Separation of Family and State
Jeff Dege
Separation of Family and State
By Arnold Kling
Published 11/10/2005
"The rioters are generally 12 to 25 years old, and roughly half of
those arrested are under 18...Traditional parental control has
disappeared and many Muslim families are headed by a single parent.
Elders, imams and social workers have lost control. Paradoxically, the
youths themselves are often the providers of local social rules, based
on aggressive manhood, control of the streets, defense of a territory.
...Americans, for their part, should take little pleasure in France's
agony -- the struggle to integrate an angry underclass is one shared
across the Western world."
-- Olivier Roy
One way to describe libertarianism is that we believe in the separation of
family and state as strongly as the American Civil Liberties Union
believes in the separation of church and state. In contrast, both the Left
and the Right view government as a substitute parent. As pointed out by
George Lakoff in Moral Politics, the Left wants government to be a
nurturant parent and the Right wants government to be a strict parent.
Libertarianism does not want the government to act as a parent. What I
want is for government to ensure that property disputes are resolved
peacefully, according to rules. The rules themselves do not have to be
perfect. They should reflect prevailing custom, which in turn may evolve
gradually over time.
Teenage Rebellion
With some trepidation, I chose to connect this essay to the news du jour,
namely the riots in France. Everyone wants to interpret those riots
according to their preconceptions. Some pundits see the riots as an
anti-Western intifada. Others see them as a cry for social justice.
My reaction to the riots is to view them as teenage rebellion against the
state as parent. The French government, like a deer caught in the
headlights, cannot decide which direction to turn. Should it adopt the
strict parent model, and crack down? Or should it adopt the nurturant
parent model, and try to provide better education, jobs, and social
acceptance for ethnic minorities?
In this particular case, I believe that libertarian thinking tends to
correspond to conservative thinking. With property being destroyed and
people being assaulted, government needs to enforce the rules, by force if
necessary -- and force is clearly necessary.
Libertarianism also offers clear philosophical resistance to the solutions
dear to the hearts of those who want government to act as a nurturant
parent. I think it is fair to say that France ought to have rules that
forbid discrimination against ethnic minorities. Beyond that, however, the
libertarian message to people of color in France would be, "Your
prosperity and dignity come from your own efforts. They do not come from
the state." Of course, our message to the white French would be exactly
the same.
To the traditional Left and Right, one question raised by the riots is how
the French welfare state affects Muslims and other minorities. The Right
worries that it provides too much support for "alien" immigrant
"parasites." The Left worries that it does not provide enough education
and employment opportunities.
To libertarians, the welfare state is something that is economically
ineffective and morally wrong for everyone, not just for ethnic
minorities. Families and non-coercive institutions, such as charities and
churches, ought to provide for basic needs. Education and health care
ought to be primarily the responsibility of families, not of the state.
The Coase Theorem and Imperfect Rules
I believe that a key element of practical libertarianism has to be a
willingness to live with imperfect rules. I view the famous theorem of
Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase as an illustration of this.
Suppose that there are two users and a common resource. An example would
be a ball field that could be used by soccer players and baseball players.
Another example would be a stream that could be used either to water
livestock or irrigate crops.
Roughly speaking, the Coase theorem says that it does not matter who owns
the common resource, as long as someone owns it. If the farmer owns the
stream, then the herder can buy water from the farmer. If the herder owns
the stream, then the farmer can buy some water. Either way, water will be
allocated efficiently. Furthermore, the owner will have an incentive to
maintain the stream in such a way as to maximize the value for both uses.
On the other hand, if no one owns the water, then each user will attempt
to consume too much. Perhaps the stream will go dry.
A willingness to live with imperfect rules is a little-noticed requirement
for libertarianism. If instead you say, "I believe in a government that
only enforces rules, but the rules must satisfy the larger needs of
justice," you have created a hole in libertarianism through which one can
drive a proverbial truck of big government. As Thomas Sowell has pointed
out, the Quest for Cosmic Justice is never-ending and self-defeating.
Family, Church, and State
The United States and France have been fairly aggressive about separating
church and state. For example, in public schools the U.S. bans school
prayer and France bans Muslim head scarves.
Libertarians would like to see equally aggressive policing of the boundary
between family and state. We would eliminate the controversy concerning
religious expression in public schools by eliminating public schools.
Under the welfare state, government usurps the role of the family in
education, health care, and saving for retirement. As economic historian
Robert Fogel has pointed out, these are the fastest-growing segments of
our economy. Government's role in the economy, as measured by the ratio of
taxes and government spending to GDP, is certain to increase sharply as
long as we fail to enforce a boundary between family and state.
Policies that treat the state as parent often are defended as helping
families that are economically disadvantaged. However, in Bleeding-heart
Libertarianism, I showed how we could have a redistributionist tax regime
without having government take over family functions. (See also, What's
Wrong With Paternalism?)
Does family-state separation have the same Constitutional status as
church-state separation? In practice, it clearly does not, and perhaps one
could argue that nothing in the Constitution favors family-state
separation. However, it strikes me that church-state separatists choose a
particularly strict reading of the "establishment clause" of the first
amendment, while paternalists choose a particularly loose reading of the
parts of the Constitution that limit government's powers in other realms.
I would prefer a strict reading on all counts.
What I would like to see is a philosophical movement for the separation of
family and state. Such a movement could act as a bulwark against
"big-government conservatism." Government should leave children behind and
let seniors face the cost of prescription drugs. Those needs should be
addressed by families, with support from non-coercive charitable
institutions.
--
I swear eternal enmity against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson