A little while back, I argued that the current crisis was not, by any means, the end of libertarianism, and that anyone who says so misunderstands libertarianism both in terms of its practical consequences and in terms of its theoretical basis. What I mean by this is, in the first case, that libertarianism doesn't condone the policies that led to the current crisis and, in the second case, that libertarianism is a deontological theory of political morality, not a theory of political 'utility'. That last claim perhaps needs a translation for non-philosophers: libertarianism is a theory of which things the state should and should not do, and it claims that such actions of the state are right or wrong in and of themselves regardless of their consequences.
William Black of Cato Unbound recently argued that classical laissez-faire economic policy, if it is understood properly, is going to require precisely the sort of regulation that the Bush administration had been dismantling, leading to the current crisis (HT: pferree, via email). As Black puts it, "when you don’t regulate financial activities you de facto decriminalize control fraud because the regulators are the 'cops on the beat.'” In other words, given our current political situation, deregulation (or, as Black prefers to call it, 'desupervision') amounts to decriminalization of fraud, because there is no one else around to enforce laws against fraud besides the regulators. Now, the FBI could theoretically have opened fraud investigations long ago, and it's my opinion that they should have, but that's beside the point. The point I want to make is, rather, that a degree of legislation/regulation is not only permitted but required as part of the libertarian state's mission to protect its citizens from force or fraud.
To see why, consider the definition of fraud. My dictionary says "wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain." So what the libertarian state is trying to prevent (or, failing that, to punish) on behalf of its citizens is the use of deception to violate someone's person or property. What is deception? To a first approximation, we can say that 'deception' occurs where one person acts in such a way as to bring about false beliefs in another (we will, for the moment, ignore the question of whether such acts have to be intentional to count as deceit or fraud). So when you defraud someone what you are doing is bringing it about that that person has false beliefs and using these false beliefs for your gain at that person's expense.
Suppose I own a certain building, and I put a sign up on the front of the building saying 'Kenny's Restaurant'. Seeing my sign, you come in. I hand you a piece of paper that says 'menu' at the top, and has a lot of nonsense words written below it, with a price for each one. Now suppose, seeing this menu and being an adventurous eater, you order a 'zubast' (thinking it is some kind of foreign food) and pay me $10 in advance. I bring you a rock. You ask for your money back and I refuse.
This is a case of fraud. But why? The word 'zubast' is a word I made up, and I (let us suppose) intended it to mean 'a medium sized rock.' You paid for a zubast without knowing what it was. So I'm not to blame, am I?
The problem lies in the fact that I posted a sign saying 'restaurant' over my door, which means that I am implicitly representing to you that what I am serving inside is food fit for human consumption. (I didn't use the case of food that makes you sick or kills you because such a case shows how fluid the boundary between force and fraud is, and thus complicates the discussion.) Now, the libertarian state is supposed to prevent fraud, which means it must enforce agreements. You handed me $10 in exchange for a zubast. If I took the money and ran, that would be another type of fraud. I have to fulfill the obligations of our implicit agreement. But in order for the libertarian state to be able to enforce agreements it has to be able to interpret them, and this is what courts are for. The court will need to be able to decide both (1) whether any agreement exists between us, and (2) what the contents of that agreement are. So the court will adjudicate between us and rule in your favor that because of my restaurant sign I had (fraudulently) led you to believe that a zubast was a type of food.
But suppose I want to sell zubasts (medium sized rocks) and other people want to buy them. The libertarian state mustn't prevent us from making this sort of agreement. That means that I need to know how to make a non-fraudulent representation as to what it is I'm selling. Other people likewise need to know what my representation means. That is, we need to be able to make the agreement we are trying to make. So now that the court has ruled in your favor, I know that if I tell anyone my establishment is a restaurant that's deception. The court has made a legal definition of what implicit representations are involved in the claim that an establishment is a restaurant. This, of course, only works in a 'common law' system, but this strikes me as a powerful reason why common law systems are good: predictability is essential to good jurisprudence.
But there is a problem with this: the exact same story could happen with no fraud involved. In fact, you could be using the court as an instrument to defraud me! How? Well, suppose that you and I both speak a peculiar dialect of English in which 'restaurant' means 'a place for buying and eating prepared food, and also for buying rocks,' but the judges speak normal English. Further suppose that the context on the menu makes it plain to anyone in our dialect that a 'zubast' is a type of rock. Then we have actually formed an agreement whereby you give me $10 and I give you a rock, and you are now trying to get your $10 back through the courts. You know the courts will see it in a way that advantages you, since you know that they speak a different dialect than we do, and are using this fact to your advantage to defraud me of my $10.
If all of these sorts of definitions were made by common law, then it would be extremely common for things like this to occur: lacking legal definitions, two people could make an agreement only to have one party successfully get out of it by misinterpreting it in court. On the other hand, two people could also non-culpably form an agreement - even a written contract - where there is no common understanding between them as to its meaning. These cases can never be entirely prevented, but there is a way of mitigating them: by legislative and regulatory bodies creating legal definitions of words before such cases arise. So it is perfectly reasonable for Congress to create a law defining what implicit representations are made when something is called 'food', or from them to delegate the power of such definitions to agencies like the FDA.
There are, however, two libertarian concerns about this picture: (1) what if this power was used to make it impossible to make certain sorts of agreements, in Orwellian fashion? (For instance, what if 'food' is defined as 'items approved for human consumption by the FDA' and the government deems that any time you sell something that looks like a carrot you implicitly represent that it is food? Then we have a case much like the current situation, which libertarians abhor, where individuals are not permitted to buy and sell non-FDA-approved carrots, even if both parties give informed consent.) (2) What if the government defines the terms in question in ways radically different from normal English so that the law becomes an instrument of fraud by those familiar with the law against those who are unfamiliar? (For instance, what if the government defines 'food' to mean poison and I know that you don't know this so I sell you some 'food' and thereby make a profit and kill you? Then you end up forming an agreement radically different from the one you intended to form, to your great detriment.)
Because of these concerns it is necessary to place additional restrictions on this power besides the obvious restriction against applying such definitions ex post facto to agreements made with other definitions in mind. There is one way of dealing with the first problem which is fairly obvious (to me): simply permit people to state, at the beginning of their contract, that they intend to use a different set of definitions than the one set up by the government. If both parties agree to use a different set of definitions, then the court will have to use those in interpreting the contract. (Of course, the words used in the definitions will have to be interpreted either according to normal English or, if they have legal definitions, according to those definitions, so this won't halt a thorough-going Orwellian language reform, but it makes it more difficult.) The second problem will, it seems to me, have to simply be a constitutional principle: courts will have to overrule legislation or regulation which does violence to the plain meanings of words.
