Comments (49)

• Joshua Katz

  While it sounds like this book endorses a number of things I strongly oppose, I do not see why endorsing these policies is a necessary result of supporting this lifestyle. Isn't withdrawing from society, to one degree or another, also a market choice? What is wrong with spending more on higher quality, organic food, as I do, while recognizing that others make other choices? Values are subjective, after all.

  Published: June 5, 2006 9:14 AM

• Roger M

  Excellent review of “Cruncy Cons�! I have read the book, too, and believe the author to be dangerous because he is so deceptive. He constantly claims in his book and the blog that he held for a few months that he proposed no political agenda, yet he predicted disastrous results if we continue as we have, and denounces free markets as the origins of all kinds of evil. Very few people could read his book without concluding that some sort of political action is necessary and justifiable.

  Although he never claims it, Dreher’s ideas are carbon copies of the Catholic movement called communitarianism, and Dreher is a Catholic. They claim to propose a “third way� between socialism and capitalism, which is why he attacks both groups, though he leans more heavily on capitalism; chapter 2 is a socialist diatribe against free markets.

  Communitarians want an economy modeled after that of the Third Reich, in which individuals maintain the right to property, but the state dictates every aspect of its use. Control of the use of property is the essence of property rights and this is what makes communitarianism/fascism so dishonest; they neuter property rights while claiming to leave them whole.
  

  Published: June 5, 2006 9:32 AM

• Person

  Jeffrey Tucker's article summary includes this:

  The world today has 6.5 billion people, and many of them are growing richer all the time thanks to the advance of capitalism. How does Dreher propose to feed and clothe and care for all these people? If they were all required to live a "crunchy con" lifestyle they would die, first by the thousands, then by the millions, then by the billions.

  I just wanted to note that this is a consequentialist concern that we at mises.org are not supposed to care about, and/or can conflate with utilitarianism, or so I was told recently.

  Published: June 5, 2006 9:38 AM

• Ulrich Hobelmann

  Well, strictly speaking it's not our concern how other people live, as long as we allow them the freedom to do so.

  But since most arguments about politics involve utilitarian arguments, it's nice that markets also are more efficient than the alternatives in actually giving people what they want. How else would you argue with a socialist or conservative? They don't respect the moral background that each individual should choose for him/herself, after all.

  Published: June 5, 2006 10:04 AM

• Som

  Few actually will ever take the time to consider what is actually just and unjust in this world... they just take buzz phrases for granted like "universal health care!". However, I can give this author one credit out of his whole fallacious dream, where he says "how do we get there? I don't know. I'm not an economist, i'm a writer"

  Exactly!

  He says the most common thing you'll hear from any socialist planner: "I don't know"

  So all the more reason to place your book under fiction Mr Dreher, instead of science, or even political science! Afterall, don't you really need a scientific method to actually call a book scientific?

  Published: June 5, 2006 11:17 AM

• Som

  Error in my last comment, he actually says "What kind of economy should we have, then? I don't know; I'm a writer, not an economist". Sorry for the mix up, however everything else i said still holds.

  Published: June 5, 2006 11:20 AM

• Roger M

  In his book, Dreher comments that "crunchy cons" have one thing in common, they don't like, distrust and are not interested in economics. I wonder why they write about it so much, then?

  Published: June 5, 2006 11:24 AM

• Eric

  This book reminds me of the story about the man who would leave his workplace with a wheelbarrow full of books and journals to work on each day. The guards would search and search and never find anything, but were certain he was stealing something and hiding it in the wheelbarrows. Well, you probably know the punch line, he was stealing wheelbarrows.

  Dreher's theft is in selling books. I often wonder if authors like this believe even a word of what they write, but make a living doing it. I think they realize there is a market for this sort of rubbish, and so they provide it; ironic in its own right!

  Reminds me of the short conversation I recently had with someone who was certain that all the fuss about global warming is accurate; how did he know? Why because there is a large consensus that believes it and writes about it. So, if we can have a new scientific method by vote, we can surely have economic theory proven in the same way. The truth will out; it all depends on how many people buy his book. We can know the truth by checking his Amazon.com Sales Rank.

  Published: June 5, 2006 11:45 AM

• Roger M

  Unfortunately, I think Dreher does believe it, and there are a lot like him, especially on the "religious right." Both Catholics and Evangelicals distrust free markets and suspect the rich are stealing everything. They disagree with the Left only on "value" issues, such as homosexuality and pornography.

  Published: June 5, 2006 12:11 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  Roger said;

  "Both Catholics and Evangelicals distrust free markets and suspect the rich are stealing everything."

  Well, they are conflating the two issues, at least - yes, the elite rich ARE stealing everything, but it does not follow from free markets - in fact the stealing occurs because our markets are most decidedly NOT free.

  Published: June 5, 2006 12:32 PM

• Roger M

  Vince, that's a good point, but communitarians believe that free markets are by definition theft. That thinking comes from the old mercantile idea that one person can gain wealth only at the expense of others.

  Published: June 5, 2006 12:44 PM

• Consumerist... not so much.

