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Pickup Basketball and Spontaneous Order

One of my favorite hobbies, pickup basketball, is a great example of a key libertarian concept: spontaneous order. While it is of a much smaller scale than the market economy, it shows how rules and norms evolve to peacefully resolve conflict without an authority figure.

Growing up, I played pickup basketball with my friends. You could resolve a dispute by running home to a parent, but this was an unpopular move especially as we got older. Since we all knew each other, it was relatively easy to coordinate our behavior. We also had repeated interactions so one unethical action could have long-standing effects.

When I went to Michigan State University, my roommate introduced me to the active pickup basketball scene on campus. I could go to the main recreation center and find a game to play at any time. There would be up to around 100 guys (and sometimes girls) looking to play on the 6 courts in the building.

While I never saw an official authority figure around, everyone seemed to know the rules. 

You may be thinking, it’s just basketball, what disputes are there to resolve? Don’t you all know the rules of basketball?

Well, here are a few questions you need to settle for pickup basketball. How long do games last? How are teams picked? How are fouls determined? 

At MSU, the first game of a session would last until a team had 15 points and repeated games would be to 13 (I have no idea where this rule came from, but everyone seemed to know it). Generally the winning team would have to win by 2 points, although on crowded days you might agree beforehand to forgo this requirement.

Picking teams generally went as follows: Everyone takes a three-point shot and the first two to succeed are captains. They then take turns picking players. After that, someone calls “next”. This means they are the captain of a team to challenge the winning team. If he has picked four teammates but someone else also wants to play, they get “next after”, which means captaining the next team to challenge the court’s winning team. 

Now for the hard part, how to fairly determine foul calls without a neutral referee. The offense calls fouls, but there are no free throws; the offense just gets another possession. Also, the instant a foul is called the ball is dead. If the ball goes in the basket, the offense gets another possession but misses out on the sure points. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. 

For unusually controversial disputes, you “shoot for it”. The person making a claim (for example, that the opposing player went out of bounds) takes a three-point shot. If it goes in, they win the argument; if they miss, they lose the argument.

I find these solutions interesting because they are examples of how through spontaneous order, strangers can solve problems without a central authority. We didn’t need a president or voting process. These solutions evolved through trial and error and they did a pretty good job of allowing people who didn’t know each other to play basketball. 

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I Don’t Work In Politics

When I go home to Michigan or Chicago, I get some common questions from family and friends. The most frequent is: How do you like working in politics? 

In the words of Lucille Bluth, “I don’t understand the question and I won’t respond to it.”

I had one job in politics as a legislative assistant for a Michigan state representative. It was a pretty good job, a great one at the time (I was in college). I mostly answered emails from constituents and helped my boss draft legislation. 

When you work for a politician, you help them campaign. You also help them campaign for members of the same party. I had no interest in that. 

Politics is war. Now I don’t mind fighting, but there aren’t many battles worth fighting. As a general rule, politicians are amorphous blobs willing to do whatever it takes to ensure one thing: re-election.

We can talk about the separation of powers, how to interpret the constitution, the proper role of government, but at the end of the day politics is about gaining and wielding power. Nobody exemplifies this better than Donald Trump. Oh, and you’re kidding yourself if you think the Democrats are innocent of this. The weakest political criticisms are those of hypocrisy. People are hypocritical in politics all the time and there is no punishment for it. Political actors do not care about rules and ensuring those rules are followed. They care about promoting those of their political tribe. That matters more than procedural concerns.

I don’t work in politics. So what is it I do?

I have mostly worked at places that deal with ideas. I worked at a think tank, a student leadership network, and am now at an academic institute. The exact vision and strategy of each organization has been distinct. They all share the goal of fighting the battle of ideas and shifting the intellectual conversation which, in turn, would change the behavior of politicians.

If you have asked me this question and I have responded angrily, I apologize. I know you mean well. And I understand for most people, there is no difference between politicians debating policy and eggheads at think tanks doing the same thing.

Politicians have a seat at the decision-making table. Their power to create change is, in theory, vast. But they are so constrained by interest groups, public opinion, and political alliances their votes are often predetermined for them. 