This first line of legislation/regulation had to do with the interpretation of agreements. I previously said, however, that the state would also have to make determinations about the existence of agreements. This will lead, for similar reasons, to the development of legislation/regulation regarding standards of consent. Libertarians insist that the government must allow consenting (legally competent) adults to agree to anything which does not violate the rights of non-consenting parties. But that doesn't mean that standards of consent must be uniform across all agreements. In fact, it seems to me that they shouldn't be. For instance, in current US law, there are some things minors can consent to on their own (e.g. paying cash for an ice cream cone), some things minors can consent to if their parents also consent and/or supervise (e.g. seeing an R-rated movie), and some things a minor cannot consent to under any circumstances (e.g. sex with an adult). Likewise, it seems reasonable for adults that different standards of consent should apply to different activities. For instance, it is currently the case in some states that some sort of counseling is required in order to consent to elective medical procedures, especially those that have serious risks associated with them, but there are other things for which verbal, or even implicit, consent is sufficient.
This, it seems to me, is perfectly reasonable. However, the government's power must again be limited so that they cannot set the standards of consent so high as to make consent to certain agreements impossible, either de iure or de facto.
To summarize, the libertarian state has the power to legislate and regulate (1) the interpretation of agreements, and (2) the conditions for consent to agreements. These powers are necessary for it to be able to achieve its purpose of preventing fraud against its citizens. However, these powers must not be exercised in such a way as to prevent consenting (legally competent) adults from entering into agreements which do not implicate the rights of others.
I'm still on the newsletter of the Penn Libertarian Association, which has pointed me to an article on Slate entitled "The End of Libertarianism". Author Jacob Weisberg believes the current US financial collapse proves that libertarianism is not viable in the same way that the fall of the USSR proved that Communism is not viable. I offer two brief practical responses and one theoretical response.
Firstly, without any government involvement, it is unlikely that any of this would have happened. (I am not an economist, so correct me if my facts are wrong on this first point.) For one thing, bad loans were thought 'safe' in part because of the involvement of Freddy and Fanny. For another, a government agency rates the quality of the derivatives, and rated the mortgage-backed securities as 'safe', so everyone bought them. Everyone can, I hope, agree that this latter should not have occurred.
Secondly, libertarians do not unequivocally oppose all government intervention in anything. Libertarians believe that government has a very specific purpose: the prevention - and, failing that, the punishment - of acts of force or fraud against its citizens. According to some of the early news reports, Alan Greenspan was alerted years ago to shady dealings related to subprime mortgages and said there was nothing the Fed could do about it. What he should have done was turn it over to the FBI, and they should have prosecuted these cases aggressively. There was all kinds of secrecy and dishonesty involved in the circumstances leading up to this situation, and none of it should have been permitted. This would have been the right kind of government involvement. Now, the government has failed, and some people are homeless because of it. I'm not opposed to the government setting up some sort of expedited process to help people keep their homes if there is a credible accusation of fraud, and then trying to recover its losses by suing whoever needs to be sued. This seems to me to be a reasonable way of dealing with some (not all) of the problems we are dealing with.
Finally, on a more theoretical note, Weisberg doesn't understand what libertarianism is. Libertarianism is not a theory of how to create the wealthiest or happiest society. It is not a theory of what kind of government people 'like' or what kind of government benefits whom. Libertarianism is a theory of the moral permissibility of the use of coercive force. (Or, perhaps more accurately, to make it easier to draw my distinction between public and private morality, it is a theory of the impermissibility of coercive force.) Libertarianism, furthermore, is radically deontological - that is, it claims that certain actions are right in and of themselves, and other actions are wrong in and of themselves, without regard for consequences. Libertarianism is the Kindergarten ethic: it's wrong to take other people's things. To this extent perhaps Weisberg is right in calling libertarians "intellectually immature" - we never learned to rationalize away the moral principles we learned in Kindergarten. Perhaps everyone else has come up with rationales for theft and coercion ("it's ok if the majority bands together and uses the power of government to do it"), but we haven't. As such, no matter what the practical consequences of libertarianism may be, these are not objections. Perhaps people who behave at even the minimum standard of public morality will be impoverished. Such is life in a world like ours. But at least they'll be doing the right thing.
Empirical claims are not normative claims. Normative claims are not empirical claims. I would like to see our nation continue in its material prosperity. I would also like to stop drug use. For that matter, I would like everyone in the world to be a practicing Christian. But I will absolutely not cooperate in the use of force to achieve any of these ends. Period. So some smart economists can tell us what is the best way to achieve material prosperity (I couldn't possibly answer that question), but this will not answer the question what should we do. Is the financial crisis the end of libertarianism? Not a chance.
Update (6/2/07): Three minor changes: (1) the cost of the Home Maintenance Co. has been increased to $500. (2) A provision has been made (see under "Taking a Turn" and "Jail") to ensure that players going out do not gift their properties to other players to alter the course of the game. (3) Changes have been made to the selection order at the beginning of the (not yet play-tested) zero sum variant in the hope of increasing the fairness of the initial selection of properties. Also some clarifications have been made. I am considering removing the Petroleum Distribution Co., but I consider this a major change, so if I do I'll call it version 3. Please let me know in the comments if you try this game and if you have any suggestions.
After a second play test of Laissez-faire with Paul Ferree (who happens to be an economist), we decided that, while the original game was quite fun, a substantial revision of the rules was in order. The new rules are based heavily on (but not identical with) Paul's suggestions and, in addition to hopefully finally making the game such that it ends eventually, makes it more similar to an actual free market environment. The primary change is the addition of the section entitled "Overhead," though small changes have been made elsewhere. Things are getting slightly more complicated (the notary might want a calculator), but I don't think it's bad enough to interfere with playability. These new rules have not been play tested yet.
Laissez-faire is played on an Anti-Monopoly board. Additional title deeds must be made for "Home Maintenance Co." and "Petroleum Distribution Co." The Home Maintenance Co. has a purchase price of $500 and a "mortgage value" of $250. The Petroleum Distribution Co. has a purchase price of $200 and a "mortgage value" of $100. (The mortgage value is used, in Laissez-faire, not for mortgaging, but for calculating net worth.)
Setup
Money is distributed and pieces are placed on Start as in a normal Anti-Monopoly game. There are no competitor or monopolist roles. The competitor and monopolist cards are not used.
One player should be appointed treasurer, and another player should be appointed as notary. If possible, it may be desirable for a non-player to serve as a combined treasurer, notary, and arbiter of any contractual disputes (see the section "Contracts" below).
The players roll dice to determine who goes first (highest roll wins).
Taking a Turn
Each turn, a player must roll the dice and move the number of spaces indicated (unless staying in a house or apartment building, or in jail; these cases are explained below). Rolling doubles gives an additional turn only once, as in Anti-Monopoly (not as in traditional Monopoly).
If the player lands directly on a property, utility, or transportation company owned by the bank, he may buy it for the value listed on the board (in Anti-Monopoly, the value is also listed on the deed).
A player landing on one of the two tax spaces must pay the amount listed to the bank.
Players landing on the go to jail space go to jail (see the section "Jail" below).
Players landing on the other three corners may stay there for free. Additionally, a player landing on Anti-Monopoly Foundation may purchase the Home Maintenance Co. if it is owned by the bank, and a player landing on Start (not counting placing his piece there at the beginning of the game) may purchase Petroleum Distribution Co. if it is owned by the bank.
Players passing or landing on start receive $200 as in the traditional Monopoly rules (NOT $100 as in Anti-Monopoly).
When a player lands in a city (that is, on any space other than corner or a transportation company), he must find lodging in that city, by mutual consent with a property owner. This is the case even if the space landed on is covered by one of the cases listed above. A player may stay on his own property. A property owner may charge any rent to the player or refuse service. The bank charges the "monopolist" prices listed on the deed or twice the overhead (see the section "Overhead" below), whichever is greater, to rent properties it owns (be careful to note whether the bank has a monopoly or not). A player may not buy an unowned property just because he is staying there; he must land on it directly. Alternatively, the player may pay the transit company to transport him to the other city on that side of the board and find lodging there. The transit company owner may charge any price for his services, or refuse service. The bank charges the monopolist price (again, be careful to note how many transportation companies are owned by the bank), or twice the overhead, whichever is greater, to use its transportation companies. The player moves his token to the property he has rented. Ordinarily only one player may stay on a space at a time (but see the section "Houses and Apartments" below). This does not prevent another player from landing on that space and potentially buying it.
If a player fails to find lodging, he sleeps on a park bench and goes to jail.
In the period after landing in a city and before finding lodging there, a player whose cash on hand is less than the cost of spending one turn in jail may not make any trade which does not result in either (a) agreement to rent a property, or (b) the player having enough cash on hand to pay for spending the turn in jail.
If a player lands directly on a transit company (regardless of whether it is owned) he may move for free to either city.
Overhead
When a player rents out his property or offers transportation or utitlity service, he must pay "overhead" costs.
For properties, overhead is paid in order to make building repairs, etc., and is equal to half of the competitor rent, rounded down. If one or more houses or an apartment building is on the property, then an additional overhead equal to 10% of the cost of purchasing one house for that property must also be paid. Overhead is not altered by having a monopoly. This cost is controlled by local labor and materials markets (relatively stable factors outside the game). Overhead for properties is paid to the owner of Home Maintenance Co. These prices fluctuate as follows: if the bank owns the Home Maintenance Co., then each time the player who went first passes Start (not including the beginning of the game) he rolls one die. If a player owns the Home Maintenance Co., that player rolls one die each time he passes Start. The notary keeps track of a "Property Overhead Multiplier" (POM). Initially, the POM is 1. If the die roll is even, the POM is increased by 0.1. If it is odd, the POM is decreased by 0.1. The POM may not be less than 0.1 (further odd rolls do not change the POM), but there is no maximum. After calculating the overhead as described above, players must multiply it by the POM and pay that amount, rounded down. So, for instance, if a player rented out Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington with house(s) and the POM was 1.2, he would pay (28/2+15)*1.2=$34.8 rounded down to $34 in overhead. If the POM was .9, he would pay (14+15)*.9=$26.1, rounded down to $26 in overhead.
For utility services, overhead is determined by international petroleum markets (wildly fluctuating factors outside the game). At the beginning of the game, the player to go first rolls both dice (before his role for his turn). The overhead for the utilities is set as the product of the values shown on the two dice (the overhead will thus be between $1 and $36, with an expectation value of $12.25, if my calculations are correct). Rolling is done separately for gas and electric, and should be tracked by the notary. The player to go first rolls to set the overhead for each utility owned by the bank each time he passes go. When a utility is acquired by a player, whether from the bank or from another player, the current overhead remains in effect. However, that player now rolls to determine the new overhead cost each time he passes go.
For transportation services, overhead primarily accounts for fuel costs, which are determined by international markets. The transportation companies purchase their fuel wholesale, and so pay overhead directly to the Petroleum Distribution Co., in the following amounts:
Jail
A player goes to jail by either sleeping on a park bench or landing on the go to jail space. In order to get out of jail, a player must pay a "booking fee" equal to the house price on the side of the board from which he went to jail (listed on the deeds to the properties on that side of the board; the go to jail space counts as part of the $150 side), plus a "room and board" fee equal to 1/10 the house price times the number of turns spent in jail. Players may not buy out of jail on the same turn they go to jail, so they have always spent one turn in jail (thus if the player is on the $150 side of the board or the go to jail space and pays out at the first opportunity, he will pay $165). Players do not get out of jail by rolling doubles. A player in jail may collect rent and conduct other business in jail with one exception: a player who is in jail may not sell property for less than face value unless such sale results in the payment of the jail fee.
Being Eliminated
A player is eliminated if he goes to jail and does not pay his way out by the end of the third turn. If a player is eliminated, all properties and cash still held by that player revert to the bank.
Houses and Apartments
Players may buy houses from the bank for their properties on their turns for the price listed on the deed. A player does not need a monopoly to buy houses. A property may have up to two houses on it. If the house price is paid a third time, the player gets an apartment building. A player may not sell houses or apartment buildings. Houses may be demolished for 1/5 what it cost to build them.
If a property has one house on it, the player staying on it may, on his next turn, after rolling the dice, elect to stay on that property rather than moving. He must pay the utility company which is closest in the forward direction (the utility company owner may charge any price he wishes; the bank charges twice the overhead if it owns one utility, or three times the overhead if it owns both), and he must pay rent to the owner of the property again. The owner of the property may charge a lower rent than on the previous turn, but may not charge a higher rent or refuse service, unless he was specifically given the power to do so by agreement with the tenant before the property was originally rented on the previous turn. (Note: this is not rent control; rather, the government has defined a "default" lease, which the renter and the landlord may modify if they so choose.) Since the player stays rather than moving, he does not pass start if his roll would take him past start had he moved.