  There are alot of things that fall under the label consumerism:

  The ability to buy whatever I want (and/or can) and the plethora of businesses ready and willing (and anxious) to sell it to me... I have no problem with (actually I am quite pleased with it as I've just enjoyed the ability to order nearly any kind of food delivered to my door for a relatively low price... my comparative disadvantage at cooking does not relagate me to eating ****).

  The next thing that falls under the category of consumerism is conspicuous consumption, personally I am largely immune to it and it's generally not something I like in other people. But to each their own, I may not be your friend, but far be it from me to try to prevent you from doing your thing (even if I think it's stupid).

  Then there is another kind consumerism, which I think is a symptom of something much worse. The argument against the gold standard is that the gold standard is deflationary (prices go down since the real economy grows faster than the supply of gold), and the argument against deflation is that it discourages consumer spending since a people will wait as long as possible to buy something since they know it will get cheaper in the future (coupled with the belief that consumer spending 'drives' the economy leads to the mainstream economist's hatred of the gold standard). But of course the opposite of this, inflationary fiat currency, changes the direction of the incentive, leading the consumer to spend their money as quickly as possible because they know it will be worth less in the future. The inflationists think this is great, consumer 'demand' driving the economy forward, even though the excess 'demand' is not consumer actually demanding anything, but rather trying to dump their devaluing paper money.

  I suspect this third case is the cause of much of what seems wrong with 'consumerism', things like people buying junk instead of saving when they don't really want the junk (i.e. wouldn't have bought it under the gold standard), and when perhaps saving would have served them better.

  Also, the fact that central banks have to 'surprise' us with inflation to get the most bang for their printing pressed buck, just makes it worse because the consumer is no longer able to predict the future value of money, but they can predict the present value of money in terms of present consumer goods which do have predictable future subjective value to them (and even if that would be less than the future value of sound money, it may be more than the combinination of the future devalued fiat money and the uncertainty of just how devalued that fiat money will become).
  

  Published: June 5, 2006 12:59 PM

• David K. Meller

  Dear Mr. Tucker,

  You are certainly correct that people who choose the values, economy, and type of community celebrated in Mr. Dreher' Crunchy Cons are, after all, engaging themselves in market choices, are making decisions on how to use their private property, and that even their attacks on capitalism are predicated upon the very liberty and freedom of choice that capitalism, and our kind of capitalism alone, provides.

  I also wholeheartedly agree that the reason socialists and radical traditionalists avoid any study of ecnomic science is precisely because it imposes limits on both human imagination, and the use of politics to achieve goals and wishes.

  Economics, especially with its appreciation of inevitable scarcity, private property, and the dispersal of information and resources (including labor and time), is one of the strongest defenders of the point of view that Prof. Thomas Sowell once called the "constrained vision". Utopians, including Rod Dreher, base their viewpoint upon the exact opposite, the unconstrained vision, 'everything for everybody' and such people MUST on some level understand that Economic science says NO to their fantasies in the most certain terms!

  In acknowledging this, I cannot avoid wondering if many observant advocates of the free market might not find areas of strong agreement with the Ron Drehers of the world. Their recognition of the disease is accurate, it is only their diagnosis and proposed remedy that we must disagree most emphatically.

  We, after all, do NOT exist in any sort of free market environment, the industrial, political, and legal foundations of the current market order are heavily polluted by interventions of every conceivable sort, and from every conceivable direction, serving the interests of all manner of special interests, including the very businesses and communities suffering from the interventions in the first place. We can certainly condemn interventions such as taxes, minimum wage laws, licensing restrictions, land-use regulation on both the Federal and State level, antitrust and "insider trading" regulations, and even inflation and monetary debasement that make individual and small scale saving unprofitable, and in some cases even impossible, when we discuss the abuses of big business, who after all, has the lobbying muscle, legal and judicial contacts, and often the behind-the-scenes domination of the regulatory apparatus itself (see e.g. the Pharmaceutical industry and the FDA, the Banking industry and the Federal Reserve, and the legal services industry and the State Bar Associations)and there is a very strong likelihood that the abuses that big-business and "free-market" critics complain about either would not exist at all, or would be much smaller and on their way to amelioration in a TRULY laissez-faire environment.

  I don't think that this would change the thinking of people like Rod Dreher, Ralph Nader, the late Christopher Lasch, et al. but it would expose many, perhaps most of their well meaning readers to a different point of view, and would offer a way of addressing their concerns much friendlier to the free market, and hence to ultimate success, to followers.

  The dehumaization, the offensive and sometimes dangerous extreme disparities of wealth, often continued over several generations regardless of the economic and market activity of the families concerned, the sometimes disappointing gap between what is promised by advertising and what is actually available, (say, I think that political campaign promises should be included here), the poisonous food and medicines sold at extortionate prices by drug companies protected by patent and tariff monopolies, the degree of air and water pollution, (unowned) resource depletion along with appalling corporate waste, and on and on!

  Explanations placing blame where it belongs, on Corporations ALIGNED WITH GOVERNMENT and their laws, their lawyers, and their regulations, along with the democrazies whose politicians exploit their power to rip off the public in the name of the "public interest", leaving the hapless voters outside the power elite to pay the bills afterward.

