Immoral Libertarians

Why you should consider being one

I came across libertarianism at about the same time I was arguing with socialists [link] and it was integral to understanding why running governments under socialist ideology has been such a disaster.

Much as I appreciate Rand Paul, and his willingness to speak truth when much of congress would rather ignore it, I don’t think running a country on libertarian ideals would work much better than socialist ideology. I think this even though I'm currently a member of the libertarian party. Last year, I read, The Ethics of Anarcho-Capitalism [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084RMQTV1] It was interesting but rather like eating a butter sandwich.

Like socialism, there was a great deal of wishful thinking. “If humans would only…”

Gus DiZerega, a fellow Pagan, and ardently former libertarian describes his philosophical arguments against it here. Gus spent many years being a Libertarian and has offered considerable philosophic reading in his links. The book to which he contributed is available here. [I haven't read it.]

However, I didn’t become interested in Libertarianism through philosophy and scholarly study, but through politics, economics, and the practicalities of running a small business. Nor do I think libertarianism is ‘extreme right wing.’ My interest in libertarianism is that it is all about making government smaller and less intrusive.

A dictionary definition of “politic” says: shrewd or prudent in practical matters; tactful; diplomatic, or contrived in a shrewd and practical way; expedient. Politics is supposed to be about coming to practical agreements that would allow us to live together without bloodshed.

I don't argue that libertarianism is an ideology. When I first came across it, I didn’t understand the distinction between an ideology and a complete story about how to live. However, I don’t think Dr. DiZerega is identifying his own beliefs about political behavior as ideological either.

However much we might wish to do so, we can’t run a government on complete stories. We are stuck with politics. The mistake is to think that 1) an ideology is a complete story that is moral, and 2) that it’s a good idea to enshrine either stories or ideologies in law. Politics is a give and take about what we can agree on. For example, we can pretty much agree that murder is wrong.

Easy right?

Um, sure. Until you start re-defining what a person is. If some humans aren’t people, then killing them isn’t murder. If cows are people, then humans don’t get beef. Either direction eventually becomes destructive to a culture. Our culture is changing so fast now that we need more than a set of stable ideas. Even stable ideas become ideology if they stop supporting human flourishing.

Culture only works when it has functioning institutions, and people can agree on how to treat each other. That’s not the same as making a law about particular behaviors. One of the things I learned from studying libertarianism is that laws are lagging indicators of what people think is a good idea. Laws can be skirted and interpreted one way or another, as is being done with the numerous protests currently occurring on college campuses.

The big flaw with libertarianism is that it requires a given person to hold a particular set of ethics. But there is no ideology that lacks that flaw.

Dr. DiZerega uses the example of a petty dispute over noisy neighbors to demonstrate the need for more laws.

Property rights describe relationships into which people can enter with one another or with what they own.  These relationships have to be defined, and can change over time and with respect to what can be owned.  For example, I can make lots of noise on my farm at 3 am, I cannot do the same in my city apartment. Who decides what should be my rights and what should not?

A politic answer would be to make laws defining when, where, and exactly how much noise will be allowed to be produced, which in no way means that law will be enforced. A spiritual answer might be to draw on the virtues of patience and compassion. Or one might draw on the virtue of courage and ask the neighbor to turn it down. One might seek the longer term answer, and engage in the virtue of industry to get a new place to live, or find the inner peace to wait it out until offending persons are no longer in residence.

Relying on laws means we are less likely to cultivate these virtues. Why bother when we have someone else to do the work? Laws are shallow, and only regulate behavior if the people involved respect the idea of a civil society. Without that respect, laws are meaningless. Too many laws, or laws that attempt to regulate morality, mean that laws get ignored, and the general respect for the law itself is reduced. The war on drugs is an excellent example.

And who better to define those relationships than the people involved? Isn’t that what adults do?

John Stossel says:

There are only two ways to get people to do things: force or persuasion. Government is brute force. If you doubt that, try ignoring your tax bill or some [government agency] rule. Men with guns will soon appear to force you into obedience. By contrast, the private sector— whether nonprofit or greedy business— must work through persuasion and consent. No matter how rich Bill Gates gets, he cannot force us to buy his software.

Stossel makes the argument that we drift towards more government control because we are not that long out of tribal living. We are hierarchical beings by nature, and respond positively to the idea that the “Tribal chief” will give a fair accounting.

In a tribal society, that was much more likely to be true. The tribal chief saw everyone for whom he was responsible daily. If he was seen as unfair, he wouldn’t be chief for long. Compare that to our current system where congresspeople stay in power for decades. They get on the news whenever possible so they can appear in our living rooms and be ‘seen.’ But since we are busy, and the reality is that they are hundreds of miles away, we can't actually see what they’re doing and if it’s in our best interests. The system is gameable, and in multiple ways.

The Founders knew that the role of a government is to create the conditions of liberty and opportunity so that each of us can define success as we see fit and then work with all our might to attain it. Their visionary insight was that allowing us to earn our success is precisely what gives each of us the best chance at achieving real happiness. Modern evidence shows that the Founders were correct. The General Social Survey reveals that people who say they feel “very successful” or “completely successful” in their work lives are twice as likely to say they are very happy about their lives than people who feel “somewhat successful.” It doesn’t matter if they earn more or less income; the differences persist.

Dr. DiZerega points out that there are some very unsavory political positions among the philosophers libertarians espouse. I agree that we don’t have a moral right to abandon our children or take land because someone isn't using it. However, both of these views, [From Maury Rothbard and Ayn Rand respectively] are not remotely mainstream in any moral framework. Modern libertarianism, in my experience, is much more about economics. Nor does DiZerega acknowledge the damage that comes with too much centralized control.

The death of the Aral Sea, and Chernobyl are the two best examples. In the first case, the Aral Sea was nothing but a resource to exploit, and the destruction, starvation, and poisoning of the communities supported by the sea was just a bonus, as it meant fewer mouths to feed. Chornobyl was built by government planning; built so poorly that it had no containment and a design doomed to fail. The government did not even confess to the explosion for two days and didn’t bother evacuating the local city until well-after the Swedes discovered the elevated radiation. After looking at how the government of Japan dictated how and where nuclear plants were to be built, I will also lay Fukushima at the feet of big government.

I call myself a libertarian because I cannot condone what governments do to either human self-determination and happiness, or to the environment. At this moment, no other party has any interest in shrinking government or government control of our lives. Governments like to grow, and ours has done so almost continuously since Herbert Hoover.

But that means knowing your individual ethics and taking the time to know the ethics of the person in front of you. At the moment, we can only guess. This is anxiety-producing, and time-consuming. Maybe it’s time to start saying what we believe and why.

Without drawing blood.

That requires freedom of speech.

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Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. She lives with her husband, and is Mother of Cats; four boyz and one cranky gurl. Selina has written The Young Woman’s Goodlife Guide: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 20. Or… Learn From My Pain, and How to Train Your Cat: Using a Clicker and Leash to Keep Your Indoor Cat Happy and Healthy, and the Goodlife Guide to Nutrition.