This is a good response to a particular, albeit esoteric version of libertarianism. You do neglect a large number (I would argue the strong majority) of libertarians who are consequentialists, such as Milton Friedman, James Buchannan, and Jagdish Bhagwati. You're right to start your story with Nozick, but wrong to end it there.
This is true, I agree with the criticism that I could have discussed more consequentialist libertarians. This was a fun article to write and maybe I'll post a broader revision dealing with more consequentialist libertarians, although I'll be the first to admit that this article wasn't intended for them.
"mostly women, in forced marriages. Roughly a quarter of these slave are children. This slavery takes place in many forms; one form common in wealthier nations like the US is the exploitation of migrant workers." OK, this assertion on its own, I can accept for now… but wait a second, just before that you said "more than at any other time in human history"
But today's migrant workers (at least in the US, idk about Qatar) aren't subject to the same degree of total control and *literal* (i.e. actual, not metaphorical) institutional violence as black slaves pre-Civil War. If you change the definition of what constitutes slavery, then to be consistent you must at least attempt to estimate how many people in the past met your new definition of slavery: I highly suspect it's a lot more than whatever figures you got for historical slavery, which used old, more literal definitions of slavery.
(2)
Nice rhetoric on Elon Musk being the one ‘oppressed’ by taxes. That is striking and clearly something’s wrong!
At the same time your hypothetical feels like a strawman, not a steel man.
The problem with children mining cobalt is a more general problem with “sweatshop labor”, which is easy to decry but from an armchair it's easy to forget that things are inherently bad.
When you say “Of course no, nobody is pro-starvation”, I think actually you are wrong. I think that unless you propose a better solution, you *are* implicitly pro-starvation, and furthermore I think that’s a very important point.
Someone ‘in the arena’, making some difference, is just not morally comparable to someone on the sidelines.
And please don’t say ‘drawing attention’ is good enough; it rings hollow, because plenty of people have already drawn attention to ‘sweatshop labor’; that’s how it got its moniker. Yet what good have they done beyond that?
I think there’s a general problem where if somebody gets involved - ‘entangled’ - with some inherently messy problem in the real world, they are then seen as culpable for it, even if all they did was make it better. I think this is a point that is largely overlooked and it’s a point expounded beautifully here: https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/
(3)
I found it a bit offputting to read “while my co-contributor might not feel like reading books written by people he disagrees with”, because I subscribed specifically because I believe your co-contributor is a careful thinker and a great writer. I, too, choose not to read a vast array of books I “disagree with”, such as books on ancient aliens. Maybe your post could've used further revisions before publication.
I enjoyed many aspects such as the effective rhetoric suggesting the absurdity of thinking Elon Musk oppressed while not his poorest workers.
>This isn't merely to decry the employers, but to decry the conditions of production which perpetuate and incentivize this exploitation, exploitation that came about in large part due to historic injustices (colonialism) that libertarians in particular are unwilling to rectify.
Great point that libertarians are unwilling to rectify it.
Digging into what rectifications might look like is, I think, the crux of the issue, the "hard part". It's fairly vague and suggestive that *something* should be done but that *is* the question isn't it?
I just want to avoid the Copenhagen problem ;) - I think the bias should be toward action, and appreciating imperfect action, rather than getting paralyzed into inaction because there's no perfect course of action everyone agrees on, because inaction is, in fact, deadly.
The "implicitly pro-starvation" point is an important one, and while I don't make this very explicit in here I do think that a system of rectification which would redistribute wealth to account for the injustices of slavery, colonialism, etc. would create a power dynamic in which this exploitation is significantly limited, if not eliminated. But yes, we must get through the "hard part" to avoid the Copenhagen problem. Inaction IS deadly.
I agree with you that in practice (libertarians in the US) and in theory (Nozick, for instance) libertarianism doesn’t satisfyingly answer how to repair harms. And I think it’s fine to bring attention to this.
That being said I disagree that your proposal is any good either. As someone who agrees with you that Blacks experienced oppression at the hands of society, I’m not on board with reparations either, because it’s a very complex issue with little clear answers on implementation (this is is elaborated better in other popular articles on the subject, but just to give an example, how can we determine what the wealth of a now-citizen who immigrated from India would’ve been had blacks not been oppressed?)