  Defence of the free market and its institutional underpinnings is extremely important, and we should never pass up opportunties to defend it, but we must also make SURE that we are indeed defending the free market, private property, and the primacy of contract, not an oppressive and corrupt status quo. Under no circumstances, as long as any government remains a problem, can we afford to defend Corporate privilege and political despotism; the tyranny of a criminal and vicious criminal/political/business elite in the false name of laissez-faire!

  Rod Dreher wrote a seriously flawed book, both in his underlying premises, and his policy recommendations, but unfortunately, books like his will continue to be written, widely read, and occasionally even top the best-seller lists, until we libertarians start to write better ones!

  Liberty, to be successful, has to be recognised as the system of the future, an alternative to the "put the right people in power" paradigm so beloved of corrupt governments generally, and democrazies in particular.

  Wishing everybody

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
  David K. Meller

  Published: June 5, 2006 1:05 PM

• Eric

  "until we libertarians start to write better ones" is a tall order. The masses, esp. those who got their education in the govt. schools, only read for enjoyment (when they read at all) not knowledge. And that means we would need to have some fun stuff to write about. Unfortunately, fun stuff to most means war, illegal sex, CIA missions against drug runners etc.

  That said, I have been wondering if the way out of this mess is to use humor. The Daily show is possibly the most direct attack on those in govt. that is allowed, esp. in "time of war". Apparently, you can say anything about the govt. as long as you smile and call it fake news. But the Daily show has more real news than almost any other news outlet in tv-land.

  I'm reminded of some Mafia movie line where the boss says "I can't afford to look re-dick-u-luss" with a heavy crime boss accent. Maybe the answer is to show how re-dick-u-luss the Bush govt. is. But alas, people will probably just draw the wrong conclusion and simply replace Bush with something equally ridiculous.

  Published: June 5, 2006 1:50 PM

• Brian Gladish

  Person,

  I hope it will not surprise you to hear that von Mises himself was a consequentialist/utilitarian/whatever. I would suggest Theory and History as the strongest source of his ideas on this topic that I have read. It's a great read!

  Published: June 5, 2006 3:02 PM

• Roger M

  Brian,
  The consequentialist/utilitarian aspect of Crunch Cons doesn't bother anyone. In fact, most of the people I know follow much of the so-called "crunch" lifestyle, but we would never consider ourselves such. We also don't pretend that it's a superior lifestyle, as Dreher does. It's just our preference. Dreher also mixes in Marxist attacks on free markets as he goes along and predicting disaster, all the while claiming he's pro free markets and doesn't advocate policy changes. An honest reader would be justified in asking him why he writes about abuses of the environment and small businesses, the destruction of communities (this is a favorite communitarian them) and predicts disaster if he doesn't think anyone should do anything about it?

  Published: June 5, 2006 3:35 PM

• jeffrey

  I notice on the author's blog that he responds to the criticism that his book is short on theory and tediously long on anecdotes, as in: stories of John, Sally, Fred, and Jane and their crunchy ways. He blaims his editor at the publishing house for this endless catalog of wonderful crunchy people that he knows.

  I can sort of understand his point. Editors at the major houses go for the story-anecdote-example thing. It's the "Readers Digest" method of editing that seems to aflict all editors over the age of 50 (the younger ones have looked at the RD's abysmal circulation rates!).

  I personally find it off putting and strained, even unbearable. It talks down to readers, as if we are all in 2nd grade, incapable of following abstractions. I can't tell if editors insist on this because they think their readers are stupid or they themselves are stupid. Mostly, it's just annoying how they browbeat writers into this stuff, as if they are fabulous practioners of some high art by insert the phrase "Example please" every few sentences during the copy editing stage.

  Still, it's no excuse. If a writer is not willing to be held accountable for the contents of his or her book, he or she should find another publishing house or editor. It takes guts to pull a manuscript but sometimes it is just necessary, even if it means less $$$ and less exposure.

  People would be amazed how much authors put up with during the editing-mangling stage of publishing!

  The other thing is this: I don't think the author is drawn to theory. This is why he went along with tedious editorial demands. It's always much easier to tell stories than to defend a theoretical claim.

  Published: June 5, 2006 3:46 PM

• Curt Howland

  I'm getting too old, obviously. Isn't everything in this book just a re-hash of what hippies were saying in 1968? "Back to the earth", "natural fibers", "simplify your life, get in touch with your soul" and I'll add, "man...."
  

  40 years and now it's a "conservative" saying all of it all over again.
  

  Even the P.O.S. vehicle on the cover is a VW Microbus! Shades of Arlo Guthrie!
  

  Can the author really be ignorant of how often and how obviously all this has been said before?

  Published: June 5, 2006 3:53 PM

• Person

  Jeffrey: I don't think it's humanly possible for me to agree with you more. I am annoyed to no end by the tendency of magazines with wide circulation to talk down to their readers -- and I'm ... well, less than half of 50, I'll leave it at that. The worst offender in my mind? Time magazine. In an article about the upcoming Nintendo Wii (the link to it was made "premium" so I can't link it), it had this exact statement, with this exact punctuation:

  To non-gamers, video games are hard. Like hard as in homework.

