H 32°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°Most people would agree that taking someone’s property against his will is immoral. Forcing your neighbor to sell his house, for instance — regardless of the amount offered — would be morally repugnant. After all, the essence of a fair transaction — a trade — is the consent of both buyer and seller. Since your neighbor’s house belongs to him, taking his property against his will is clearly an act of theft.
Yet, according to the UW Board of Regents, this type of coercion is perfectly acceptable. The university is planning on using their right to “eminent domain” to condemn the property of Brothers Bar & Grill in order to build a School of Music performance hall.
Regent Jeffrey Bartell defends his actions as follows: “Our job is to be good stewards of the public’s money. We can’t justify paying public funds substantially in excess of fair market value.”
In other words, “the owners are asking too much, so we’ve decided to take their property from them.” Consider the oddity of Bartell extolling the virtues of fiscal responsibility yet feeling no need to justify taking someone’s property by force. Why is this?
If it is morally unacceptable for an individual to take someone’s property without his or her consent, what could possibly transform vice into virtue just because a university does it? These magic words — the words behind all forms of government — sponsor coercion against its citizens: “the public interest.” When someone is deprived of his property, prevented from broadcasting his views or investing his money as he sees fit, the alleged justification is usually that it serves “the public interest.”
But only individuals possess interests, and the public is nothing more than the sum of individuals living in a given region. In this sense, there is no such thing as “the public interest” as distinct from the interests of individuals.
If “public interest” is to have any meaning at all, it can only mean that which is in the interest of all individuals. And this can only mean one thing: freedom. Freedom, of which property rights are an essential part, is what allows “the public” (i.e., each individual) to pursue their interests while respecting the rights of others to do the same.
Placing the alleged interest of some reified “public” above the interests of its members is nonsensical and destructive. What happens to the interests of the owners and patrons of Brothers, for example, and the community of people who value this establishment? Aren’t they part of “the public?”
In practice “the public interest” is a meaningless phrase used to justify the imposition of one group’s preferences on another group or individual. Whether used by the UW to expand its facilities, The New York Times to build new offices, or the city of New London to take homes from their owners and give them to a favored business, the result is always the same: one group’s interests are sacrificed to another.
To do what is good for the public means to do what is good for individuals, which means protecting their ability to pursue their individual interests (the only kind that exist) free of coercion from others.
UW may be within its legal rights to seize Brothers, but does it have a moral right? And what message do UW’s actions send to students and alumni? Do they encourage students to pursue their own interests with passion, knowing that their accomplishments (maybe owning and running a tavern) will be respected? Or do they teach them that their individual interests can be trampled and plans uprooted by any group (the university perhaps) claiming to represent “the public interest?”
The UW could refuse to engage in the coercive acts the government has granted it, as others have done (BB&T Corporation, for instance, has refused to lend money to eminent domain projects). It could attempt to acquire property by voluntary means. This might require additional funding and may even result in the university’s interests and development plan being frustrated for a while. But in doing so, UW will have made the inestimable moral decision to stand up for the actual interest of each and every member of the public — the right to pursue one’s own life and happiness free of coercion. This is what it truly means to represent “the public interest.”
Jim Allard ([email protected]) is a graduate student in the biological sciences.
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What is a biological sciences grad student doing writing about eminent domain? It’s not UW’s fault that Brothers has no idea how to negotiate. When the government can take your property, your odds of getting above-market dollars for it are not exactly great.
I also think that the public interest would be better served by a parking lot or a park where that dive is, let alone any productive building.
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“If �public interest� is to have any meaning at all, it can only mean that which is in the interest of all individuals. And this can only mean one thing: freedom.”
JIM, you’re thinking here is utterly juvenile, yet again. How can you think these things? Why are you incapable of REASON and NUANCED thought?
You do the same thing twice in those two sentences, and that is attempt to make blanket generalizations that are untrue. Can there really only be that one defintion of “public interest?” Could it not mean that which helps more individuals than it hurts, and not necessarily be in the interest of ALL individuals (a rediculous notion)? Could the public interest mean what is voted on, as in, we vote in people who then use their right of eminent domain? Could it mean what is best for most people, in the long run, even though it will upset some people who have short-sighted interests?
And your second statement here is again just as childish, if not more, and has no place in argumentation. Put simply, that kind of rhetoric wont cut it in the adult world. Something that is in the interest of ALL individuals can ONLY mean freedom? Really?? I think not allowing people to murder eachother is clearly in the public interest yet by making homicide illegal we are immediately limiting freedom.