Us eggheads admittedly don’t have that seat at the decision-making table. But it’s overrated.

Ideas matter. And breathtaking ideas, like those of Adam Smith or Ayn Rand, have amazing staying power. 

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What I’m Working On

Three months ago I started a new job at the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS). My role is focused on digital marketing, in particular marketing automation and marketing analytics. So far I have found the work challenging, interesting, and rewarding.

Marketing automation is the use of software to “automatically” handle marketing tasks. For example, if a potential customer visits your webpage for a product but doesn’t purchase it, you can automatically send them an email with more information (assuming they have granted us permission to email them, of course!) Done properly, you can connect all areas of digital marketing: email, social media, websites, etc. I came in with the preparation for our marketing automation platform finished and was responsible for launching it with training and support. For the most part, this has gone smoothly and it is now used daily to great success. There are more powerful features we haven’t scratched the surface of yet.

Marketing analytics is simply the collection and analysis of marketing data. Working at a non-profit, sales can be a little tricky to define. While a sale is straightforward for our fundraising team, for our programs team it is a more complex question. At IHS, “sales” are more or less participations in our programs, such as PhD scholarships and research seminars. On this front, I have made progress in our ability to collect marketing data in an accessible manner. The next step is to analyze this data and use insights to improve our work.

At IHS we engage with students and professors around the country to encourage the study and advancement of freedom. If you look at higher education today, there is a dire need for the spread of classical liberal ideas throughout academia. I’m proud to be playing a part in furthering this mission while gaining valuable experience in marketing techniques along the way.

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The Libertarian Party’s Shallow Bench

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee for President, had his second major gaffe recently. Johnson did not have an answer when asked to name a foreign leader he admires. Josh Barro wants to know, “who are these people who lost to Gary Johnson?”

Barro has a point. While Johnson has some great qualifications, including serving as Governor of New Mexico and successfully starting a construction company, he has not done a great job with the opportunities granted to him such as town hall specials on CNN. How was Johnson picked for this?

Johnson has been the clear choice for the Libertarian Party since he dropped out of the Republican Party for the Libertarians in the 2012 election. I wonder if this decision is similar to what happened to the Democratic Party, who have protected Hillary Clinton as the clear choice candidate for years leading up to this election. Even just 18 months ago, it would have been hard to predict the opportunity for a libertarian candidate to get so much attention thanks to the deep unpopularity of the Republican and Democratic nominees.

A mentor of mine likes to talk about keeping a strong bench. The analogy here is to a sports team. Even if you currently have a strong lineup, you want to make sure you have strong backups to call upon if something happens to your stars or if you need additional assets.

The Libertarian Party has a shallow bench. Well the Libertarian Party has lots of problems, including that our political system is designed to keep out third parties. But I think it’s clear there was little thought or time spent on growing the potential pool of people to make the most of the opportunity put before the Libertarian Party this cycle.

One of the most exciting aspects of my job at Students For Liberty is that we are growing that bench. I think it is only a matter of time before a nominee for President is a Students For Liberty alumni. But as someone deeply skeptical of politics and the potential for any one person, even the American President, to create lasting change for liberty, I am even more excited about how we are growing other benches. We at Students For Liberty are seeking to support new superstars and grow benches in academia, business, civil society, and many other arenas.

By the way, even with his embarrassing moments I think Johnson is clearly a superior choice to Clinton and Trump. I’m excited to vote for Johnson this November. But, I can’t help but wonder if there are other people out there who could have done a better job this cycle than Johnson…

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Trump Troubled By Police Misconduct?

Donald Trump has said he is “very troubled” by a recent incident in which an unarmed black man (with his hands up) was shot by Oklahoma police. Some may find this surprising given Trump’s previous choices to condemn Black Lives Matter and strongly support American police forces.

It seems to me that, at least on this issue, Trump has nailed the median voter’s position. Make a point of unconditionally supporting the police, and when forced with evidence so heinous you can’t deny, admit there’s a problem. And the solution? The police “will just have to get better and better and better”. 

This sure sounds like the median voters I have encountered discussing this issue.