  What part of their readership is supposed to be "down" with the "yeah, homework sucks, man" mentality? And did the author even know the grammatical purpose of the words he was using? It should have been

  Like, "hard" as in "homework."

  The entire article was like fingernails on blackboard. I also remember a while back on the Mises blog someone posting an excerpt from Time about how Apple Computer's management style somehow "violates Adam Smithian principles", making one of the greatest distortion of his works I've ever known. As far as I'm concerned, Time is a tabloid. Luckily, I don't have to read it, but I'm still disturbed that people actually give them significant sums of money.

  Published: June 5, 2006 4:34 PM

• TGGP

  Eric, you are allowed to say whatever you want during time of war, and that is just what happens at mises.org and lewrockwell.com. The "masses" are allowed to ignore you in times of war and times of peace as well.

  Published: June 5, 2006 10:44 PM

• GeronL

  Dreher works at my local paper, at least I think he does.. the Dallas Moening Snooze... yep he is very dangerous. He is NOT conservative in the least, just another statist.

  I loathe these people.

  Published: June 5, 2006 10:57 PM

• John Zmirak

  I've known the author, Rod Dreher, for many years. In his research for the book, he read my own on Wilhelm Roepke, and included material about it in the MS, which was cut for space. So he might well have intended to address the economic issues at some length, and been restrained from doing so. That said, I think that many Crunchy Con sympathizers share the old assumption (derived from classical political philosophy, and regnant throughout all human history except for a brief period of awakening during the 18th to 19th centuries in the Anglo-Saxon world) that the State is there to manage everyone's lives and help them find The Good Life, whether they like it or not. Now, I think there is SOMETHING to this idea--at least insofar as I would differ with the anarchists here in holding that we should have SOME sort of state, whose job it is to preserve individual liberties. But there isn't nearly as much as all on the Right and Left believe. They unreflectively accept the notion of the government as parent, and the citizen as perpetual adolescent, who must be taught constantly what is good for him--at gunpoint. What I tell Crunchy Cons and Crunchy Leftists alike is this: Stop wasting your time trying to convince people to band together to use the power of the State to force each other to pursue virtuous ends, and instead try to persuade them... to PURSUE VIRTUOUS ENDS. Skip the whole middle step, involving State coercion, and just promote the Good, period. When they ask what's the difference, I point to the way the Apostles, St. Francis, Mother Teresa, et cetera spread the Gospel--and contrast that to the methods pursued during the Thirty Years' War.

  Published: June 6, 2006 1:15 AM

• TokyoTom

  David: Excellent comments, especially this - "Defence of the free market and its institutional underpinnings is extremely important, and we should never pass up opportunties to defend it, but we must also make SURE that we are indeed defending the free market, private property, and the primacy of contract, not an oppressive and corrupt status quo."

  I think too often some of the libertarian analysis here is a reflexive reaction AGAINST any form of government action, which amounts to a rejection of assertions that there are problems that should be redressed, and a de facto defense of the status quo.

  This is not a criticism of Mr. Tucker's analysis, as I have not read Dreher.

  Regards,

  Tom

  Published: June 6, 2006 3:10 AM

• Mitchell Young

  So, an author writes a book, it does very well in its niche, and you libertarians are upset? I don't get it. Are you saying that consumers should be deprived of such books, or are you merely criticizing there choice in buying, reading and in many cases enjoying the book. Are you saying your tastes in literature are superior to theirs?

  As for economics, technical, and all that, maybe you guys should learn about the advances that have been made, in say , the last 100 years. Markets fail, both in theory and in practice, all the time. Here's a tip, John Nash.

  As for the wonderfulness of Amazon -- sure , it's great. It also uses a network invented at the behest of government, accessed through browsers whose roots lie in Academica (pre-modern, pre-market institution) and government (again). Much the same can be said of things like sanitation, vacines and so on.

  Published: June 6, 2006 4:02 AM

• jeffrey

  John, thanks for your comments. Your work on Ropke is in a different category altogether, of course. I know I should be more patient with people who write these well-intention screeds against modern life that keep telling us that life isn't all about the market. It's true that the market is not all of life, not the whole of all that we should think and do. But whoever said it was? They invent this caricature of economic concern and then refute it with hundreds of pages of preachy prose that show no evidence of any economic understanding at all.

  There's plenty to complain about in this world but one of these complaints need not be that billions of people are being fed, clothed, and housed through the voluntary means of market exchange. The market is not the problem but the solution.

  One commentator above makes a very interesting point in distinguishing three kinds of consumerism: 1) unobjectionable buying and selling, 2) conspicuous consumption that is just tacky, and 3) credit-fueled indebtedness, which is a product of fiduciary media backed by the government's printing presses. This strikes me as a very clarifying distinction. Surely it is possible to denounce 3, warn against 2, while not disparaging 1.

  Published: June 6, 2006 5:25 AM

• Roger M

  Mitchell--"Markets fail, both in theory and in practice, all the time." Fail to do what? I've heard this saying all my life, but no one ever gives an example. Do you have one?

  Published: June 6, 2006 8:46 AM

• Mitchell Young

  Roger M,

  Markets, for example, failed to keep the air in the Los Angeles basin clean. It took regulation to achieve that -- although it is certainly true that companies came up the applied technology to meet those regulations, the regulation was a necessary stimulus.

  Markets, as per my example above, often fail to promote innovation. Mr. Tucker, you and I are all communicating on essentially a government-invented network.

  Probably more to the point, it is 'regulated' by a voluntary group put together by Tim Berners Lee (an academic) to help maintain standards of code and interoperability, things of beauty to a web designer or coder. I haven't read Dreher's book, but I followed the debate over at NRO -- Dreher seems to be calling for being aware the effects of consumption, and his is also interested in promoting high standards in food, education.

  Published: June 6, 2006 10:43 AM

• Reactionary

  "Markets, for example, failed to keep the air in the Los Angeles basin clean."

  Wrong. Subsidized road construction and an immigration policy set by lobbyists and politicians in the District of Columbia failed to keep the air in the Los Angeles basin clean.

  Published: June 6, 2006 11:07 AM

• Maeghan MacDougall

  I could not have been more than ten pages into this book when I thought: what an effete little twerp this guy is. I read him in National Review and my contention with him is my contention with much of that august publication (after 51 years of my family subscribing): where is the depth? Where is the intellectual rigor? Where are the unappologetic men, for God's sake?

  And where, for the love of all good writing, is an editor? The book is repetitive, sloppy mess, something I have noticed is rampant in the books/rantings of modern Conservatives. It should have been a long article.

  But it as if either Dreher doesn't really believe his own argument or is afraid of it. If he added one more appology for home schooling, to take just one example, that it "wasn't for everyone", I was going to scream. Where is the passion? The unapologetic joy and zeal for what you really believe? I guess you can not expect that from a man who describes one of his hobbies (on the Dallas Morning News website) as "slacking". Dreher and I are 10 months apart in age and I don't even know what the hell that is.

  This man worships Russell Kirk. Little man, on your best day in your best suit, you couldn't hold his door. Sigh.

  Published: June 6, 2006 11:10 AM

• Roger M

  Michell,
  I’m sure you’re aware that the air is not part of the market; it’s part of the problem of the commons. As for markets failing to promote innovation, that’s simply not true. All you have to do is compare the rates of innovation in relatively free market economies to those in less free markets. That’s not to say that zero innovation takes place in non-free markets; the USSR had many innovations. Besides, the government didn’t invent the internet. The military installed and used the cable for many years, but who created fiber optic cable and the technology to transmit signals over it? Not the US government or the military. When they were through with it, the military opened it to the public, but it was virtually unusable by all but techies until private companies developed the technology such as browsers. I would love to see more examples if you have them.

  I know that Dreher claims he only calls for awareness of the effects of consumption and promotes high standards in food and education. But read his book and you’ll find something very different. If his goal is what he claims, why does he spend so much time trashing free markets and capitalism, far more than he does socialism even though he claims to propose a third way? Why does he devote so much dead tree real estate to the horror of the destruction of our communities? His book doesn’t jibe with his claims.
  

  Published: June 6, 2006 11:50 AM

• RogertheK

  There is little I can add,that hasn't been said about this book.I have not read it,but I am well aware of Mr.Dreher's screeds,at National Review, and The War Street Journal.The piece at http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-dreher100801.shtml ,written right after 9/11, reveals him to be nothing more,than a kissing cousin to Michelle "Internment Camps" Malkin, while pieces like the one,at http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/16.3docs/16-3pg23.html ,trot out the same old tired bromides,about the "liburul meedja",and how it picks on the poor persecuted Christians.An argument that has always been specious at best, and was completely swept away with the rise of Pat Robertson,Fox News,ad nauseum.
  But it was blog entries like the one,at http://www.beepolicy.com/2006/05/im-talking-to-you-rod-dreher.html ,that show Mr.Dreher to be just another crazy,mixed-up dude,who may have taken waaay too many drugs,in his youth.(But that could have been why he became a Conservative,Bush voter in the first place.)
  [quote=Jessica Henig]See, this is what I was talking about. Dreher makes no pretense of supporting science, but he makes a big pretense of supporting the environment, and that's just as big of a crock when you're a Bush fan. You can't have your organic honey-sweetened vegan seed cake and eat it too. You can't pit your bike and your push mower against the environment-destroying juggernaut that you helped create. You can't be a hippie and a hawk.

  I want to see conservatives waking up to what they've wrought, and what they're still wreaking, on this country. Hell, on the world. Dreher, I charge you as a coward. Get your head out of the compost and look around. What is your pretense of "community values" and your whole-grain bread doing besides making you feel warm and fuzzy about yourself? I know hippies, sir. I grew up in the People's Republic of Takoma Park, Maryland. And you, sir, are no hippie.[/quote]
  

  Published: June 6, 2006 12:03 PM

• David K. Meller

  I usually don't go out of my way to criticise other posts, however, the one belonging to a Mitchell Young cries out for comment, especially on a blog dedicated to the support of the free market, private property, and international peace.

