion, therefore, is that a larger free-market society, with the potential for micro slave societies within it, caters to people with both kinds of mentality better than a larger slave society would.

But wait! A final objection emerges! A slave society that one can opt in and out of; this still leaves an important choice in the slavish person’s hands! They are continuously faced with the choice of whether they wish to continue living in such a society or not! Faced with this ‘stressful’ choice, they may long for the larger slave society; featuring a slavery that is all-encompassing and inescapable. I grant that people like this are right to be enemies of the free-market society. I can only hope that their numbers are slight enough to be overcome by the lovers of individual sovereignty.

                      

     

Eliminate the Capital Gains Tax on Domestic Investments

The capital gains tax is a problematic tax. It operates to reduce the average return on investment on market-traded investment assets. This, in turn, weakens the incentive for people to devote their resources to investment in the future, and makes it more likely that they will consume them in the present instead. This is a problem for Canada, because investment in Canadian businesses operates to raise the wages of Canadian workers and to improve the productivity of the Canadian economy. The less investment in our country, the less of these good things we get.

For this reason, I would suggest the total elimination of the capital gains tax on domestic business investments by Canadians, while retaining it for foreign investments. Any investment (stock or bond purchase) in a business or subsidiary that has Canadian residents for at least 50% of its workforce would be free of the capital gains tax. This would be a powerful incentive for Canadian investors to make investments that directly benefit Canadian workers and the Canadian economy. At the same time, if a foreign investment provided a far more lucrative opportunity, the Canadian investor would still be able to invest in it; something which straight capital controls, a more heavy-handed method of encouraging domestic investment, wouldn’t allow.   

Leftists are bound to oppose this proposal on the grounds that it would cut into government revenue in order to provide a benefit to the rich; the people who need to be benefitted the least. This would be a very superficial way of looking at it though. When an investor makes an investment in a Canadian business, they are benefitting Canadian society at large just as surely as if they were contributing to the government’s budget by paying taxes. Actually, that is putting the case too mildly: business investments are much more likely to benefit Canadian society than contributions to the government budget are. This is because investors are induced, by a series of powerful monetary incentives, to invest in those businesses and processes that are the most promising in terms of advancing the productivity of the Canadian economy and Canadian workers (which in turn leads to higher demand for Canadian labor and lower prices for Canadian consumer goods). Governments, on the other hand, are only guided by political incentives, which are just as likely (if not more likely), to lead to the money being squandered on giveaways to anti-social special interest groups, as they are to lead to the money being spent on things which actually benefit the Canadian economy and Canadian society.  

Really then, the investor in Canadian business is already making a powerful contribution to Canadian society. Is it really a good idea to demand that they contribute even more to society at large via taxation, especially if it means deterring the activities that lead to such benefits? I would say, most emphatically, that it is not.

Unfortunately, most people are too ignorant of basic economics to appreciate the benefits of investment in their country, and thus will stick to a superficial analysis of my proposal and dismiss it as an unjustifiable ‘giveaway’ to the rich. They are of course entitled to hold their ignorant opinions: but they should not be surprised when their foolishness leads to the economic stagnation of our country.    

No Equality In Abortion Law: Men Get The Shaft

Feminists claim to want ‘equality between men and women’, and not just the more limited ‘equality before the law’, but a more ‘substantive equality’ as well. Although I think that trying to create ‘substantive equality’ between the two sexes is madness, I do strongly support the equality of the sexes before the law. In fact, it would seem that I support this more than the feminists do…

I am referring to abortion law: one area of the law where men and women are most definitely not equal. They are not equal because men are shafted spectacularly by it!

In jurisdictions where abortion is legal, women are given full control over whether they want to keep the child that they are bearing or not. Men, on the other hand, are given no control whatsoever. If the mother wants to abort the child and the father doesn’t, then too bad for the father; the child is getting aborted. If the mother wants to keep the child and the father doesn’t, then too bad for the father; he is legally obligated to support the child financially regardless. In an effort to remedy this unfortunate situation, I should like to propose two potential changes to the law; one for the more ‘pro-life’ crowd, another for the more ‘pro-choice’ crowd.

Pro-lifers want all abortions to be illegal, but most reasonable ones would probably agree that it is of higher priority to stop abortions where the father is firmly opposed, than it is to stop those which are agreed to by both parents. When a child who is out of the womb dies, it is generally recognized that such an event is devastating to both mother and father. Then why not recognize the devastation caused to a father who loses his (wanted) child while it is still in the womb, at the behest of the mother no less? For the law to completely ignore this kind of victim seems quite unjustifiable.

How could we change the law fix this problem? Just require that doctors obtain written consent from the father before performing an abortion on the mother. In cases of rape or where the pregnancy is posing serious health concerns for the mother, this condition can be waived. In cases where the father is not known, the mother will be required to submit a list of potential fathers. These can then be invited in for paternity testing; something which can be done anytime after the 8^th week of pregnancy[1]. If a potential father doesn’t show up, and the ones that do turn out not to be the father, the mother can go ahead with the abortion. The mother lying about potential fathers will be considered a serious offence.

A piece of legislation, similar to what I am proposing, was actually put forth by an Ohio legislator named John Adams in 2009 (House Bill 252). Predictably, it went nowhere. A feminist writer from the Daily Kos labelled it a “monstrosity”, and suggested that if passed, it would send women back to “the kitchen”[2].

Many pro-choicers will undoubtedly oppose the above suggestion, on the grounds that it would ‘excessively interfere with the right of women to control their own bodies’. If you’re one of those people, don’t worry; I have an alternative for you! If women should have the right to determine whether they want an abortion or not, then why shouldn’t men have the same option? Not a physical abortion, of course; but a financial abortion!

If an unmarried mother wants to keep the child, but the father does not, then the father should be allowed to ‘opt out’ of fatherhood. Before the child is born, he should have the option to waive all of his parental rights and financial duties to the child.

A proposal of this kind was recently made by some members of the youth wing of Sweden’s Liberal Party. The idea was viciously attacked and ridiculed, with one man helpfully suggesting that all members of the party be “lined up against a wall and shot”[3].

So both my suggestions were rudely dismissed by the political mainstream, who claim to be concerned about equality between the sexes. Well, I say that if you really are concerned about it, it’s one or the other. Either that, or the whole ‘equality between the sexes’ thing is just a hypocritical fraud.

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[1] http://americanpregnancy.org/prenatal-testing/paternity-testing/

[2] http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/23/756636/-

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/08/men-should-have-the-right-to-abort-responsibility-for-an-unborn-child-swedish-political-group-says/?utm_term=.d48ac450d4ff