Public Choice Abroad

Part of Jim Henley's accounting of how he got Iraq so right is that he recognized that Hayek doesn't stop at the water's edge:

I could see the self-interest of the officials pushing for war - how war would benefit their political party, their department within the government, enhance their own status at the expense of rivals. Libertarianism made it clear how absurd the idealistic case was. Supposedly, wise, firm and just American guidance would usher Iraq into a new era of liberalism and comity. But none of that was going to work unless real American officials embedded in American political institutions were unusually selfless and astute, with a lofty and omniscient devotion to Iraqi welfare. And, you know, they weren’t going to be that.

In my view, these considerations remain a huge challenge for counterinsurgency optimists looking forward in Iraq.

Comments

I'm not a libertarian, but the value of common sense doesn't stop at the water's edge either.

On the other hand, I really hope that Iraq totally fixes itself in like 5 minutes and becomes the perfect democracy and if not we need to be more like Martial Tito and drastically punish them with ethnic cleansing, but it is completely okay if it takes forever and ever, as no one on Urf has ever so nobly committed themselves to basic lawfulness as have we despite the Quisling traitor tyrant boot-lickers who hate the troops and want the Islamoids to take over. (Okay New Fox News Fan, Chris Ford, R. Powell?)

Posted by El Cid | March 24, 2008 11:46 AM

I have never understood how the same party that has one of its central tenets a skepticism about the ability of the Federal government to effectively run large programs, has so much faith that we will be able to carry out an absurdly ambitious mission of bringing a stable Western-style democracy to a country with three divided factions where previously order was kept by a brutal dictator. The same people who think the government is inherently inefficient and therefore any plan in which the government actually tries to provide health insurance for its own citizens is doomed to fail, also think that the same U.S. government will be able to create a stable democratic state in Iraq.

Posted by Tim Roeper | March 24, 2008 11:50 AM

I have never understood how the same party that has one of its central tenets a skepticism about the ability of the Federal government to effectively run large programs, has so much faith that we will be able to carry out an absurdly ambitious mission of bringing a stable Western-style democracy to a country with three divided factions where previously order was kept by a brutal dictator. The same people who think the government is inherently inefficient and therefore any plan in which the government actually tries to provide health insurance for its own citizens is doomed to fail, also think that the same U.S. government will be able to create a stable democratic state in Iraq.

Posted by Tim Roeper | March 24, 2008 11:53 AM

"To live outside the law you must be honest"

For an Iraq War to "work", there had to be a rational public reason for the Iraq War and the people who were going to be in charge had to have larger interests than enriching their class. We had no rational public reason for the war and the people in charge have used the war to plunder the treasury and finagle political advantage at home.

It isn't noble to get rich killing people.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 24, 2008 11:55 AM

I have never understood how the same party that has as one of its central tenets a skepticism about the ability of the Federal government to effectively run large programs, has so much faith that we will be able to carry out an absurdly ambitious mission. Bringing a stable Western-style democracy to a country with three divided factions where previously order was kept by a brutal dictator is way harder than most things Democrats propose the government should do. The same people who think the government is inherently inefficient and therefore any plan in which the government actually tries to provide health insurance for its own citizens is doomed to fail, also think that the same U.S. government will be able to create a stable democratic state in Iraq.

Posted by Tim Roeper | March 24, 2008 11:55 AM

I think it's also time -- it's always time -- to revisit Daniel Davies' One Minute MBA.

You can summarise it even further down: 'Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance'; 'Fibbers' forecasts are worthless', and:

There is much made by people who long for the days of their fourth form debating society about the fallacy of "argumentum ad hominem". There is, as I have mentioned in the past, no fancy Latin term for the fallacy of "giving known liars the benefit of the doubt", but it is in my view a much greater source of avoidable error in the world. Audit is meant to protect us from this, which is why audit is so important.

This dovetails neatly with Henley's points.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | March 24, 2008 12:21 PM

There are a lot of lessons that can be drawn from the Iraq debacle, but a validation of libertarian dogma is not one of them.

It's true that Henley was more likely to oppose the war because he actually believes the ideological stuff - this separates him from a lot of supposed "libertarians," who are drawn to the rugged individualist rhetoric and the gun ownership solely because it allows them to feel tough, and will happily support an authoritarian, imperial project that provides similar opportunities for ridiculous macho posturing.

At the same time, even if one sincerely believes in it, it's still a pretty dumb ideology. Just for starters, the specific venality, stupidity, and corruption of the Bush administration should not be depicted as demonstrating inherent shortcomings of "government" in general.

Posted by N | March 24, 2008 1:51 PM

"Just for starters, the specific venality, stupidity, and corruption of the Bush administration should not be depicted as demonstrating inherent shortcomings of "government" in general."

Which is a ridiculous criticism of libertarianism since it's been criticizing governments for the last hundred years and beyond.

If you're talking about idiot Republican "libertarians", perhaps, but that is not "libertarianism."

Government has specific, impossible-to-achieve-with-humans characteristics that render it totally unable to achieve its alleged objectives.

A monopoly on violence? It's not even clear that the robots in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" could even have solved that issue - not for humans.

Human history has established that no government has ever worked effectively - that is to say, without major injustice and failure and inefficiencies - to achieve the alleged benefits of government - and certainly not the "Golden Age" most people think could be achieved if we just had a little more of the same. Looking at the world, even at the various states considered "model governments", it's clear that things would be far better without them - IF you had a rational human species to work with.

Since you don't, "nothing works and nobody cares."

Besides which, "size matters". Anybody who thinks they can transmute Sweden or Switzerland into the US or Russia or China is hallucinating.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 24, 2008 11:06 PM