  The dreadful air pollution characterising Los Angeles, and many other cities, is due only to the ABSENCE of private ownership rights in UNOWNED resources, bereft of recognised and enforceable tort law (unfortunately the responsibility of governments) which could be applied to the owners of private property and their contractual private exchange, as the exchanges would relate to the community on two levels:

  Firstly, the capital value of the unowned reasources, and secondly, the effects of any pollution therefrom on other persons and their PRIVATE property.

  Regarding the damages which pollution, and polluters, could and should be held accountable, it should be noted here that Government, being an institution holding a monopoly on only the use of force and fraud, is in the worst moral and legal position to either enact or to enforce laws upholding the value of private property, least of all not where public well-being (such as pollution control) is concerned.

  Air, rivers, underground aquifiers, "Public lands" etc, are all unowned resources. Governments can "own" their TERRITORY, but only individuals, and their associations can create and own rights to actual property and its capital value over time. Ownbership of the said property is not recognised under State or Federal law, and in fact is precluded by government statutes, and ownership rights in its capital value is thus also not recognised. It is precisely the inability to retain,or enhance the capital value of the property in question, the inability to buy, lease, or sell it, and to hold those who would damage said captial value to account for the full damages in government courts, that gives rise to what victims of such misuse of MARKETLESS AND OWNERLESS "property" experience as pollution. Because of the government's inability to create or to recognise rights to private property and its long-term capital value, Government "control" of pollution is a contradiction in terms where the free market would be concerned!

  I hope this little reply answered any objections to the "free market" and pollution.

  wishing everyone...

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
  David K. Meller

  Published: June 6, 2006 12:40 PM

• BillG

  Roger M wrote:

  In his book, Dreher comments that "crunchy cons" have one thing in common, they don't like, distrust and are not interested in economics. I wonder why they write about it so much, then?

  BillG responds:

  if you want to read about distributist economics I would suggest picking up a copy of and reading e.f. schumacher's "small is beautiful" written in '73.

  in reality, distributist/agrarian economics is nothing more than a combination of geo-libertarianism and mutualism.

  Published: June 6, 2006 12:46 PM

• Person

  Mutualism ... isn't that the one that says that an individual working from his home with his own tools can really build PlayStation 2's from scratch more efficiently than they can in a factory, and the only reason they don't already do this is because of state intervention in favor of corporations? Is that the thesis of "Small is Beautiful"? (though referencing a different technology)

  Published: June 6, 2006 1:05 PM

• Mitchell Young

  Besides, the government didn’t invent the internet. The military installed and used the cable for many years, but who created fiber optic cable and the technology to transmit signals over it?

  The internet was around before fiber optic cable. The Department of Defense did indeed fund the research that developed the internet. The unix system the base code that powers much of the interent, was developed both by a private company --Bell Labs--and a public institution, --UC Berkeley. As I live near northern San Diego county, I know the biotech industry a bit. I know that many of the smaller companies seek government grants, and that many more are founded by scientists who are seeking to monetize basic research carried out by public institutions. I don't deny that markets are great at some things -- in fact the psuedo-markets set up for carbon trading are a great idea. But theory and experience tells me that collective action mechanisms are at times necessary. I know that's some sort of horror to libertarian ideologists, but its true.

  air isn't owned

  this is precisely the problem, in the real world some things, some very basic things, that can't be owned.

  why here on blog dedicated to markets and freedom

  Seems you only want to listen to facts/analyses that confirm your own beliefs.

  Published: June 6, 2006 1:39 PM

• David K. Meller

  Oh, for heaven's sakes---"air", or other "very basic things"---can't be owned! Of course not! It is the RIGHTS to the use and exchange to the resource(s) on the part of particular individuals or groups in question that is owned, and upon being owned, can be traded. Private property, as has been indicated in countless places elsewhere, from John Locke to Ayn Rand, from Thomas Jefferson to Ludwig von Mises, from Herbert Spencer to Murray Rothbard, and from Lysander Spooner to Albert Jay Nock et al. is the extension of the individual, or a voluntary association of individuals into the external world, according to agreed upon rules.

  Government, on the other hand, is at its best, simply a gang of bandits who claims the right of soverignty over a given territory, like a pack of wild animals attacking a rival pack, or persuing prey, and has nothing to do with property. Even Karl Marx or Pierre ("Property is theft") Proudhon would probably gag at the thought of wild animals creating "property rights" through the "Might is Right" ethos which defines and describes "government"!

  I don't know what else I could say. I will certainly listen to facts and analysis that contradict my beliefs, if such facts and analysis benefit individual liberty, but the facts and analysis have to make sense!

  Similarly, I think and hope that we can agree that any prohibitions against the misuse of those above-mentioned rights to violate the (property rights) of others can be (and ought to be) recognised and honored as promptly and as thoroughly as possible!

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
  David K. Meller

  Published: June 6, 2006 2:14 PM

• Yancey Ward

  Person,

  Don't forget the do-it-yourself knee-replacement.

  Published: June 6, 2006 2:15 PM

• TGGP

  Pat Robertson is not on the rise, he has been on the decline for some time now. Not too long ago he even lost an election for leadership in an organization he founded.