This is an on-going pattern in your thought process that should be avoided. It just wont cut it as you advance into adulthood. Your articles continually create a distinction between only two options, things or either “this” or “that,” with no room for nuance, reason, or middle-ground. THings are rarely black and white yet your articles classify nearly everything as black or white. And then you subjectively decide which color is right, decide that the phenomenon your complaining about is the other color, and thus “they” are wrong. It is an infantile rhetorical tool that will not serve you well in your future.
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“I think not allowing people to murder each other is clearly in the public interest yet by making homicide illegal we are immediately limiting freedom.”
The idea that laws against homicide LIMIT (!) freedom, is a consequence of holding “gray” concepts. If freedom is held as some woozy idea of “doing what you want to do,” then it becomes impossible to distinguish between murder and, say, wanting to keep one’s property. Both are acts that may go against what other citizens desire.
If, however, one holds “freedom” as the absence of the initiation of physical coercion - which identifies an essential black and white difference between volition and compulsion - then it’s possible to identify laws against homicide as the protection of freedom not a limitation on it.
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STOP WRITING THE EXACT SAME FREAKING COLUMN EVERY WEEK!
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Angry much? While it may not be the most exciting column, it’s not the same one. If you’re going to complain, at least let it be a legitimate complaint.
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Please, tell us what is the same about it.
The author is arguing that “public interest” is not a valid political concept and that it’s use amounts to political favoritism.
This seems like an important issue. Have you heard this view before?
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Nah, I agree (though maybe not at such an intense level) with 10:04. Fair market this, big government that, freedom and capitalism and socialism blah blah blah. It might be a different issue every week (except for, you know, the 40 columns in a row he did on Michael Pollan), but the argument is the same.
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“It might be a different issue every week … but the argument is the same.” “Fair market this, big government that, freedom and capitalism and socialism blah blah blah.”
In other words, Allard talks about basic principles instead of a pragmatic mix of unrelated viewpoints. He even wrote an article on pragmatism vs. principled thinking.
But the issue should not be whether the argument is the same, but whether it is true.
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Not in a newspaper column that’s supposed to draw readers every week. Several weeks into the semester, I’m bored. Part of the reason I read the editorial page (not just the BH’s) is to examine how others think about things in different ways. I feel could write Jim’s columns for him, because the guts of his argument is always the same. Pick issue. Apply libertarian philosophy. Ta dahh!
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“Part of the reason I read the editorial page (not just the BH�s) is to examine how others think about things in different ways.”
Except for people who think about things in principled ways?
Maybe what you regard as different is a function of your own ideology? For example, most articles are a hodgepodge of mixed premises and a smattering of facts devoid of any ideological justification or argument. Are these different or all the same?
The answer depends on whether you’re accustomed to thinking in principle. Principally, such articles are all the same - they all exhibit and promote the same pragmatist ideology that we read over and over again from almost every source. A principled approach, therefore is about as different as it gets.
“I feel could write Jim�s columns for him, because the guts of his argument is always the same. Pick issue. Apply libertarian philosophy. Ta dahh!”
This demonstrates that you couldn’t, because the arguments are not libertarian, they are Objectivist.
Big deal, you say? All this talk about libertarianism and Objectivism sounds boring and the same? Maybe this is due to a lack of understanding of these ideologies.
While some of the arguments may sound the same, it takes effort to understand and apply those arguments. One does not just latch on to a few key words and “ta dahh!”
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Well, his last 4 columns were about Michael Pollan. But this one isn’t (even though I was waiting for it).
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You spend all that time arguing against a right outlined in the Constitution, and then come to “it may be legally right, but is it morally right?” Maybe next week your column could focus on if it’s appropriate for government entities to act to enforce their administrators’ morality upon the taxpayers.
Oh man, I think I’ve got it: you’ll write that column, and then argue how your journalistic insight proves, beyond doubt, that government is unnecessary in its entirety!
Spoiler alert: Libertarians are crazy, never act in good faith, and believe in amoral pursuit of personal gain as resulting in overall social betterment. They believe this because they already have money, and their ideal system would not require them to give it up upon inception.
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Allard isn’t an anarchist. That would require being consistent in his beliefs. Instead he’s a crazy objectivist.
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Palin-Allard in 2012 — because rational thought is overrated!
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ha man you’re quite the jokester. palin’s ideas are more logically sound than obama’s ever where
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Has anyone taken the time to notice that the School of Music presents over 400 performances ever year? The majority of those performances are free to the public. This is the embodiment of the Wisconsin Idea.
Additionally, the School of Music is training the music educators and performers of the future. In case no one has notice, music is heard in every commercial, tv show, movie we watch. Don’t forget about at the grocery store, mall, convenience store, elevator, ring tones, the radio, etc. Music is probably one of the most integral parts of our social fabric, yet is so grossly taken for granted.