I’m guessing you’d say doing something is better than nothing. As you write, “Adopting libertarian policy proposals is, at best, like putting a fresh coat of paint on a house riddled with termites. At minimum, before the theory can be implemented in the real world there must be some standard of rectifying the difficult injustices.”
But I think it’s exactly the opposite. I think you first need to eliminate what government is doing wrong that is keeping people down (subtraction) and then get to constructing a limited number of institutions or programs (addition). Maximizing growth (for all people, descendants of the oppressed included) is the best way to get them to a point where they don’t even need government redistributions to get by. Flipping your metaphor on its head, I think doing reparations right now would be a messy coat of paint on top of a messy termite-ridden house. First clean the house (i.e. the fundamentals: dramatically reduce the largesse and distortionary behavior of government) and then maybe consider paint.
Also a policy is never just a policy in isolation. The reason libertarians don’t support using “State to do X” is not just because of the State and not just because of “X” but ALSO because of what “State doing X” does to the State. Too abstract?
Consider regulatory capture. We start by tasking government with regulating industry, which then makes government a very high value target for corporate influence. Or tasking government with drawing school zones, which turns school board meetings into racially-charged contests where different demographics are trying to empower each other. A massive, multi-billion program of redistribution isn’t JUST that program, but also another vehicle for people and politicians to weaponize racial, political, and financial interests. You note that the market produces inequalities, but at least it’s better on average at distributing power across hundreds of millions of people. Employing the state for something vests it all in ONE institution (with legal sanction for violence), which makes it a high-value vessel for people to seize and maneuver how they see fit
On another note, you pre-empt the Thai fishing boats as an indictment of “state power”, but I don’t know that it’s an indictment of “free markets” either. The first thing any libertarian sees when looking at slavery/trafficking is that inmate rights aren’t being respected. Also keep in mind that coerced labor (in various forms) and poverty has been the default across millennia of human history, and it becomes clear that modern capitalism is not the origin of violent coercion and oppressive conditions. And it is most certainly not the driver when it is responsible for lifting millions of people up across the globe over decades.
But your point still remains: sure the libertarian sees that rights aren’t being respected, but what does their theory actually propose to make that happen? Or as you put it, “the theory lacks an adequate method of rectifying injustice”. How to go from the non-ideal to the ideal?
I counter that no one has a great answer to this. Freeing people from violence is insanely difficult due to the nature of violence. We in the US achieved our system of property rights first through intellectual revolution (Enlightenment sweeping through Europe, including Britain) and then military revolution (independence from Britain, new Constitution). Other societies and peoples across history have gotten freer with different stories, usually some other amalgam of cultural-intellectual novelty and violent force. It is a notoriously difficult achievement and not one that anyone can really address.
The best we can do — all of us Westerners typing on our screens, from our armchairs, as you say — is to advocate for as few persons as possible to hold reins of violent power over another, whether government or corporate or both, so that people can do what other people value and be rewarded for that in proportion.
Thanks for the comment, clearly you spent a good while reading the piece and I appreciate it. I'm really not writing a piece about reparations, you can substitute any policy really for reparations and my argument still holds, I just discussed it because that's what Nozick points to in his work.
Are Thai fish markets 'free"? No. Clearly, it's rife w/ abuse and rights violations. No libertarian thinks it's free, as you correctly point out, the issue I see w/ Libertarianism at large is that “the theory lacks an adequate method of rectifying injustice.” (Let's ignore that despite the miracle of capitalist growth there are more slaves today than at any point in human history, because increasing wealth is, again as you correctly point out, not the same as providing justice) Yes, no ideal theory really tackles the hard issue of justice. But you know who is actively trying to go from non-ideal to ideal? Activists, volunteers, people on the front lines like Ian Urbina, who is writing pieces about these fish markets and exposing these injustices.
The best you can do is get up from your armchair and do SOMETHING! This is what non-ideal theory is, not simply sitting behind a computer in a "non-ideal" way! Justice takes work, it takes energy. The libertarian response that "no one has an answer to this" ignores the actual activists and workers fighting for justice in the US, abroad, and even at UVA! (who notably lean much further left than libertarians) Even my critique is levied not merely against some theory, but against the libertarian party (as construed in the US in many regional spots) and libertarians themselves. I mean even Republicans support using public funds to prevent/ameliorate human trafficking in the US. Libertarians seem to believe they're as oppressed as victims because their tax dollars are spent on the DOJ.
