I’ve wondered when we would start seeing arguments like the following, from Keith Halderman of the Liberty&Power blog. He argues that the cap on earnings subject to FICA taxes should be lifted because: “at least [the tax] would become less regressive. More importantly, if the pain of the tax program were to spread upwards to the more influential there would be a greater chance that the social security system would be privatized and ownership of the money restored to the people who earned it.”
Well, that is a reversal of the usual claim that at least privatization makes the program slightly better; here we see the claim that, yes, funding privatization does make the system worse but it thereby increases the likelihood that the program will be overthrown. This type of strategizing can yield some rather perverse results, with libertarians arguing for every manner of statism in the eventual hope that it will provoke revolt. And so we should favor more curbs on speech in order to eliminate the Patriot Act, more conscription to end war, more regulation of business to prompt the abolition of regulation, more enforcement of drug laws in order to end the drug war.
Not only is this approach not guaranteed to work and is very likely going to produce more statism; it leads to a very confusing public message that comes about when advocates of the free society favor more despotism. The worse is not better; it is just worse.