If a property has two houses on it, two players may stay there, and each player may remain there, as described above.
If a property has an apartment building on it, an unlimited number of players may stay there, as described above.
Contracts
Players may form any contract with any other player, provided that the contract does not require either player to do anything not otherwise permitted by the rules, and that the contracts do not involve anything outside the scope of the game. This includes exchanging ownership or property. The contracts should be recorded by the notary. Contracts may be attached to a property, in which case the property cannot be sold without passing those obligations along, or to a player, in which case obligations are not passed on to a new owner. Players must abide by the terms of contracts unless specifically released by the other party or parties involved.
Players may not mortgage properties to the bank or otherwise borrow money from it, but players may create mortgage contracts with other players.
Ending the Game
If the game is being played with objective 1, a player may declare that he has reached a net worth of $2000 at any time (provided that it is true), but is not obligated to do so. At this point, the other players may concede, and the player making the declaration wins. If the other players choose not to concede, players must proceed one more time around the board. A player who reaches the "Start" space takes his token off the board without collecting $200. He then continues negotiating and collecting rent until all players have removed their tokens. All players then calculate net worth as described below.
If the game is being played with objective 2, the play should continue, after time has run out, until each player has had the same number of turns (i.e., it should end immediately before the turn of the player who went first).
If the game is being played with objective 3, it ends immediately when either the second to last player is eliminated, or a stalemate is declared by a player (the stalemate must involve all players who have not been eliminated).
Net Worth
Net worth is the sum of the following:
Stalemate Conditions
When playing with objective 3, there is at least one known stalemate condition: If a player owns a property with a house and also the relevant utility company, he may stay in that house and not move, at no cost to himself. If two players do this, a stalemate has ben reached. There may be other stalemate conditions as well.
Optional Rules
The following are some untested suggestions for additional rules:
Note that it is also possible to create new rules mid-game by forming a contract between all the players.
An Alternate Game: Zero-Sum Laissez-faire
Make the following adjustments to the above:
If you try this game and like it (or don't like it), or have any suggestions for improvements, please comment below!
Note: the Creative Commons License which applies to this blog as a whole also applies to this game.
Update (3/10/07): there is now a second version of this game with substantially improved (we think) rules.
I received for Christmas this year a copy of the game Anti-Monopoly. The game has an interesting premise. Half of the players are "monopolists" who play according to rules similar to the original Monopoly, and the other half are "competitors" who must charge "fair" rents and obey laws and so forth. The competitors make up for their lower rents by being able to build houses without controlling a monopoly. If you are detecting a slight socialist bias here, you are right; the rulebook contains questionable and irrelevant interjections like "monopolists will destroy competitors in the absence of anti-monopoly laws." However, the game's political bias turned out to be much more moderate than I first thought. It's just that it takes place in the real world and not in some ideal political system; the monopolists maintain power by using money to manipulate the political system to protect their business interests, and the competitors subsist on government handouts (this takes place mostly through the "competitor" and "monopolist" cards which replace the "chance" and "community chest" cards of the original Monopoly).
The rulebook also promises that the rules have been tested by computers to be perfectly fair. Unfortunately, in order to do this, the rules limit the kinds of deals that can be made between players (for instance, players may not lend money to one another). Also, because of the need to make it fair between competitors and monopolists, there are no giant knock-out rents (Wall Street, NY with an apartment building, which is the equivalent of Boardwalk with a hotel, charges only $240, instead of traditional Monopoly's $2000). The net result is that, in the game described by the rulebook, the first hour of play, in which players first acquire properties, is a lot of fun, but after this is over there are five or more hours of waiting to see how the dice fall before a winner is determined.
I suspect the two hour rules described in the rulebook would make quite a good game. I haven't tried this yet. Instead, as a libertarian frustrated with excessive government regulation, I developed the following game, which I call Laissez-faire. It is designed to be played on an Anti-Monopoly set, but could easily be adapted to a traditional Monopoly game. The game has been play tested once and slightly revised after the play test.
Setup
Money is distributed and pieces are placed on Start as in a normal Anti-Monopoly game. There are no competitor or monopolist roles. The competitor and monopolist cards are not used.
One player should be appointed treasurer, and another player should be appointed as notary. If possible, it may be desirable for a non-player to serve as a combined treasurer, notary, and arbiter of any contractual disputes (see the section "Contracts" below).
The players roll dice to determine who goes first (highest roll wins).
Taking a Turn
Each turn, a player must roll the dice and move the number of spaces indicated (unless staying in a house or apartment building, or in jail; these cases are explained below). Rolling doubles gives an additional turn only once, as in Anti-Monopoly (not as in traditional Monopoly).
If the player lands directly on a property, utility, or transportation company owned by the bank, he may buy it for the value listed on the board (in Anti-Monopoly, the value is also listed on the deed).
A player landing on one of the two tax spaces must pay the amount listed to the bank.
Players landing on the go to jail space go to jail (see the section "Jail" below).
Players landing on the other three corners may stay there for free.
Players passing or landing on start receive $100 as in the normal Anti-Monopoly rules.
When a player lands in a city (that is, on any space other than corner or a transportation company), he must find lodging in that city, by mutual consent with a property owner. This is the case even if the space landed on is covered by one of the cases listed above. A player may stay on his own property. A property owner may charge any rent to the player or refuse service. The bank charges the "monopolist" prices listed on the deed to rent properties it owns (be careful to note whether the bank has a monopoly or not). A player may not buy an unowned property just because he is staying there; he must land on it directly. Alternatively, the player may pay the transit company to transport him to the other city on that side of the board and find lodging there. The transit company owner may charge any price for his services, or refuse service. The player moves his token to the property he has rented. Ordinarily only one player may stay on a space at a time (but see the section "Houses and Apartments" below). This does not prevent another player from landing on that space and potentially buying it.
If a player fails to find lodging, he sleeps on a park bench and goes to jail.
If a player lands directly on a transit company (regardless of whether it is owned) he may move for free to either city.
Jail
A player goes to jail by either sleeping on a park bench or landing on the go to jail space. In order to get out of jail, a player must pay a "booking fee" equal to the house price on the side of the board from which he went to jail (listed on the deeds to the properties on that side of the board; the go to jail space counts as part of the $150 side), plus a "room and board" fee equal to 1/10 the house price times the number of turns spent in jail. Players may only buy out of jail at the beginning of a turn, so they have always spent one turn in jail (thus if the player is on the $150 side of the board or the go to jail space and pays out at the first opportunity, he will pay $165). Players do not get out of jail by rolling doubles.
Being Eliminated
A player is eliminated if he goes to jail and does not pay his way out by the end of the third turn.