  What I'm most shocked about is that people have been discussing air pollution without mentioning Rothbard's writing on it. http://mises.org/rothbard/lawproperty.pdf
  I was also unaware of the problem being fixed by regulation.

  Published: June 6, 2006 2:18 PM

• BillG

  Person wrote:

  "Mutualism ... isn't that the one that says that an individual working from his home with his own tools can really build PlayStation 2's from scratch more efficiently than they can in a factory, and the only reason they don't already do this is because of state intervention in favor of corporations?"

  BillG responds:

  who in their right mind would want to own a PlayStation2 when they choose not to own a TV?

  Published: June 6, 2006 2:42 PM

• BillG

  David K. Meller wrote:

  "It is the RIGHTS to the use and exchange to the resource(s) on the part of particular individuals or groups in question that is owned, and upon being owned, can be traded."

  BillG responds:

  we only have an INALIENABLE, individual, equal access opportunity right to the sustainable yield of using the air as both a source and sink so long as our use does not infringe on the equal access opportunity rights of all other individuals.

  in the case of using the air as a sink we have gone beyond on the sustainable yield thus we have negative externalities because we are not leaving "enough and as good in common for others" (Locke's proviso)

  He also wrote:

  "Private property, as has been indicated in countless places elsewhere, from John Locke to Ayn Rand, from Thomas Jefferson to Ludwig von Mises, from Herbert Spencer to Murray Rothbard, and from Lysander Spooner to Albert Jay Nock et al. is the extension of the individual, or a voluntary association of individuals into the external world, according to agreed upon rules.
  "

  BillG responds:

  the natural extension of the individual is their labor...therefore everything that pre-exists labor like air is owned in common.

  the enclosure of the natural commons via government granted privilege (private law) inevitably leads to the shifting of costs (beyond the sustainable yield) that act as a defacto tax on the wages of those being excluded.

  in the case of air, it is right and just that the state use it's monopoly on force to protect the legitimate and absolute individual rights we all have to our labor (wages) by:

  1. restricting the use of the air as a sink to the sustainable yield

  2. sell annual titles (government granted privilege) to use the air up to the sustainable yield.

  3. return the proceeds equally and directly to the owners of the commons to protect their absolute rights to their labor products so as to not subject them to negative externalities (a tax in kind but not in name).

  Published: June 6, 2006 3:15 PM

• Vince Daliessio

  David K. Meller said;

  "Regarding the damages which pollution, and polluters, could and should be held accountable, it should be noted here that Government, being an institution holding a monopoly on only the use of force and fraud, is in the worst moral and legal position to either enact or to enforce laws upholding the value of private property, least of all not where public well-being (such as pollution control) is concerned."

  Exactly. Private industry, though it is still an imperfect and as-yet-incomplete project, has by and large done a pretty good job of cleaning up its pollution act, very little thanks to government. Most of its pollution could have been avoided however, if courts hadn't dismantled property protections for individuals starting in the late 1700's in favor of polluters, culminating in the pollution we recall today.

  Government, however, not only abetted (and during WWI and WWII encouraged) poor disposal practices by private industry, they also own and operate some of the most dangerously polluted land on the planet - that belonging to the nuclear weapons complex. The Hanford Reservation in rural Washington State is over 1000 square miles in area, and contains millions of tons of poorly-stored, highly mobile liquid radioactive wastes, some of it so radioactive that humans cannot even approach it. Thousands of hastily-constructed concrete waste tanks have been leaking huge amounts of uranium, plutonium, and other baddies into the local aquifer that feeds the Columbia River, necessitating a "River Protection Project" that is budgeted for over $8 billion! That's just one small project at one facility (there are dozens of others).

  Yeah, sounds like there's more than a little hypocrisy at work here.

  Published: June 6, 2006 3:22 PM

• BillG

  VinceD. wrote:

  "Most of its pollution could have been avoided however, if courts hadn't dismantled property protections for individuals starting in the late 1700's in favor of polluters, culminating in the pollution we recall today."

  BillG responds:

  I believe it was the neo-classical revolution that put the nail in the coffin (treating the commons as private capital) after the body of Locke's proviso (enough and as good) had been placed in it.

  rather than proving a property rights violation via tort law it is much more efficacious to argue a property rights violation to labor products via negative externalities.

  Published: June 6, 2006 4:25 PM

• Brad Dexter

  I did not realize the breadth and depth of crunchy cons. On another site there was an example given of conservatives who disliked new building of rather large houses that may spoil a view etc, and while all along I would not support the use of force to prevent someone from doing so, I thought I saw some point to the perspective. But I guess I was merely grafting my point of view that there IS mindless consumption out there, consuming just to keep up with the Jonses, and not enjoyed for what it is. I have personally seen this. Houses for example, there is a subsection of consumers who build houses bigger than they can afford and adequately furnish. They do this not as means to enjoy life, but in an effort to look good to others. Perfectly allowable, and no force should be used, but from a cultural standpoint, and from my perspective it is a waste. Even in a free-market society, one can still question another's allocation of their resources. Shallowness is still an identifiable characteristic, and shallowness bespeaks of a mindlessness and I guess that is burr under the saddle for me.