Instead of complaining the the Board of Regents are taking land from a dive bar, maybe we should be applauding the School of Music for its service to the community, state, and beyond.
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In other words, stop complaining about theft and applaud the thieves.
I value music too, but I don’t advocate stealing my neighbor’s stereo.
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But doesn’t it limit my freedom to not allow me to steal my neighbor’s stereo?
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What is freedom? Does freedom mean doing whatever you feel like doing? No. It means being free from the coercion of others. That’s what freedom means.
When the government prevents you from stealing your neighbor’s stereo it is retaliating against your initiation of force against your neighbor. You are the one acting against the principle of freedom by attempting to use force against your neighbor. The government is acting to prevent this and is therefore acting to defend freedom.
When you steal from your neighbor you are not exercising your freedom (the right to be free from initiated force), you are acting destroy your neighbor’s freedom.
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10:04, how has Brothers proved they suck at negotiating? If someone came up to you and said “I’m going to take your house and give you x amount for it, but if you don’t accept, it’s mine for free” how is that negotiating?
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Because they chose not to accept it.
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Jim Allard is a fountainhead of shrugs.
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“Jim Allard is a fountainhead of HURRRRR.”
Fixed.
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I was an objectivist once. Then I turned fifteen.
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Don’t try to take unearned credit. In truth, you never were an Objectivist.
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A randroid with no sense of humor, imagine that…oh sorry that should be “Objectivist,” would want you to feel any less self-important and super-smart.
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To contribute to the discussion here, I can sympathize with Jim’s concerns…while I personally don’t mind closing a douchebar to open an arts institution, and believe that it would be in everyone’s best interests, I can understand someone’s opposition to the move.
However, claiming that only individuals have interests is silly. Human progress is the story of people working together to improve the quality of life. There is literally no such thing as an individual surviving without the public in which they live. Hermitage is the only option for someone who holds to the principles which Jim consistently espouses.
Which is why objectivists tend to not have many friends.
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“However, claiming that only individuals have interests is silly. Human progress is the story of people working together to improve the quality of life.”
You don’t think that working together can be in an individual’s interest?
Individualism does not mean being a hermit, it means treating each person as an independent, sovereign entity possessing rights. It means regarding oneself as one’s highest value and respecting the same in others. It means working with and associating with others on the basis of mutual consent, trading value for value and never sacrificing yourself to others or others to yourself.
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“You don�t think that working together can be in an individual�s interest?”
No, that’s exactly my point: working together can be in an individual’s interest, but surely working together is defined outside of oneself by the group. Furthermore an absence of sacrifice is an absence of investment in the endeavor. Without good faith, nothing is accomplished. Value for value may work in stock trades, but not in the broader aspects of a functioning society. Such a bean-counting approach is myopic, childish, and ultimately completely inapplicable to the real world. Relying on ideas presented in works of fiction would be fine, if you could thoroughly convince yourself that you did live in that fantasy world. I prefer to embrace reality, and rejoice in the struggle to make life better for the species. I gather that objectivists view pragmatic liberalism as an unprincipled, depressing, self-enslaving philosophy. But to speak for myself, it is a fountain of optimism and purpose in a far too brutal world. Again: if you don’t feel like chipping in, feel free to the fuck out! But you’ll need to walk on roads funded by my tax dollars to get there, I hope the contradiction strikes you, if not a crosstown bus.
“It means regarding oneself as one�s highest value and respecting the same in others.”
I simply do not feel this in my soul. I feel bad for people who do. I cannot respect it in others, because I feel it is antithetic to human survival. You are the people I want staying away from my kids.
Hegel has interesting thoughts regarding sacrifice and its relation to the Spirit, and while its a hard read to get through its certainly better than any steaming pile of crap cooked up by Rand.
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“No, that�s exactly my point: working together can be in an individual�s interest, but surely working together is defined outside of oneself by the group. Furthermore an absence of sacrifice is an absence of investment in the endeavor. Without good faith, nothing is accomplished.”
“I prefer to embrace reality… “
You need to define your terms. Faith means to believe something in absence of evidence; it is the opposite of embracing reality.
Investments are not sacrifices; one invests because they believe they will get something of greater value than they put in.
Definitions are products of minds and only an individual possesses a mind. A group of individuals may agree or disagree, but only individuals have thoughts, definitions and interests.
“I gather that objectivists…”
The best way to find out what Objectivism says is to ready Ayn Rand’s books.
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I try to avoid pro-rape fiction whenever possible