Houses and Apartments
Players may buy houses from the bank for their properties on their turns for the price listed on the deed. A player does not need a monopoly to buy houses. A property may have up to two houses on it. If the house price is paid a third time, the player gets an apartment building. A player may not sell houses or apartment buildings; they are permanently attached to the property.
If a property has one house on it, the player staying on it may, on his next turn, after rolling the dice, elect to stay on that property rather than moving. He must pay the utility company which is closest in the forward direction (the utility company owner may charge any price he wishes; the bank charges the price listed on the deed, which is based on the dice; take care to notice whether the bank owns one or both utilities), and he must pay rent to the owner of the property again. The owner of the property may charge a lower rent than on the previous turn, but may not charge a higher rent or refuse service, unless he was specifically given the power to do so by agreement with the tenant before the property was originally rented on the previous turn. Since the player stays rather than moving, he does not pass start if his roll would take him past start had he moved.
If a property has two houses on it, two players may stay there, and each player may remain there, as described above.
If a property has an apartment building on it, and unlimited number of players may stay there, as described above.
Contracts
Players may form any contract with any other player, provided that the contract does not require either player to do anything not otherwise permitted by the rules, and that the contracts do not involve anything outside the scope of the game. This includes exchanging ownership or property. The contracts should be recorded by the notary. Contracts may be attached to a property, in which case the property cannot be sold without passing those obligations along, or to a player. Players must abide by the terms of contracts unless specifically released by the other party or parties involved.
Players may not mortgage houses to the bank or otherwise borrow money from it, but players may create mortgage contracts with other players.
Ending the Game
If the game is being played with objective 1, a player may declare that he has reached a net worth of $2000 at any time (provided that it is true), but is not obligated to do so. Once this declaration has been made, players must proceed one more time around the board. A player who reaches the "Start" space takes his token off the board without collecting $100. He then continues negotiating and collecting rent until all players have removed their tokens. All players then calculate net worth as described below.
If the game is being played with objective 2, the play should continue, after time has run out, until each player has had the same number of turns (i.e., it should end immediately before the turn of the player who went first).
If the game is being played with objective 3, it ends immediately when either the second to last player is eliminated, or a stalemate is declared by either player.
Net Worth
Net worth is the sum of the following:
Stalemate Conditions
When playing with objective 3, there is at least one known stalemate condition: If a player owns a property with a house and also the relevant utility company, he may stay in that house and not move, at no cost to himself. If two players do this, a stalemate has ben reached. There may be other stalemate conditions as well.
Optional Rules
The following are some untested suggestions for additional rules:
Note that it is also possible to create new rules mid-game by forming a contract between all the players.
If you try this game and like it, or have any suggestions for improvements, please comment below!
Note: the Creative Commons License which applies to this blog as a whole also applies to this game.
Syndicated columnist and ABC news reported John Stossel has an editorial at TownHall.com (HT: WorldMagBlog) on the benefits of introducting free market competition to the primary/secondary education system through a voucher-type system. Most of the points he makes are obvious - as economists say, idealized free markets lead to Pareto-optimal states, and competition brings a system that much closer to the idealized free market - but the article is nevertheless worth a read. In short, under the competitive system "Bad schools will close and better schools will open. And the better schools won't all be the same." Stossel points out that no one can predict exactly what will happen in a free market, but we do know that the best ideas win out. He also gives some helpful real world examples of things that have already been tried. Check it out.
One of the key problems of strict (non-consequentialist) libertarianism is how the state is to successfully perform its function of protecting citizens from force or fraud without the funding acquired from confiscatory taxation schemes. The problem is that libertarian commitments in the region of political morality do not permit the government to violate the private property rights which individuals have in the hypothetical "state of nature," and in the state of nature individuals own all of their income, not just what's left after taxes. The government exists to enforce these property rights. Robert Nozick believes (see his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia) that the libertarian state is in fact itself a sort of business, the "dominant protective agency" in a given region. He argues from economic principles that an Adam Smith "invisible hand" process will lead to the existence of exactly one protective agency in any given geographic region, where a protective agency is a company whose sole or primary purpose is to enforce the (negative, libertarian) rights of its clients. Of course, such a company's clients must voluntarily choose to pay it for its services - the agency may not coerce this payment from anyone who doesn't wish to purchase its services. Nozick has a lengthy discussion of just what happens when an individual living within the protective agency's bounds chooses not to purchase its services. The short version is that Nozick believes, not implausibly, that the protective agency may prohibit people before the fact from performing "risky procedures" - that is, from doing things that have a high risk of violating the rights of its clients - rather than merely exacting punishment afterward, provided it gives just compensation to the affected party for the disutility it causes him. So, for instance, if we prohibit blind people from driving cars because there is a high probability of them injuring people other than themselves, we must compensate them for any disutility associated with the prohibition. (Of course blind people presumably wouldn't gain much utility from driving cars, since they would probably die.) Now, on the same grounds, the state may prohibit non-citizens from using risky procedures (or procedures it doesn't know to be safe) for determining the guilt or innocence of its clients and subsequently punishing them. For instance, if I am a client of the protective agency and you are not, and someone steals your television and you determine by reading tea leaves or chicken entrails that I am the guilty party and attempt to punish me, the protective agency may prevent you from doing so without first determining whether I am, in fact, guilty, but it must first compensate you for any disutility associated with this prohibition. The most sensible way for the state to do this is to agree that, although you are not its client and do not pay its fees, it will enforce your rights whenever they are violated by its clients (if you are violated by another independent or by a foreigner, you are on your own, unless you decide to pay the protective agencies fee).
Now, this model works, more or less, but there are a number of things that libertarians agree with everyone else are good that it is very difficult to accomplish on this scheme. For instance, it is good to preserve some wildlife habitats, it is good to provide education to everyone, it is good to end racial discrimination, it is good to break up or eliminate abusive monopolies, etc. In general, however, libertarians are quite adamant that these things are not the job of the government, and can be acheived in a "free market" sort of way, if enough people care, and of course they are right. That is, if enough people care, we can set up private foundations to preserve wildlife habitats, we can create private schools with scholarship systems for poor children, etc. Most people are (rightly) skeptical of the claim that this would actually happen, human nature being what it is, but the libertarian responds that the fact that people would not voluntarily give their money to these causes only strengthens his claim that it is wrong to take their money by force.
What I wish to examine here is the question of a particular way in which a libertarian state might justly acquire surplus wealth, and what it might justly do with it. My discussion will center around the concept of the limited liability corporation.
