The idealism of libertarianism

[mindstalk]

Aaargh. Libertarianism is not about robber barons, people. It's not about selfishness or low taxes. Yes, robber barons may find it useful to espouse libertarian ideals, just as control freaks may find it useful to espouse communist ones. Yes, some people who hate taxes or are selfish bastards may be drawn to libertarianism for narrow reasons. But that's not the core, any more than becoming aparatchniks was what drew lots of people to communism. I've *been* a libertarian, stopping, ironically, only when I started having income worth taxing, I hung out with lots of libertarians in a community on the net for years, and with a few in person, so I claim superior knowledge to anyone who's only had random arguments and not actually been inside, or close to an insider.

Libertarianism, at least at its core and best, and why judge it by less if you don't do that normally? is as much a burning idealism as communism. When you join the Libertarian Party you sign the Non-Coercion Principle, forswearing the initiation of force, or forswearing fraud, and force except in self-defense. A not stellar but classic libertarian science fiction series had an alternate history splitting on a Declaration of Independence which talked about the "unanimous consent of the governed" (the real one lacks 'unanimous'.) Just as it is morally obvious to a communist that people in need should be helped or that goods should be distributed fairly (meaning evenly, to the communist), and obvious to an anarchist that property and capital should be made available to those who can use it, not sequestered in "ownership", it is morally obvious to a libertarian that people should not initiate force against each other (and that this is fair). Not having taxes flows from that (taxes are, ultimately, collected by force) but it's not the point. The point is that people shouldn't be forced, should be left alone if they wish to be, should be free to associate as they choose and to make voluntary contracts. The point is that voluntary association and exchange should be the basis of society, not force.

You can say the idea is impractical; you can argue the ideas are incoherent when looked at critically, but it's no more all about avoiding taxes or social Darwinism than gaming is all about fat smelly cat-piss men or killing imaginary people and taking their imaginary stuff.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

As I mentioned, there are exceptions. I divide libertarianism into right & left libertarianism. Left-libertarianism is pretty much another word for anarchism, which has a long and (sometimes) illustrious history, and today is most often represented by various versions of anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism.

Right-libertarianism is from all the reading I've done largely (or at least originally) a US phenomena started in the 1970s, and while it did not exist during the era of the robber barons, I'm certain they would have been exceptionally happy with it. With its focus on reducing or eliminating taxes, radical property rights, especially regarding land ownership (as opposed to most versions of anarchism, which completely [and IMHO correctly] renounce private ownership of land) and a general emphasis on self-reliance, the resolution of all social problems via private means, and in the extremes a callous and objectivist disregard for the welfare of others, I would claim that it is all about greed and would-be robber barons. The clearest difference between right-libertarianism and almost all other forms of anarchism is its strong support for capitalism, especially unregulated capitalism, which is both directly contrary to most other forms of anarchism, but is also one of the (many) clear indications that the origin of right-libertarianism can be closely tied to the strong conservative turn that US politics tool in the mid to late 1970s.

In any case, I do not believe that left-libertarianism is practical w/o major technological change (it seems to me to be the ideal form of political economy for a post-scarcity world), but I have great sympathy for it. OTOH, right-libertarianism is a right-wing ideology that I find little better than neoconservatism and that I strongly oppose in both our society and in any possible society that I or anyone I care at all about might live in.

Non-Coercion Principle

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're still at it. (https://www.lp.org/members/newmember.shtml) "To validate my membership, I certify that I do not advocate the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals."

So, channeling my teenage self, the challenge would be: if you disagree with this, then where? What justifies initiating force for you? What political or social goals are you willing to kill someone over? Are you willing to force someone to work at gunpoint, or to storm someone's granary and risk being killed because they aren't contributing to the public library or school, or because someone else is starving? Because that really is what it boils down to, no hyperbole.

It can help if you sweep many social goals together, so that you're storming someone's granary for not contributing fairly to the general welfare, but I don't think you can honestly invoke that without also considering what the general contributions are actually spent on. Defense and feeding the starving, defensible; expensive monuments to leaders, not so much.

I basically stopped being libertarian when I accepted that yes, something are worth collectively mugging people for, or that forcing everyone to put 1/3 of their labor toward useful social goals isn't unfair, and that a shared environment means unitary or dyadic actions which don't affect others aren't always possible, and thus collective decisions must sometimes be made. But I can still feel that tug and appeal of "Don't force people."

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Oh, and on top of the freedom issue, lots of libertarians honestly believe everyone[1] would be better off in their ideal world, too. More jobs, cheaper products, more innovation, cheaper doctors, more and cheaper drugs. (More and cheaper *other* drugs, too.) Plus the absence of migration barriers and of corrupt foreign policy due to the absence of any foreign policy...

Again, you can completely disagree with their predictions, but I think you suffer from misplaced cynicism if you assume they're insincere, especially rank-and-file party-member Libertarians. Cynical hypocritical selfish exploiters of ideals should be Republican, where they might have a chance at actual power, or LP party leaders, where they might get to embezzle campaign funds and feel important in a small pond.

[1] Except for DEA agents, prison guards, tax collectors, and such.