Monday, February 25, 2008
Libertarianism
I was once a libertarian.
What’s not to like? Libertarians want self-determination and freedom, two things I feel very strongly about. The appeal is obvious to people who like doing their own thing.
The problem I had was that something was always stuck in the back of my mind, nagging me that something wasn’t quite right. It took me many years to put my finger on exactly what bothered me about it.
In the meantime, I heard people talking about getting rid of the state and letting corporations take it’s place - managing roads and services, and in some cases, even defense. It seemed to me that moving power from a government to a corporation didn’t actually solve any problems, it just moved potential oppression from one entity to another. Though now, with power being vested in corporations without government oversight, they are even further out of the control of the populace than a modern government typically is.
What difference does it make if your oppression comes from the Feds or from Super-Mega Corp?
Yeah, I know, that’s only the wacky libertarians.
What about requiring seat belt use? Or food labeling laws? The first infringes on my freedom directly, the second on the freedom of corporations. However, both create significant public good at little cost to freedom. Does it make sense to object to these things on principle? Or does objecting to them just make one look like an unreasonable nut?
I’ve never been into drugs, which seems to be a passionate topic among libertarians. I always felt that people should have a right to destroy their lives any way they saw fit. But once their lives are destroyed, who picks up the pieces? Is it really a victimless crime?
Really?
At a gut level, I have a hard time supporting an ideology that supports allowing perfectly healthy people to destroy their lives figuratively or literally, whether the government regulates the process or not. Such an ideology seems deeply divorced from moral judgment, and it seems to no longer consider the well-being of it’s citizens as it’s primary goal. That doesn’t even consider the consequences of these actions to others - family, friends, and society at large.
Libertarianism is built on the principle that man is an island. Society is merely a collection of individuals, and protecting the right to self-determination of those individuals is of utmost importance. The flaw comes in that mankind just does not work that way. Humanity self-organizes into a hierarchy, and a non-minimalist government will be formed one way or another. If we don’t carefully craft how that government is formed, the old standby of might makes right will take over, as it has in examples throughout history.
You can’t have a successful libertarian society unless everyone agrees to live by libertarian principles.
It is just like socialism in that respect. Given a random sampling of five people, neither libertarianism nor socialism will be viable, because both provide an easy way for unscrupulous people to exploit and eventually destroy the system. Get five die-hard libertarians or five die-hard socialists together, and you might be able to make a go of it. However, the real world generally doesn’t work that way.
To me, libertarianism ended up being an interesting thought-experiment without having any real world application.
What then takes it’s place? Clearly more freedom is better than less, but too much freedom can be as bad as too little. Where is the middle ground?
I believe that we should first recognize that government is inevitable. Three people in a room will form a hierarchy. To deny that tendency is folly.
How then do we give everyone a vested interest in maintaining the stability of that government? How do we prevent it from breaking down into might makes right? We do that by making everyone a part of the decision making process, by making each individual responsible for the good functioning and good acting of that government, and by ensuring that the incentives for working against the will of society are much smaller than the incentives for working within the established structure of society. We do it by giving each individual a vested interest in the good functioning of that society and that government.
That’s republican democracy, in a nutshell.
Yes, it chafes those who feel that they should answer to no one. Their lack of unbounded freedom is intolerable to them, but the choice isn’t really between freedom and oppression. It is a choice between a government where you have a say and you are bound by it’s decisions, or a government imposed on you by the strongest power in the neighborhood.
Now I know there are plenty of libertarians who are willing to work within this existing system that we have. But - would their philosophy and political beliefs have allowed them to create such a stable and prosperous nation from scratch? No, I don’t think so, and I think that points towards a fundamental flaw in the entire philosophy. One enters the “be careful what you wish for” realm with libertarianism.
Libertarians and conservatives have a lot in common, because we both believe that freedom and self-determination are vitally important. Where the difference lies, I think, is that libertarians are less willing to accept the will of society, and to recognize the primacy of society’s interests over that of the individual. That primacy is vital to a well-functioning and stable society. That primacy can also be easily abused, it is being abused, and I think the modern libertarian movement is to a large extent a reaction to that abuse. (That is, the modern libertarian movement excluding the pot-smoking hippie set, who seem interested only in that libertarianism supports their self-destructive lifestyle and simplistic “make love not war” view of the world.) I can respect that and sympathize with the idea that society’s primacy over the individual is being abused, for I deeply share those same concerns. Where we part company is in wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater, in treating the system as an all or nothing situation, where government intrusion into daily life is an unequivocal bad regardless of the societal good that may come from it. If the good of a governmental intrusion or restriction outweighs the bad, we should not stand in the way of that good for the sake of a principle.