In the state of nature, there are no corporations. The defining feature of a corporation is that it is a "legal fiction" in which a company is treated as if it were a person. In the state of nature, all companies are sole proprietorships, unlimited liability partnerships, or joint-stock corporations (the latter two needing only contracts between the owners to work, no government cooperation is required), and the owner or owners (or perhaps in some cases some or all of the employees) have complete legal responsibility for all actions of the company. There is no distinction between company assets and individual assets. After all, companies are merely figments of our imagination, and the actions are in fact taken by people. (These considerations have the interesting consequence that on the Nozick model we can imagine a protective agency being a sole proprietorship, and thus we in fact have the theoretical possiblity of a libertarian dictatorship! Although he frequently uses the phrase "protective agency," as I have been, Nozick seems to favor the idea of a "protective association" where we all come to one another's aid, and the idea that this might grow into a case where we all put some money into the pot and hire police, etc., with it, which gives us the more familiar libertarian democracy.) Now, the protective agency, or rather, its members, may enter into contracts, as anyone may, on the libertarian understanding. Suppose the protective agency creates a class of contract called Type C contracts, that look like this:
Any group of people jointly owning a company (an unlimited liability partnership or joint-stock corporation) may apply to enter a contract of Type C with the state. Such a group of people will be called "stockholders." Henceforth the state will treat the company as though it were an individual person, giving the company the ability to own property, be a party to contracts, and so forth. The state will hold the company responsible for its actions and contractual obligations, the stockholders having no liability in such matters.
May the libertarian state do this? It seems so. But what about the independents (i.e. those who are not clients of any protective association)? Suppose a corporation violates the rights of an independent. The independent is not a party to the contract forming the corporation, and so from his perspective his rights were violated by an individual - the corporation does not actually exist. The state, however, prohibits him from punishing the individual who violates his rights. The state, in exchange for his observation of the prohibition has agreed to enforce his rights for him. On the other hand, the state has an obligation not to hold the stockholders liable for the corporations actions. So the state must then confiscate the corporation's property, and not the stockholders' individual property, and thus force the corporation to make restitution to the individual. It may be further necessary to punish the corporation somehow. The independent should be satisfied with this provided that (a) his property is restored, or he is justly compensated for the violation of his rights, and (b) the individual who is actually guilty is seen to be punished in the course of the punishment of the corporation.
Now, what if the corporation is unable to make restitution; that is, what if it is bankrupt? The state's contractual obligations prohibit it from exacting punishment on any of the individual stockholders for the corporation's actions; it may not confiscate the stockholders' personal property to pay the corporation's fine, but it must nevertheless see that restitution is made to the independent. Where is the money to come from?
In order to avoid this situation, the state might require, as a term of the contract, that corporations carry liability insurance, which they might purchase from the state (since it is, after all, the state who is required to come up with the money to make restitution to the violated independent), or another corporation, or a private individual (provided the corporation or individual were capable of making the relevant gaurantees). None of this necessarily occurs if the violated individual is a client of the state, because in this case that individual is a party to the contract and has agreed to treat the corporation as a person; thus, from his perspective, he was violated by the corporation, not by an individual, and if the corporation is bankrupted and ceases to exist it is as though the individual who violated him has died, leaving no estate and having no heirs. He cannot justly expect to receive any restitution. Of course, I say necessarily. The state could, and probably would, define the contract with the stockholders, and also its contracts with its individual clients, such that its clients received the same or better treatment, as compared to independents.
What this discussion points to, to me, at any rate, is that it is the state that creates corporations and thus the state may define the contract which corporations must accept in any way it chooses without violating anyone's libertarian rights (provided it keeps its obligations under the contracts it has previously been a party to). Suppose, therefore, that the state says, "in order to enter this contract, the corporation must pay X% of its profit in taxes each year." If people don't like the terms, they will not form corporations. If, however, very large and profitable corporations DO form, the libertarian state - which, you will recall, does nothing other than protect its citizens from force or fraud - may find itself in possession of a great deal of money. Now, since the state is making an offer to potential stockholders of corporations, and can make whatever offer it chooses, it could do lots of other things as well. In an extreme case, it could reserve the right to change the contract whenever and however it saw fit. Presumably no one would sign that contract. Perhaps instead the state would specify that when it makes such changes a limited liability corporation may choose to revert to a joint-stock corporation rather than accept them. If the government changed its offer over time without changing old contracts, it would have the effect of putting corporations formed at different times on different footing, which would have interesting (probably bad) economic effects.
Suppose the government wanted to institute in this way some of the things libertarians complain about most; say, income tax and affiirmative action. Of course, in this case the government wouldn't technically be taxing an individual's income; rather, it would be taxing the corporation on its pay to employees. In the affirmative action case, again, the government would merely say "if you don't want to treat people of various races equitably (according to our definition of equity) don't accept this contract." No one's rights are violated, per se. Most libertarians can be expected to respond with the charge of reverse discrimination, but, of course, the government could just as easily require corporations to treat races unequally. This would be an injustice in some important sense (as would reverse discrimination), but the government would not exceed its authority or violate anyone's libertarian rights. Moreover, we must remember that the government we are discussing is not the titanic state common today, but rather small and limited in power. Presumably if the government enforced unfair hiring practices on corporations, principled people would not form them. Since sole proprietorships would not pay the same kind of additional taxes corporations did, they might be on equal footing. However, if there was a serious social problem, our hypothetical government might try to address it by this sort of means, just as real governments have sometimes begun by enforcing standards on their own hiring practices, rather than on the hiring practices of everyone in their country. I'm not completely convinced one way or another as to whether the government ought to do such things, I'm simply arguing that its doing so would violate no one's libertarian rights.
Now, in addition to the extra power the government has gained by being able to define the agreements which form corporations, the government has gained a great deal of money. Whatever it does with this money, if it behaves just as any group of people is permitted to behave, and it honors its contractual obligations, it will violate no one's rights. The government could enter competition with private businesses in various industries, it could start it's own schools, it could offer scholarships to private schools, and so forth. These would violate no one's libertarian rights. The government could also help the poor, or set up orphanages, or other similar social programs, or depending on exactly how it was constituted it might distribute the surplus back to its clients equally. In the case of the familiar libertarian democracy, the clients of the protective agency would also be joint owners of it, and so any profit it did not reinvest would go to them. As has been previously mentioned, there's no reason on Nozick's system why private ownership of the government would violate anyone's rights. Of course, I think that it would be a very rare individual indeed who could convince people not to opt out of such a government. I think some of the tiny principalities in Europe have extremely popular royal families who might perceivably get away with such a thing.