I’m not opposed to a societal expectation of respecting the police. If I had to guess it’s probably essential to an orderly and peaceful society*. But if “respecting the police” is used as a way to stop the conversation then it’s a problem. There are really important policy changes we need to prevent bad cops and to help good cops do a better job.

Some of these changes are best described by Radley Balko in his book Rise of the Warrior Cop. They include:

  1. Rolling back or ending the War on Drugs
  2. Transparency, such as the filming of police conduct and records of police officers engaged in violent encounters 
  3. Community policing (“taking cops out of patrol cars to walk beats and become a part of the communities they serve”, p. 325)
  4. Accountability. As like most public sector unions, police unions have been very successful at shielding officers from being held accountable for their misconduct by passing “law enforcement bill of rights” which restrict their liability on the job. 
  5. Last but not least, changing police culture. This is of course a tall order, but it is just as essential as any policy change. 

If implemented, I think these policy changes can reduce violence, improve societal respect for the police, and reduce grievances of activist groups.

*Of course, so is an expectation that police officers follow the rule of law

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Protesters

Today, Students For Liberty student leaders organized an event about Free Market Environmentalism (basically, how can concerns about the environment be addressed through market rather than government means?). Two people decided to stand up, shout, and obstruct one of the speakers. Unfortunately the organizers had to call campus police so that the event could continue.

Video of the incident is available here: http://bit.ly/1M8t1VR

I find this very unfortunate for a number of reasons. First, we *want* people of varying viewpoints to attend these conferences. The event was open to anybody but attendees were simply asked to not interrupt the speakers and were welcome to civilly disagree during question and answer opportunities. Second, I think these two are doing a disservice to a cause they are passionate about (if an SFL leader did this at an event on campus, I would be embarrassed). Third, I hate having to call the police and never want it to happen at an SFL event. And finally, I fear this is part of a growing trend of college students unwilling to critically engage with views different from their own.

I hope everyone who attended the event walks away with more knowledge of free market solutions to environmental concerns, even if they disagree with those solutions.

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Destination: Arizona

Today I am flying to Phoenix, Arizona for the Students For Liberty Arizona Regional Conference. While there I will stay with my maternal grandparents who live in Scottsdale. They spent most of their adult lives in Crystal Lake, a suburb of Chicago, but started splitting time between Illinois and Arizona after retiring.

I have been to Scottsdale at least once a year since my grandparents became “snowbirds” about fifteen years ago. I have many memories there, primarily of swimming, golfing, and playing games. My grandparents have a pool and hot tub in their backyard so swimming is very convenient. They also live in a golf resort community and are members of the Desert Forest Country Club nearby. As a kid we often played Payday, Racko, and a Pokèmon board game. These days it is most commonly Quirkle, Golo, and Gin Rummy.

There are a few pieces of pop culture I strongly associate with visiting my grandparents in Scottsdale. I first remember listening to the album Learning How To Smile Part 1 by Everclear, one of my favorite albums, in Scottsdale. The same goes for Permission To Land by The Darkness (a great album for warm weather). As a kid I watched Good Burger, Spy Kids, and the first Pokèmon movie a lot there.

I have sustained three major injuries while visiting my grandparents. The first time I was about eight years old and I slipped in the shower, slamming my jaw on the soap dish and biting through my lip. The second time, I was maybe eleven. While attempting to set up a telescope on the deck, I ran inside. Well, I ran into a sliding glass door and chipped my front tooth pretty bad. The third (and hopefully final!) injury came about by hitting the brakes on my bike while riding downhill. I flipped over my handlebars, suffering a concussion which knocked me out and a broken wrist. I was about 13 when that happened.

Here’s to hoping for a productive, enjoyable, and injury-free trip to Arizona!

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Amash for Speaker?

Kevin McCarthy announced today he is no longer running for Speaker of the House. This is a swift fall from grace for the presumed successor to John Boehner. While we may never know, I am curious what caused McCarthy to pull out from this race. He had a fairly serious gaffe recently, but I didn’t expect it be serious enough to keep him from the Speakership.