I was once a libertarian. Since then, I believe I have learned to accept human nature as what it is, with all of it’s frailties and imperfections. I have learned to accept the implications of those human imperfections on what governmental systems are advisable and appropriate. I have come to a much greater appreciation for the intentions of the Founders, the reasons for those intentions, and the flow of history leading up to that point. I believe that learning and studying is a never ending process, particularly in studying, thinking, and discussing under precisely what circumstances it is wise to subsume the rights of the individual to the will of society. I believe that the system the Founders gave us is the best one possible, and I firmly support the right of the People to self-determination, including the right to infringe on individual liberty as they see fit within the limits of the Constitution. However, I also feel it is my duty to be an educated part of that process and to do my part to ensure that such power is used wisely and appropriately.
I now feel that my political philosophy fits better with my values and with reality. Libertarianism never did that for me, so I changed my outlook on life. This philosophy feels satisfying and internally consistent, in a way that libertarianism never did.
Comments
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I suppose I am a libertarian. Boiled down, I want a system where everyone leaves everyone else alone, unless they hurt someone else. Then we all get together and lock-up/execute the offender.
That said, I do know that can never be. We would never agree consitently on who crossed the line, or where exactly the line of infringing others freedom is. A dream libertarian society would devolve in to anarchy. The anarchy would most likely be followed by some form of totolitarianism.
Libertarianism is almost a perfect counter-balance to utopain socialism in that both want what is best while neither would ever function due to the failings of human nature. Both want what is best for everyone. Libertarians following the bottom-up idea of the individual first, the socialists starting up top with the state. Both will fail due to the inevatableness of someone screwing over someone else.
That same human failing is the reason the system we have now sucks sometimes. Switching systems is not going to change human nature, so, we work within the system we have (the best that has been tried so far). What else is there to do?
Cobar | 2/28/2008 09:39 AM CDT -
And if you take the “Are you a libertarian test” that’s been around on the internet, you and everyone else on the planet will be one, to some degree.
The problem is that libertarians WANT to have ownership of the idea of “liberty” and if you demonstrate IN ANY WAY that you agree with some aspect of that, You are a libertarian!
Not.
But libertarians don’t have an exclusive on the word liberty. It doesn’t mean “those who espouse liberty.”
I don’t want to live in a world where “everyone leaves everyone else alone.” No one does, really. When you start getting into specifics (ie, reality) no one except a sociopath/narcissist wants that. What they want is a world were people are respectful of others, who give a damn, who have pride in themselves and their neighborhoods, who are willing to stick their neck out for others, and turn a blind eye as much as possible, while not allowing misery to thrive on people.
Mrs. du Toit | 2/28/2008 09:55 AM CDT -
Cobar, I have to disagree with your use of the term “human failings”. Those human “failings” is what have kept civilization moving formward. The desire to enrich oneself, and provide well for ones family, is the root of progress.
The problem is not the desire for wealth and status ... it is the drive to achieve by taking it away from others.
The individualism drive of Libertarianism is what dooms it to failure. Much as I prefer being an individual, and enjoy living apart from others, I realize that a comfortable life is not achievable by myself. If I have to grow my own food, and still be able to make enough spare change to pay for health care and the toys that make (my) life enjoyable ... well, it just don’t work that way. We have a comfortable lifestyle because of the specializations we’ve created, and the ease of trading via currency that we’ve agreed to accept. In other words ... none of that works unless we work together.pete in Midland | 2/28/2008 12:00 PM CDT -
What I mean by failings is the actions of those that the majority of us would consider criminals. (thieves, murderers, etc.) As you said, rahter than produce for yourself, or come to a mutually agreeable deal with someone else, you take what you want.
I may very well be a sociopath. I prefer to keep all but a select few at a comfortable distance. People who’s company is worth more than the trouble they cause are hard to find.
Maybe a good number of self-described libertarians have had the same experience. The people you would rather avoid far out number the people you would choose to be around if you had the choice.
I suppose that the whole ninja turtles concept Mrs. Du Toit wrote about could be part of the reason I feel this way. I figure I am young in comparison to some, maybe most, of you. I did 13 years of public school, K-12, having the group-think/hivemind idea pushed on me. It could very well be that I am still chafing from that 12 years later.
Oddly enough, the idea of always working as part of a unit never once bothered me in the army.
Cobar | 2/28/2008 07:30 PM CDT -
Thus spake the proprietor: “The problem is that libertarians WANT to have ownership of the idea of “liberty†and if you demonstrate IN ANY WAY that you agree with some aspect of that, You are a libertarian!”
...until they find out that you don’t agree with _every last jot and tittle_ of their platform, declare you a statist apostate, get ready to burn you at the stake, and then realize it violates ZIF.
MiddleAgedKen | 3/3/2008 03:49 PM CDT