Of course, if the government used its excess money or its power to define the corporation to do things that someone strongly disagreed with, or if its activities "on the side" caused it to become less effective in performing its primary function as the dominant protective agency, people would begin to opt out in large numbers, and might eventually form a rival protective association, leading to a possible war. (Nozick envisions that one reason the market would lead to a single protective agency in a given area is that if there were more than one they would sometimes disagree on whether a given person was guilty, and they would fight wars as a result, with one side trying to punish him, and the other to protect him. Since the protective agency that most often won battles in a given area would, ipso facto, be better able to enforce rights in that area, it would win in the market as well as on the battlefield, and the lesser agency would go out of business, or be restricted to a different area.) This would result either in the serious diminution, or the complete overthrow of the formerly dominant protective agency.
I suppose that, at bottom, the most important point made by the above considerations is that according to libertarian theories of political morality (at least on the Nozick model), present day governments violate individual rights not because of the way the system is set up per se but, first and foremost, because the individual has no ability to opt out of the system. His options are (a) pay the government to protect him from events such as, say, someone kidnapping him and holding him against his will, or (b) being kidnapped and held against his will (by the government, in prison). In this way, libertarians hold, present day governments are not terribly dissimilar with mobsters who collect "protection" money - if you don't pay for protection, you will need to be protected from the so-called protectors! This, above all, is the nature of the libertarian objection.
In the comments to this post on recent attempts to insert intelligent design into public high schools as philosophy, Ed Darrell and I have been having a discussion about more general questions of public education. I thought it would be a good idea to write a piece about my general view of this subject here, since the discussion is looking like its about to get quite long and detailed.
As I see it, there are two issues here: the government's use of tax money to fund education, and the government's exercise of power over how education is done. Furthermore, there are two facets to each of these issues: the legal question (does the US Constitution grant the government this authority?) and the theoretical issue (should the government have this authority?). This makes a total of four topics for discussion. First, however, let's look at a more general question about taxation and the moral justification of government.
Mr. Darrell recently commented, "Paying taxes to education [of] children is not confiscation. Government by consent of the governed is not despotism. Democracy is not dictatorship." Now, there is a sense in which all of this is true. That is, there is a real difference between having your money stolen and used for private purposes for the benefit of the thief, and paying taxes to government which are used for the general benefit of society. There is a real difference between a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" and a despot who holds power by force. There is a real difference between power being vested in the people, and power being vested in a single man.
However, I believe there is also another sense in which these distinctions are not so pronounced as people generally think. If we choose not to pay for the education of others, we are thrown in prison. In this sense, this type of taxation IS properly described as confiscation; the government applies coercive force to get our money and give it to someone else. "Government by the consent of the governed" is a misnomer: many years ago, the people of this country willingly established our government, but people today are not permitted to "opt out." If someone attempts to remove himself from the social contract (as people, in fact, have), the government applies coercive force to them. I, personally, were I offered the choice, would choose the US government as it is presently constituted over anarchy (although I see much room for improvement in the present government). However, the fact that I would give you money if asked gives you no right to steal it without asking. My rights are violated simply because I have no opportunity to make the choice of whether to give it to you or not. Not ALL of the governed consent. Absolute democracy has been called "the tyranny of the majority," and it might as well be called "dictatorship of the majority." This is why we have a constitutionally limited republic instead. Only those constitutional limitations ensure that our democracy is better than dictatorship. Democracy can, in fact, be worse than dictatorship, because the mob has no direction. It is entirely unpredictable and sways back and forth depending on the mood of the moment. Dictators tend to at least pursue definite ends (although, of course, this can make them worse rather than better, if those ends are evil), rather than to act completely at random. It is the constitutional limitations of our republic, protecting unpopular opinions and limiting what the majority may dictate, that ensures the superiority of our form of government over ditatorship.
Back to the issue at hand. Public education is obviously a good thing. That is, it is good for just anyone to be able to go get an education, and not only the rich. But in this country when we speak of "public education" we don't just mean education available to anyone, we mean socialized education. There are other ways of implementing public education that don't invovle government control, as for instance scholarships offered by private universities and independent charities. These have existed on the primary and secondary education levels as well. However, they have never been good enough to make education truly public, as the socialized system has. I believe that they could be good enough in a culture that placed enough value on education that many many people gave to these charities, but they never have been. As such, I want to make clear that, despite the discussion below, I wouldn't want to suddenly abolish the current system. However, I do think that it is deeply flawed, both in areas of legality and in areas of political morality. Let us discuss the issue at each level off government at which it might be addressed, in turn.
First, the federal government. The federal government has only the authority explicitly granted to it by the Constitution (as the 9th and 10th amendments make clear). The Preamble to the Constitution does not give the government an unlimited power to, for instance, "promote the general welfare." Rather, it merely states that the founders believed that by organizing the government in the way they do in the main body of the Constitution they could "promote the general welfare" and acheive the other ends listed in the Preamble. The subtext, it seems to me, is that if they have failed in these ends, they invite us either to use the amendment process, or to get rid of the Constitution and start over. The Preamble is merely a statement of purpose. Nor does the federal government have unlimited power to make laws which it deems "necessary and proper" - if this were the case, Art. I Sect. 8 of the Constitution would be unnecessary. Rather, Art. I Sect. 8 Para. 18 says that the legislature may "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." (emphasis added.) That is, it may make the laws that need to be made in order to make effective use of the powers given to the federal government elsewhere in the Constitution. In a recent marijuana case, Justice Scalia, who has a very conservative (not in the sense of Republican, but in the sense of restricted) reading of this section in general, ruled, for instance, that prohibiting the transport of marijuana across state lines was part of regulating "interstate commerce," and that, because the government could not easily do this without prohibiting marijuana altogether, prohibition of marijuana was "necessary and proper" to "regulation of interstate commerce." But the necessary and proper clause doesn't just say the the government can do whatever it deems necessary and proper. It must be necessary and proper to the exercise of some authority the government has elsewhere.
Now, there is no mention of education in Art. I Sect. 8. I therefore conclude that, on the legal issue, the federal government has no power to give money to education or to regulate it in any way, except of course for regulations on interstate commerce, which may cover "distance learning" programs where the student and the university are in different states, or boarding schools paid for by parents living in another state, or similar circumstances.
Now, how about the moral issue? One person is forced to pay taxes to finance another's education. I see no moral justification for this whatsoever. Sure, I ought to be willing to voluntarily assist with the education of others, but this doesn't justify the government in forcing me. Furthermore, education, especially at the primary level, necessarily involves some degree of indoctrination, and government control of how children are indoctrinated is a serious violation of the rights of parents, especially when the governnment requires children to attend school. Since the No Child Left Behind Act took effect, the federal government does exert a degree of control over primary and secondary school curriculum, and this is a bad thing.