"despite the miracle of capitalist growth there are more slaves today than at any point in human history"
This is _ because_ of the miracle of capitalist growth. Measure anything in absolute amounts and it's at the highest point in human history because there are so many more humans and so much more wealth. The proportion of the human population in slavery is the lowest it has ever been.
1. Libertarians do have people on the front lines who work towards justice. The EA community, Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, and if writing about injustices counts then tons of economists and philosophers.
2. Activism is not "a method of rectifying justice." There are activists for abortion bans, insurrections, and genocides. Activism is a way to change minds but it's only justice if it's goals are just.
Since we can't rely on activists to pursue just goals, using state power to achieve activist goals will not reliably produce justice (e.g environmentalists impact on nuclear energy). Although it is an equally unlikely policy to be implemented, Kartik's method of protecting justice is much more likely to succeed in helping people.
"The best we can do — all of us Westerners typing on our screens, from our armchairs, as you say — is to advocate for as few persons as possible to hold reins of violent power over another, whether government or corporate or both, so that people can do what other people value and be rewarded for that in proportion"
Agree with this take here. I have philosophical issues with libertarianism, especially as it pertains to the morality of a populace, but arguing that it fails to account for injustices of the past seems to imply the possibility of a utopia that just does not exist. Second the point about poverty as well. Globalization and markets have their flaws, but the alleviation of poverty has done such a tremendous good for the dignity of the human person any notion of radical change carries with it a heavy burden of proof.
Yeah, in no way is this piece advocating for abolishing free markets-at most pretty strong reparations, which I don’t think would have serious negative impacts on global growth. Also, there is an alternative proposed-reparations. Just happens that nobody wants to give up their wealth, certainly not libertarians
I'd like to revise my statement from "propose a solution" to "propose a tradeoff." This emphasizes that libertarianism is not perfect, as you point out, and the need for cost benefit analysis between the libertarianism tradeoff and a different proposal. I don't think that comparative analysis is present here. You have listed the cons of libertarianism but that alone is not enough information to decide how to act.
Check post and reply to Adam-the fact that libertarianism concerns itself almost entirely with property rights and has no method or real theory of rectification behind it is fairly inexcusable. Moreover, I am not convinced much by the claim “the state is bad but libertarianism is the best option” especially when libertarians in the US are more concerned w repealing the civil rights act than reparations or other methods of rectifying for slavery. This simply maintains historic power imbalances which in any just society must be fixed.
But what is your method or theory of rectification? At least libertarians can rely on people following their self interest to produce the outcomes they desire. What is your plan to get states to help these people?
Through actual political organizing, activism, etc. States are pushed to action. That’s just one mechanism that in the past has happened and is the reason the state today prosecutes human traffickers and puts resources into preventing snd stopping slavery today. Is this perfect? No. Is it better than libertarianism? Yes, because libertarianism does nothing as you just said.
Libertarianism promotes economic growth and immigration, these two things have done ten times more to alleviate poverty and slavery than any state or activism have done.
Can we rely on political activism to guide states to justice? There are just as many people protesting for Qanon as they are for human rights, maybe more.
This is a straw man, economic growth is not rectifying injustice. Are you seriously saying that activism fails to, even if imperfectly, push for rectification of injustices? You're anti-activism now? lol
The data I cited includes chattel slavery, which is what occurred in the US pre-civil war. There still are more slaves held now than at any point in human history.
Many children mining cobalt are enslaved (stricter definition, definite coercion and forced labor), although some do choose to go to the mines. The point of this article was to highlight libertarianism's lack of a coherent theory of justice in rectification. I mean, is it really true that big businesses like Tesla (cobalt) or Fancy Feast (Thai fish) bear no responsibility for the slavery when they profit more than anyone else from it? This isn't merely to decry the employers, but to decry the conditions of production which perpetuate and incentivize this exploitation, exploitation that came about in large part due to historic injustices (colonialism) that libertarians in particular are unwilling to rectify.
Thank you for your feedback! I greatly appreciate hearing from all sides and I appreciate that you took the time to read my work :)
This is a good response to a particular, albeit esoteric version of libertarianism. You do neglect a large number (I would argue the strong majority) of libertarians who are consequentialists, such as Milton Friedman, James Buchannan, and Jagdish Bhagwati. You're right to start your story with Nozick, but wrong to end it there.