Some of my libertarian friends would like to see Justin Amash as the next Speaker of the House. Sure, why not? Amash is a solid libertarian who has maintained his seat against challengers while voting true to his principles. He has nonpartisan appeal in his history of Facebook posts explaining his votes in Congress. I am personally grateful for all the time Amash has given up speaking at Students For Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty events for free including two events I organized while in college.

I have no reason to believe Amash has an actual chance at the Speakership. He is young, not extremely popular among Republicans, and isn’t being suggested by the colleagues who do like him. There are of course a number of other candidates who were being thrown around even before McCarthy bowed out.

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of Republicans of which Amash is a founding member, is supporting Daniel Webster for the Speakership. I don’t know much about Webster so I have nothing to say on his candidacy one way or the other.

However, I’m glad to see Amash gaining clout through a group like the House Freedom Caucus. Before McCarthy even dropped out, a few reporters speculated the House Freedom Caucus’ support for Webster was going to put McCarthy’s chances in doubt. It seems to me the best way to get the attention and support of a political power is not to merely support and partner with them but to scare them. Don’t let them (the powers that be!) take you for granted. I am pessimistic about opportunities for libertarians to gain change through direct political action but if it is going to happen, it will take the following: Show your power, gain a seat at the table, and fight for your top priorities.

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Is the libertarian moment over?

Is the libertarian moment over? Did it ever even begin? Jerry Taylor, President of the Niskanen Center, argues that libertarianism as a political ideology is struggling in the United States. “The collapse of Rand Paul”, Taylor argues, shows just how little public support is out there for libertarianism. Taylor’s argument is in direct contrast with speculation that the U.S. has been approaching a possible “libertarian moment”.

I agree with Taylor regarding the present and short-term future. Rand Paul, the most libertarian candidate in the current U.S. Presidential race, is drawing anemic poll numbers despite a slew of press pieces pointing out his unique views within the Republican field. I don’t predict the number of libertarian public officials or policies to significantly increase in the next five years. Those political outcomes are the result of the interest group jockying within the constraints of the “Overton Window” of public policy. The current state of opinion is not very libertarian.

I don’t think the collapse of Rand Paul’s polling numbers tell us much about the full political prospects of libertarianism. While Rand Paul is arguably the most libertarian member of the Republican field, there is a legitimate case to be made that his campaign would be in better position if he branded himself as more of a libertarian. Jacob Sullum argues Rand Paul is not very libertarian on drug policy. This year Paul proposed a 16 percent increase to the defense budget. Ed Crane wants to know why Rand Paul has stopped using his libertarian views to distinguish himself.

This is no “no true Scotsman” defense of libertarianism. For the record, I think no true libertarian can be elected President of the United States right now. How close a candidate can get to electoral success, however, we can’t judge from Rand Paul. Take it from the man himself, he’s “not a libertarian”.

More importantly, Taylor fails to address the most promising (for libertarians) input into the American Overton Window: young people. Self-identified libertarians are a larger share of the population among young people. A YouGov poll found that 20% of millenials identify as libertarians, higher than the 15% figure across all demographics. This isn’t an earth-shattering shift, but it is a trend in the right direction for libertarians. Political beliefs at the start of adulthood tend to hold relatively steady throughout one’s lifetime. Ray Fisman found evidence of this political inertia at least within the confines of the two-party system. If this is indeed true, the growing contingent of young libertarians should hold during the lifetimes of millenials.

One more thought: Taylor rightfully points out that the candidate of choice for “libertarian-inclined Republicans is Donald Trump, the least libertarian candidate in the race”. A large portion of this can likely be explained by sad but harsh truths to libertarians: many of the libertarian-inclined Republicans are probably not very libertarian and this demographic may be more concerned with race than we would like to think. But don’t discount the desire of many libertarians to see the (political) world burn. Donald Trump is political kerosene right now.

I’m not certain young Americans will turn out to be a net-positive force for libertarianism. I don’t think Rand Paul or any libertarian candidate has a shot at the Presidency right now. But Rand Paul’s failing campaign doesn’t tell us much about the political prospects of libertarians and the growing interest in libertarianism among young people is a reason for libertarian optimism.