I wasn't quite sure how to react to Art Carden's essay, after first reading it.  On the one hand, it wasn't as though I actually disagreed with any of his main claims.  I think he's right about the minimum wage, rent control, subsidies, and international trade.  Of course, he doesn't provide the arguments or data to support any of these claims.  But I think that's understandable, given the forum in which they were made.

But still, something about it didn't sit quite right with me, even if I couldn't quite place my finger on exactly what it was.  And on reading the comments thread on this post, I realized that I wasn't alone.  After a bit of reflection, however, I think that there are two main sources of my unease.

Both have more to do with what he doesn't say than with what he does say.   First, what he does say, for the most part, is that policies that are aimed at relieving the plight of the poor very often have the unintended consqeuences of hurting them.  The message, of course, is that we should not pursue such policies.  And insofar as such policies really do hurt the poor, of course I am in agreement with them.  Still, I am reminded of the words of the American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, editor of the great periodical Liberty, in introducing one of Herbet Spencer's essays:

 Liberty welcomes and criticises in the same breath the series of papers by Herbert Spencer on  "The New Toryism"…. They are very true, very important, and very misleading…. I begin to be a little suspicious of him. It seems as if he had forgotten the teachings of his earlier writings, and had become a champion of the capitalistic class. It will be noticed that in these later articles, amid his multitudinous illustrations … of the evils of legislation, he in every instance cites some law passed, ostensibly at least, to protect labor, alleviate suffering, or promote the people's welfare.  He demonstrates beyond dispute the lamentable failure in this direction. But never once does he call attention to the far more deadly and deep-seated evils growing out of the innumerable laws creating privilege and sustaining monopoly. You must not protect the weak against the strong, he seems to say, but freely supply all the weapons needed by the strong to oppress the weak. He is greatly shocked that the rich should be directly taxed to support the poor, but that the poor should be indirectly taxed and bled to make the rich richer does not outrage his delicate sensibilities in the least. Poverty is increased by the poor laws, says Mr. Spencer. Granted; but what about the rich laws that caused and still cause the poverty to which the poor laws add?

 Carden writes, in others words, as though if we were to remove these policies designed to benefit the poor, we would have a free market, and this would be much better for the poor than what we currently have.  The second part of that claim, I think, is absolutely true.  A genuinely free market really would be better for the poor than what we currently have.  But policies designed to promote the interests of the poor are, I think, a very small part of what keeps us from such a genuinely free market.  To focus on them as if they were is, at the very least, to invite misinterpretation.  At worst it is mere vulgar libertarianism.

My second source of concern is this.  Carden claims to be motivated by a concern for the poor.  His commitment to free market, his post suggests, is a product of his belief that free markets serve the interests of the poor better than alternative institutions.  But his commitment to the free market does not seem at all qualified.  He does not say that free markets do, in certain contexts, a pretty good job of promoting the interests of the poor, but perhaps they are limited in such and such ways.  He does not present any cases where deviations from the free market might be necessary to promote the interests of the poor.  He does not even say that the interests of the poor would be better served by government intervention, but that considerations of aggregate well-being or deontological constraints prevent us from purusing those polciies.  The message seems to be that if your concern is to help the poor, free markets are always the best answer.

Now, maybe he's right.  I don't think he is, but perhaps I'm under the sway of false economic beliefs.  Still, it all seems a little too neat.  When someone claims to be committed in a fundamental way to both X and Y, and then claims that (happy day!) X and Y always turn out to be mutually recognizable, I begin to suspect that the conclusion is driven more by psychological processes designed to reduce cognitive dissonance than by careful empirical study or theoretical reasoning.  

I don't mean to suggest that Carden is anything less than genuine in his claims to support either free markets or the interests of the poor.  Perhaps, in a forum where he had more room to explore the subtleties of his position, he would have addressed the kinds of concerns I have raised here.  Even still, I think there's a lesson to be learned here for bleeding heart libertarians about the manner of one's presentation.  As the comments thread I referred to above reflects, Carden's essay doesn't seem to have done much to persuade those on the left, however enthusiastically it may have been accepted by those on the (libertarian) right.  

To show those on the left that we are taking their concerns seriously, we need to make it clear that our concern for the poor is something that we take seriously as a moral concern, and not merely a bit of rhetorical jiu-jitsu with which to persuade others to accept our independeltly held faith in American-style capitalism.