This is true, I agree with the criticism that I could have discussed more consequentialist libertarians. This was a fun article to write and maybe I'll post a broader revision dealing with more consequentialist libertarians, although I'll be the first to admit that this article wasn't intended for them.
That would be a very interesting piece.
deleted and reposted
(1)
"mostly women, in forced marriages. Roughly a quarter of these slave are children. This slavery takes place in many forms; one form common in wealthier nations like the US is the exploitation of migrant workers." OK, this assertion on its own, I can accept for now… but wait a second, just before that you said "more than at any other time in human history"
But today's migrant workers (at least in the US, idk about Qatar) aren't subject to the same degree of total control and *literal* (i.e. actual, not metaphorical) institutional violence as black slaves pre-Civil War. If you change the definition of what constitutes slavery, then to be consistent you must at least attempt to estimate how many people in the past met your new definition of slavery: I highly suspect it's a lot more than whatever figures you got for historical slavery, which used old, more literal definitions of slavery.
(2)
Nice rhetoric on Elon Musk being the one ‘oppressed’ by taxes. That is striking and clearly something’s wrong!
At the same time your hypothetical feels like a strawman, not a steel man.
The problem with children mining cobalt is a more general problem with “sweatshop labor”, which is easy to decry but from an armchair it's easy to forget that things are inherently bad.
When you say “Of course no, nobody is pro-starvation”, I think actually you are wrong. I think that unless you propose a better solution, you *are* implicitly pro-starvation, and furthermore I think that’s a very important point.
Someone ‘in the arena’, making some difference, is just not morally comparable to someone on the sidelines.
And please don’t say ‘drawing attention’ is good enough; it rings hollow, because plenty of people have already drawn attention to ‘sweatshop labor’; that’s how it got its moniker. Yet what good have they done beyond that?
I think there’s a general problem where if somebody gets involved - ‘entangled’ - with some inherently messy problem in the real world, they are then seen as culpable for it, even if all they did was make it better. I think this is a point that is largely overlooked and it’s a point expounded beautifully here: https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/
(3)
I found it a bit offputting to read “while my co-contributor might not feel like reading books written by people he disagrees with”, because I subscribed specifically because I believe your co-contributor is a careful thinker and a great writer. I, too, choose not to read a vast array of books I “disagree with”, such as books on ancient aliens. Maybe your post could've used further revisions before publication.
I enjoyed many aspects such as the effective rhetoric suggesting the absurdity of thinking Elon Musk oppressed while not his poorest workers.
Ah I see you replied already
>This isn't merely to decry the employers, but to decry the conditions of production which perpetuate and incentivize this exploitation, exploitation that came about in large part due to historic injustices (colonialism) that libertarians in particular are unwilling to rectify.
Great point that libertarians are unwilling to rectify it.
Digging into what rectifications might look like is, I think, the crux of the issue, the "hard part". It's fairly vague and suggestive that *something* should be done but that *is* the question isn't it?
I just want to avoid the Copenhagen problem ;) - I think the bias should be toward action, and appreciating imperfect action, rather than getting paralyzed into inaction because there's no perfect course of action everyone agrees on, because inaction is, in fact, deadly.
The "implicitly pro-starvation" point is an important one, and while I don't make this very explicit in here I do think that a system of rectification which would redistribute wealth to account for the injustices of slavery, colonialism, etc. would create a power dynamic in which this exploitation is significantly limited, if not eliminated. But yes, we must get through the "hard part" to avoid the Copenhagen problem. Inaction IS deadly.
I agree with you that in practice (libertarians in the US) and in theory (Nozick, for instance) libertarianism doesn’t satisfyingly answer how to repair harms. And I think it’s fine to bring attention to this.
That being said I disagree that your proposal is any good either. As someone who agrees with you that Blacks experienced oppression at the hands of society, I’m not on board with reparations either, because it’s a very complex issue with little clear answers on implementation (this is is elaborated better in other popular articles on the subject, but just to give an example, how can we determine what the wealth of a now-citizen who immigrated from India would’ve been had blacks not been oppressed?)