  There are so many people who don't seem to have the ability to explain why they behave the way they do. I would think that one aspect of a well developed approach to life, one describable by an economic structure derived from Human Action, that one should be able to have a sound reason for each allocation of their wealth. This versus a quick-fix balm to their existential soul (that at least they're better than the next guy) because they have three extra rooms that they can't even furnish, which is a misallocation, one that they are entitled to make, certainly, and one that should not be corrected by force, but still a misallocation.

  But the life-style based crunchy cons seem to want to go further and use force to enter the freedom to misallocate. For all of my dislike of how others might mindlessly allocate their equity, I don't buy into the uniformity of behavior crunchy cons seem to. The real world isn't a Norman Rockwell painting.

  Published: June 7, 2006 10:16 AM

• Roger M

  Brad,
  A lot of the people I know who build very large houses do so because they think it's a good investment, especially in the past decade as housing prices have soared. Also, the larger the debt, the more interest they have to deduct which can amount to a lot when in the top tax brackets. In other words, large houses are a tax shelter.

  Boiled down, what Dreher really says in Crunch Cons is that many conservatives agree with the left on economic issues, but not culture/values issues. And I think he's correct, which is very sad.

  In my state, Oklahoma, most voters are registered Democrats who vote Republican only for Congress and the President, and then only because of cultural issues. If Democrats would swing right on culture (as Bill did and Hillary is trying), the Republican party will lose all of those crossover Democrats because all Democrats in my state, and most Republicans, are socialists to the core.

  Published: June 7, 2006 11:38 AM

• Mike Rael

  Hi all:)
  I didn't read Dreher's book, but I sure wish Mr. Tucker would follow the guidelines for reviewing that I loved when in the old Stereophile and the Editor-In-Chief was John Holt. Once a piece of stereo gear was reviewed, the review was sent to the manufacturer for comments. About 1/3 of the time, the manufacturer showed the reviewer to not be sufficiently thoughtful in the review! The Stereophile reviewer always reserved for himself the last word. All this, mind, was in the same issue as the original review!
  That's what I'd like to see, friends. As long as an author is alive, I'd love to view a good-faith effort to contact the author for comments about the review. You just never know what could result!
  best wishes all,
  Mike

  Published: June 8, 2006 2:05 AM

• Common Reader

  I am a Catholic homeschooling mother and wow am I sick of this stuff.

  I like Chesterton and organic food and I don't have a car. I wear long skirts and my children play musical instruments and we don't have a tv.

  These are *my personal choices* which are mostly made possible by the market. I can't begin to understand how all my communitarian/Falangist homeschooling buddies don't see this. It's like they're under this weird spell.

  And what the weird spell prevents them from seeing is that if they would get over their fear of eeeeevil markets, they could solve all their problems by getting rich, buying property, and establishing and running communities the way they like 'em. Instead they languish in these loony subcultural ghettoes, publishing and universities, plus they continue to waste huge amounts of money sending their children to expensive Catholic universities, instead of making money and investing it in real estate. Almost makes me want to turn Protestant.

  Published: June 14, 2006 2:51 AM

• Roger M

  Common Reader,
  Thanks for your perspective! But you'll find a lot of Protestants like Dreher, too. They're only conservative on a few cultural issues. Take my state, OK, for example. Most people are Baptist and registered Democrats, but they vote Republican on national issues out of concern for moral issues. On economic matters, however, they're socialist in every way but name, though they would never admit it.

  Published: June 14, 2006 11:22 AM

• Thomas Schiro

  I am a conservative and a Christian, and I agree with many of the points Mr. Dreher makes about the state of society at large and the "permanent things"; however, I don't believe in intervention from the federal government in society/economy on any scale, as Mr. Dreher faintly alludes to in his book.

  I do believe, however, that human nature is flawed, and that the free market--the best man-made economic system in all of history--is not perfect.

  This does not mean that I believe the free market is a root of all kinds of evil, or that everyone should become socialists or commies (by no means!), but that the free market in itself is not inherently good or evil, but subject to the desires and directions of men, which CAN be good or evil. Anyone get my jist here?

  Published: December 6, 2008 10:41 PM

• Richard Laubly

  Here it is 2009, and I have just read CRUNCHY CONS. I was very interested in reading it because I thought that Dreher might be on to something, a void in the radical conservative philosophy that I had long felt. I had always consider myself a Frank S. Meyer conservative, with big does of Weaver and Kirk. In the first couple chapters I thought he might be approaching some kind of synthesis (fusion?) going from Burke to Weaver to Kirk, and getting to the essence of what I had always felt TRUE conservativism was about. The Little Platoons, etc.

  While I agreed with large parts of the book (and certainly found it a nice counterbalance to Jonah Goldberg's silliness about "organic Nazis" in LIBERAL FASCISM (another otherwise excellent book, by the way) I felt that Dreher landed somewhere else, in a kind of vague hippy-dippy land.

  I thank him for his book and his contribution to the dialogue, but feel that the expression "crunchy" con distracts from what could be an interesting approach.

  Published: May 11, 2009 9:46 AM