What makes a War on Drugs doable is the laws prohibiting drugs. It's literally what makes it legally possible. You'll note that very few adults are arrested for "possession of alcohol".
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If someone was convinced that gasoline would cure their hair loss, they couldn't get it through a pharmacy, but they could still get it from someone making no such promises. If someone was convinced that cocaine would cure their hair loss, they can't get it any way, any how - even just as something labelled "dangerous goods, do not consume". That's the prohibitive authority that leads to raids and cartel warfare. And that's the power that many people still support the FDA/DEA/government having, and which I am pointing out is the root of the problems with the drug war.
Well, sure, the current way it's being done. But you'd still have cartel warfare for selling territory, adulterated goods, and to effectively shut down distributors, you'd have to define smaller and smaller amounts of substance as qualifying for "dealing", as dealers learned what they could and couldn't get away with. Perhaps I should not have used the capital-letter "War on Drugs" to refer to this. But you would still have much of what you have now.
Now, would it be net improvement if enforcement of drug laws moved towards a dealers-and-manufacturers model? Sure, I think so. But my point is that there would still be no principle in place preventing that model from expanding again into a broader prohibition, involving new substances, posessions, uses, or what have you. It would be like saying "we'll have free speech, except if it's bad, or we don't like the person saying it, or some other reason that we might think up later." There's no sufficiently strong principle preventing prohibitions from continually increasing.
> I honestly have a lot more sympathy for an addict, or a bystander, whose life was destroyed by the state, then I do for his heroin dealer. I think most people opposing the War on Drugs on grounds other then ideological anarcho-capitalism share this assessment.
That's probably true. However, I don't think sympathy is an effective basis for judging whether things should be legal. And if observing that a government with an expansive power to ban things will probably use and aggrandize that power makes me an anarcho-capitalist (rather than, say, just a boring classical liberal) then so be it.
The War on Drugs has involved arresting and imprisoning a lot of people, because a lot of people really want drugs. Once the soft enforcement mechanisms (reprimands, misdemeanors, fines of legitimate businesses) fail, then if you really want to suppress the act, you have to ramp up the level of force. The reason that fewer people are imprisoned under FDA rulings is, I would say, because the FDA is more lenient, and because the things it bans are far more niche and less desired. You can have effective, or you can have gentle, but you cannot have both.
What takes doublethink is imagining that, once these powers are in place, they won't be used against one's preferred substances.
It'd be like saying "the per capita income of New York State is $185,688!" When that's actually the per capita income over six years.
My point is really that, if somebody's solution to the problem of people overdosing on drugs is to ban them or prohibit access, then they're defacto acquiescing to the tools that make the War on Drugs possible. People seem to expect drugs they don't like to just "go away", without any of the nasty raiding and shooting.
I mean, what is supposed to be done about this? Cut off WV from painkillers? Have the DEA raid a bunch of pharmacies?
A system where you take on a debt, and are jailed if you renege it, is very different than a system where you take on a debt, and can discharge it in bankruptcy. That's the crucial difference, and I think the text makes it clear that Cato are not advocating the former.
And I don't see how employment/training is so different from anything else for which you might take out a forfeitable loan. If you're saying that all debts payable to a single creditor are "indenture", then so are mortgages and car loans. The "servitude" part would come about solely as a consequence of it being a loan based on work, rather than anything else.
Sure, the union-run apprenticeship represents the employee's interest - but only by excluding others from that position. If the only way you can get a license into a trade is to complete a union apprenticeship, then the union is effectively shutting out people from that trade. That's the complaint; not that it's bad for the apprentice, but rather that it's bad for those not permitted to be apprentices.
The main rules are here, for unpaid internships: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf
So unpaid ($0) internships are permitted for certain restricted circumstances. But if you fall outside this category, you jump right up to 'employee', and have to be paid the minimum wage. Basically, once you start paying, you have to pay all the way. (Now, there is a subminimum scale of 75% of the minimum wage, but it's only available for high school enrolees above 16 years of age, for vocational training, and is granted at the discretion of the Department of Labor: https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/q-a.htm)
A job that does not confer many added skills or valuable experience may therefore be available for that wage, but one where much of the compensation is training may not be available at that wage price.
It's not a case of "apprentices making more money" vs. "apprentices making less money". It's a case of "apprentices making less money" vs. "apprentices not hired at all."
"It is entirely clear that 21st century Americans have no interest in jailing runaway apprentices. A legislative proposal calling for the arrest and detention of individuals in breach of their apprenticeship contracts would rightly be met with jeers and guffaws."
The big reason they don't like the German approach is because it excludes from the trades those who don't have the "appropriate" licenses. This shuts those of little means out of these jobs. They proposed, as possible solutions, vouchers, loans, and possibly permitting non-compete agreements.
Your accusation of "re-introducing slavery, or at least indentured servitude", is deeply dishonest.
But US wage law very rarely makes any exceptions for apprentices like this, so it's rarely worthwhile to bring them on unless they already have some training.
Unfortunately, much of the legislative consensus in the US is that minimum wages do not have any effect on employment levels, even of the young and inexperienced. Many municipalities and states are in the process of raising their minimum wages (for all ages) to $20 AUD.
Keynes was speaking relative to the conditions of the day, though. The real GDP per capita of the UK in 1930, when he wrote, was $5400. You wouldn't have to work for very long to make that kind of money, as an average UK worker. I've worked 20 hours a week at a below-average wage and considered myself quite a bit wealthier than your typical low-middle-class Briton of 1930. The big differences are that "normal" living standards have risen so fast, and so much unpaid work (largely housework and time-consuming chores) have been automated.
How do you actually know people are fooled? Your subjective opinion of their best interest? How can you usefully distinguish good advertising from bad advertising? How do you know that people are "persuaded" to act against their own self-interest - and not that they simply have preferences you don't like?