I’m guessing you’d say doing something is better than nothing. As you write, “Adopting libertarian policy proposals is, at best, like putting a fresh coat of paint on a house riddled with termites. At minimum, before the theory can be implemented in the real world there must be some standard of rectifying the difficult injustices.”
But I think it’s exactly the opposite. I think you first need to eliminate what government is doing wrong that is keeping people down (subtraction) and then get to constructing a limited number of institutions or programs (addition). Maximizing growth (for all people, descendants of the oppressed included) is the best way to get them to a point where they don’t even need government redistributions to get by. Flipping your metaphor on its head, I think doing reparations right now would be a messy coat of paint on top of a messy termite-ridden house. First clean the house (i.e. the fundamentals: dramatically reduce the largesse and distortionary behavior of government) and then maybe consider paint.
Also a policy is never just a policy in isolation. The reason libertarians don’t support using “State to do X” is not just because of the State and not just because of “X” but ALSO because of what “State doing X” does to the State. Too abstract?
Consider regulatory capture. We start by tasking government with regulating industry, which then makes government a very high value target for corporate influence. Or tasking government with drawing school zones, which turns school board meetings into racially-charged contests where different demographics are trying to empower each other. A massive, multi-billion program of redistribution isn’t JUST that program, but also another vehicle for people and politicians to weaponize racial, political, and financial interests. You note that the market produces inequalities, but at least it’s better on average at distributing power across hundreds of millions of people. Employing the state for something vests it all in ONE institution (with legal sanction for violence), which makes it a high-value vessel for people to seize and maneuver how they see fit
On another note, you pre-empt the Thai fishing boats as an indictment of “state power”, but I don’t know that it’s an indictment of “free markets” either. The first thing any libertarian sees when looking at slavery/trafficking is that inmate rights aren’t being respected. Also keep in mind that coerced labor (in various forms) and poverty has been the default across millennia of human history, and it becomes clear that modern capitalism is not the origin of violent coercion and oppressive conditions. And it is most certainly not the driver when it is responsible for lifting millions of people up across the globe over decades.
But your point still remains: sure the libertarian sees that rights aren’t being respected, but what does their theory actually propose to make that happen? Or as you put it, “the theory lacks an adequate method of rectifying injustice”. How to go from the non-ideal to the ideal?
I counter that no one has a great answer to this. Freeing people from violence is insanely difficult due to the nature of violence. We in the US achieved our system of property rights first through intellectual revolution (Enlightenment sweeping through Europe, including Britain) and then military revolution (independence from Britain, new Constitution). Other societies and peoples across history have gotten freer with different stories, usually some other amalgam of cultural-intellectual novelty and violent force. It is a notoriously difficult achievement and not one that anyone can really address.
The best we can do — all of us Westerners typing on our screens, from our armchairs, as you say — is to advocate for as few persons as possible to hold reins of violent power over another, whether government or corporate or both, so that people can do what other people value and be rewarded for that in proportion.
Thanks for the comment, clearly you spent a good while reading the piece and I appreciate it. I'm really not writing a piece about reparations, you can substitute any policy really for reparations and my argument still holds, I just discussed it because that's what Nozick points to in his work.
Are Thai fish markets 'free"? No. Clearly, it's rife w/ abuse and rights violations. No libertarian thinks it's free, as you correctly point out, the issue I see w/ Libertarianism at large is that “the theory lacks an adequate method of rectifying injustice.” (Let's ignore that despite the miracle of capitalist growth there are more slaves today than at any point in human history, because increasing wealth is, again as you correctly point out, not the same as providing justice) Yes, no ideal theory really tackles the hard issue of justice. But you know who is actively trying to go from non-ideal to ideal? Activists, volunteers, people on the front lines like Ian Urbina, who is writing pieces about these fish markets and exposing these injustices.
The best you can do is get up from your armchair and do SOMETHING! This is what non-ideal theory is, not simply sitting behind a computer in a "non-ideal" way! Justice takes work, it takes energy. The libertarian response that "no one has an answer to this" ignores the actual activists and workers fighting for justice in the US, abroad, and even at UVA! (who notably lean much further left than libertarians) Even my critique is levied not merely against some theory, but against the libertarian party (as construed in the US in many regional spots) and libertarians themselves. I mean even Republicans support using public funds to prevent/ameliorate human trafficking in the US. Libertarians seem to believe they're as oppressed as victims because their tax dollars are spent on the DOJ.