On to the state level. The 10th Amendment makes it clear that the state governments have powers which the federal government does not. As such, it may be the case that a state is legally justified in running a public education system, depending on how its constitution is written. Nothing in the Federal Constitution seems to prohibit this, as long as it cannot be construed as depriving anyone of liberty, which would make it run afoul of the 14th Amendment.
As for the moral issue, I don't see how it is any different on the state level than the federal level, so I must continue to, in principle if not in practice, oppose (socialized) public education, even if it takes place entirely at the state level.
Finally, what if education was handled on the city level? This, I think, would be a great improvement. In fact, most control over education is on this level, and much of it is funded by property tax levys. If a person doesn't like living in a city, there are many states, especially in the western US, that have large areas that are not governed by any city council. This gives the "implicit social contract" argument real application in this situation.
Suppose public education was controlled and funded entirely on the city level. Here I believe that, because of the extra strength granted to the "social contract" argument by the possibility of "opting out," the system could have moral justification. If you don't like what one city does, there are many cities and there are areas that are not in a city. Furthermore, cities could choose whether or not to admit people who do not live in the city and do not pay property taxes. Some cities who were feeling charitable would no doubt admit everyone. Others might not admit outsiders, or might charge them tuition. This would also create better free market competition between schools, since every one could do essentially whatever it wanted. They would all want to have better placement records in colleges and jobs, and parents would want their children in the best one. Schools would be free to innovate in order to acheive this end. This, I believe, would be much better than what currently exists certainly morally, and possibly also practically.
Hammer of Truth reports today that New Jersey has been added to the list of states banning smoking in "public buildings." Washington is also one of these states. Philadelphia tried to pass a city ban some time ago, but I believe it failed (I'm not entirely sure). Now, there are two things I want everyone to know about these smoking bans: (1) they are unjust, because they violate the private property rights of restraunt and bar owners, and (2) they are unnecessary because, to the degree that people actually want non-smoking establishments, the free markent provides them.
I do not have a problem with prohibiting smoking on public property, such as streets and public parks. If we-the-people own the land, and we-the-people don't want to inhale smoke when we are walking around on it, then we-the-people should prohibit smoking there (but how does the government come to acquire land justly?). So far so good. But, in general, we-the-people do not own restraunts! Restraunts are owned by private individuals, very much the way you own your home. We-the-people don't get to take a vote on what you can do in your home, because it's your home, not ours. We write, for instance, indecent exposure and obscenity laws regarding public streets, because we don't want ourselves or don't want our children to see certain things. We don't tell you what you can or can't wear, not wear, or say in your home. If we did, it wouldn't be your home. This kind of distinction has been wearing away for some time in this country, but it is not altogether gone, and it must be revived if we are to retain any of our liberties. Restraunt and bar owners have the right to decide whether they will allow smoking inside their establishments, and if you don't like it you have the right to leave. Period.
Now, most of the discussion on this subject has centered around not the consumers, but the employees who are required to breath second hand smoke as part of their job. To them I say, if you don't like it, you have the right to quit. This sounds callous, I know, but the real issue is this: you are a bartender in a bar that permits smoking and you make, say, $10/hour (I have no idea how much bartenders actually make). This means that someone values an hour of your work serving drinks in a smoky room at $10. If you accepted the job, then you must believe that your life breathing second hand smoke in a bar while mixing drinks and making $10/hour is better than your life without this job (or with any other job you were offered), so, by offering to let you breathe second hand smoke in his bar, the bar owner improves your life, according to your own standards. What are you complaining about?
Now, I mentioned that the free market takes care of these things. First, let's look at it from the perspective of consumers. Many restraunt goers don't want to inhale second hand smoke. Some people won't even go to a restraunt that smells like smoke. Many more will prefer a non-smoking one over a smoking one, and perhaps even be willing to pay more for the non-smoking restraunt. As a result, before the issue was ever regulated there were many non-smoking restraunts, and non-smoking sections in larger restraunts. This has not been the case with bars. As far as I know (I don't go to bars) there are very very few non-smoking bars in the world. Apparently, there is much less demand for non-smoking bars than for restraunts. If 51% of all bar-goers wanted bars to be non-smoking, there would be all kinds of non-smoking bars out there! In fact, there are only a few. This indicates that most bar-goers don't mind the smoke, and many of them even want to be able to smoke while they drink in bars, so in these bans we must have a bunch of people who don't even go to bars legislating what people who do go to bars can and can't do when they get there. Lovely.
Now let's look at the employees perspective. As I mentioned, the employee believes that his life is better with the job than without, even if the job requires inhaling second hand smoke, or he wouldn't have taken it. It seems perfectly possible to me that in some localities the free market determines higher pay for waiters in smoking establishments compared to non-smoking establishments, because most waiters would prefer not to breathe the smoke. However, some waiter may decide that he prefers the extra money to his health. We might chide him, and say that this decision is unwise, but he nevertheless believes that his life is better facing the health risks and receiving the extra cash than not breathing smoke and getting paid less. Who is the government to tell him how to live his life and what risks he may take? If just as many people would go to restraunts and bars if they were non-smoking, and those people would pay and tip just as much, there would be very few (or no) restraunts or bars that allowed smoking, because no one would be able to make a larger profit by permitting it (since there certainly are some people who won't go if the restraunt/bar permits smoking). That means that permitting smoking in some establishments increases the number of waitresses and bartenders who are employed, and the total amount of money paid to waitresses and bartenders in this country. Perhaps many of them think that it isn't worth it to inhale the smoke. If this is the case, then they will choose to accept lower pay from non-smoking establishments rather than work in smoking establishments, which will reduce the profit margin of the smoking establishments, compared to non-smoking ones. If enough employees think this way, it will become unprofitable to permit smoking, thus creating a de facto smoking ban. On the other hand, the restraunt and bar workers could unionize and make these demands about working conditions. (Ignore government recognition of unions, because when the government recognizes them they become EVIL. Our good union uses strikes and negotiations with management, not government coercion, to get its way.) If they were able to maintain solidarity, they would win. But if some people preferred to work under the poor conditions, or if the restraunts found it was more profitable to just hire and train new waiters and bartenders, they would lose. This is the way capitalism works. We all get to use our money and our time and our assets to influence the marketplace according to our preferences. We don't use our votes to do so. THAT is socialism, and it is the end of freedom.