"despite the miracle of capitalist growth there are more slaves today than at any point in human history"
This is _ because_ of the miracle of capitalist growth. Measure anything in absolute amounts and it's at the highest point in human history because there are so many more humans and so much more wealth. The proportion of the human population in slavery is the lowest it has ever been.
1. Libertarians do have people on the front lines who work towards justice. The EA community, Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, and if writing about injustices counts then tons of economists and philosophers.
2. Activism is not "a method of rectifying justice." There are activists for abortion bans, insurrections, and genocides. Activism is a way to change minds but it's only justice if it's goals are just.
Since we can't rely on activists to pursue just goals, using state power to achieve activist goals will not reliably produce justice (e.g environmentalists impact on nuclear energy). Although it is an equally unlikely policy to be implemented, Kartik's method of protecting justice is much more likely to succeed in helping people.
"The best we can do — all of us Westerners typing on our screens, from our armchairs, as you say — is to advocate for as few persons as possible to hold reins of violent power over another, whether government or corporate or both, so that people can do what other people value and be rewarded for that in proportion"
Agree with this take here. I have philosophical issues with libertarianism, especially as it pertains to the morality of a populace, but arguing that it fails to account for injustices of the past seems to imply the possibility of a utopia that just does not exist. Second the point about poverty as well. Globalization and markets have their flaws, but the alleviation of poverty has done such a tremendous good for the dignity of the human person any notion of radical change carries with it a heavy burden of proof.
Yeah, in no way is this piece advocating for abolishing free markets-at most pretty strong reparations, which I don’t think would have serious negative impacts on global growth. Also, there is an alternative proposed-reparations. Just happens that nobody wants to give up their wealth, certainly not libertarians
I'd like to revise my statement from "propose a solution" to "propose a tradeoff." This emphasizes that libertarianism is not perfect, as you point out, and the need for cost benefit analysis between the libertarianism tradeoff and a different proposal. I don't think that comparative analysis is present here. You have listed the cons of libertarianism but that alone is not enough information to decide how to act.
Check post and reply to Adam-the fact that libertarianism concerns itself almost entirely with property rights and has no method or real theory of rectification behind it is fairly inexcusable. Moreover, I am not convinced much by the claim “the state is bad but libertarianism is the best option” especially when libertarians in the US are more concerned w repealing the civil rights act than reparations or other methods of rectifying for slavery. This simply maintains historic power imbalances which in any just society must be fixed.
But what is your method or theory of rectification? At least libertarians can rely on people following their self interest to produce the outcomes they desire. What is your plan to get states to help these people?
Through actual political organizing, activism, etc. States are pushed to action. That’s just one mechanism that in the past has happened and is the reason the state today prosecutes human traffickers and puts resources into preventing snd stopping slavery today. Is this perfect? No. Is it better than libertarianism? Yes, because libertarianism does nothing as you just said.
Libertarianism promotes economic growth and immigration, these two things have done ten times more to alleviate poverty and slavery than any state or activism have done.
Can we rely on political activism to guide states to justice? There are just as many people protesting for Qanon as they are for human rights, maybe more.
This is a straw man, economic growth is not rectifying injustice. Are you seriously saying that activism fails to, even if imperfectly, push for rectification of injustices? You're anti-activism now? lol
The data I cited includes chattel slavery, which is what occurred in the US pre-civil war. There still are more slaves held now than at any point in human history.
Many children mining cobalt are enslaved (stricter definition, definite coercion and forced labor), although some do choose to go to the mines. The point of this article was to highlight libertarianism's lack of a coherent theory of justice in rectification. I mean, is it really true that big businesses like Tesla (cobalt) or Fancy Feast (Thai fish) bear no responsibility for the slavery when they profit more than anyone else from it? This isn't merely to decry the employers, but to decry the conditions of production which perpetuate and incentivize this exploitation, exploitation that came about in large part due to historic injustices (colonialism) that libertarians in particular are unwilling to rectify.
Thank you for your feedback! I greatly appreciate hearing from all sides and I appreciate that you took the time to read my work :)
Right, of course, I can buy that a 'free market' with large power imbalances becomes suspect, that's a great general point.