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What I Really Think about Libertarianism
My libertarian friends may be surprised to hear this, but my respect for libertarianism has grown quite a lot since my introduction to Ricochet two years ago. Admittedly, my estimation at the time was pretty low. I had lots of libertarian undergraduates, and I also encountered a handful of professors and grad students with broadly libertarian views, so I was well familiar with that “I’m-conservative-but-not-a-moral-nag” snobbery. That bothered me only a little bit. My real reasons for dismissing libertarians were twofold.
First, libertarianism struck me as reactionary in broad sense. It presents itself as a universally applicable theory about the relationship between the individual to the state, but on that score, I found Ayn Rand far less insightful than Thomas Aquinas, Plato or Aristotle. Her influence, I saw, related to more idiosyncratic conditions of her time: the rise of the administrative state. That was, I supposed, a real problem in our time, but in historical terms it was still contingent; not every society has these same problems. As a political theory, then, it seemed to me that libertarianism drew unjustifiably broad principles on the basis of historically distinctive challenges.
Second, libertarianism seemed morally lazy to me. You can see this especially clearly when you watch undergraduates learning ethics. We spend a lot of time working through the ins and outs of an Aristotelian-type virtue ethics. That means we’re discussing lots of detailed questions about what the good life involves and what it takes for human beings to be excellent. Some of the students get into it. Others become irritated by all the nitty-gritty details and also by the general sense that a virtue-based ethics reaches into every nook and cranny of their lives. It has things to say about their dietary and sexual habits, what they read, what they watch on television, and what they do with their friends. Of course we’re only talking about ethics here and not politics; nobody’s suggesting that we hire virtue police to ensure that everyone behaves well. But even on that score, some people yearn to escape from all the complication, and to find some area of life where the only ethical mandate is, “do whatever you want just as long as you’re not bothering anybody.”
Then we get to modern moral philosophy, and you can watch the relief spreading over their faces. We knew it didn’t have to be that complicated! Being good can’t possibly require us to wrangle with all those messy details! This is the appeal of utilitarianism, for example. If you want to know what to do, just add up the relevant pleasures and pains associated with the various alternatives, and see what makes people happier. There’s no need for all this complicated stuff about virtues and human nature and detailed analyses of the common good. And on an individual level, the fact that an activity makes you happy is a good enough reason to do it, provided of course that it doesn’t make someone else sad.
Libertarianism is not explicitly an ethical theory, but for many it has a similar sort of appeal. It dispenses with troubling moral and political questions by pushing them all under the convenient heading of “not the state’s business.” Undergraduates love this. It gives them that air-clearing feeling that they’re craving after wandering through the intricacies of Aristotelian moral theory. It feels to them like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and friends come out of the woods and look out over shining fields of poppies. Free at last!
Like the poppies, though, this shining simplicity is deceptive. One way to realize this is by reflecting on the complexity of the concept of “freedom”. From what do we need to be free? For what do we want to be free? When humans live together in society, one person’s exercise of freedom can obviously impinge on another’s in a wide variety of ways. My neighbor blasts his music at top volume, and I can’t sleep. Another family up the street starts feeding the squirrels and before I know it my porch pumpkins have fallen victim to the little monsters as well. Advertisers want to put up pornographic billboards, but then I’ll have to drive by them every time I grocery shop. My state legalizes pot, and now I don’t like going to the local park because I don’t want my kids running through clouds of sweet-smelling smoke.
Now, I said that my respect for libertarians has increased. That’s true. Some of them have arguments far more sophisticated I had encountered before, and some are extremely interested in promoting the good through private means. They persuaded me to take the problem of administrative bloat far more seriously. Their relentless focus on size-of-state questions has led them to some very astute insights on the nature of the technocratic state, and they make excellent watchdogs (or gadflies?) against the constant temptation to take advantage of administrative bloat. But in the end, I think my two original criticisms still stand. They’re enormously clever about suggesting ways for us to accomplish communal projects without the help of the state. That can be quite useful in its way. But they’re still elevating a theory of government beyond its contextual importance. And they still provide a large haven for the morally lazy at precisely the time when we need to be morally energetic.
Advances in science and technology have massively increased the state’s power to rule us in every minute detail of our lives. It’s also increased our ability to hector and impede one another. Advances in technology allow us to spy on one another every minute, to redistribute wealth on a massive scale without sending a tax collector door to door, and to manipulate life (plant, animal, human) on a very fundamental level. We’re wrestling now with new and sometimes terrifying questions about justice and obligation and what kind of society we want to build. Libertarianism seems like something of a haven in this storm, because its prescriptions seem so fundamental and principled, and because it doesn’t demand consensus on most of these challenging questions. It seems like a good out.
But ultimately, that’s just a dodge. Small-state principles can’t save us from working through these issues. Suppose we could achieve political victory on a “morality-free” limited-government platform, legalizing drugs and prostitution and abandoning any efforts to recognize traditional marriage or protect the unborn. None of that would deconstruct the technocratic state. Meanwhile, social breakdown would continue apace, and eventually (probably rather soon) people would cry out for government to step up its efforts to save them from themselves. We’d end up with more statism than ever. But actually, I’m not even very worried about that, because I don’t think such a platform has any chance of winning the country back in any case. If we want to win America back, we have to show real insight into the problems they’re actually facing right now. Americans think that the GOP has failed to understand or “care about” them, and to some extent they’re right. We haven’t given them any good answers to the deep social and spiritual problems that have arisen in our modernist, technocratic, democratic state.
We need to return to core principles, but not Ayn Rand’s. She doesn’t have the insights we need at this juncture. Plato and Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas all reflected on a much more sophisticated level on the relationship between humans and their neighbors and their communities and the state. That is the level of complex, careful analysis that we need to diagnose and respond to these intense challenges. And insofar as I’m hard on libertarians, it’s not because I think they have nothing useful to contribute to this effort. They do have things to contribute. But often I see conservatism’s relentless focus on small-state advocacy as something of an obstacle to the kind of conversations we really need to be having right now. That’s not because I doubt that we need to shrink the state. It’s because I don’t think we can do it without answering the bigger questions about human excellence and human community, family, life, and the complex relationship between political freedom and virtue. And regrettably, libertarians frequently use their small-state principles as a kind of excuse to avoid those conversations.
Mike H asked yesterday: what do social conservatives want? I would answer: human excellence, happiness, virtue and a thriving society. Those are my highest goals. And while I do have some interest in the thriving of the state, that’s only about the eighth or ninth question on my list of concerns.
Published in General
I hope I’m not coming to this late. The problem with Libertarianism is that fundamentally it is naïve in at least four ways. (1)Just like its cousin, Liberalism, it assumes a human nature that is fundamentally good. People can be left to their devices, it reasons, because they will make the good and moral choices, and when they don’t we’ll punish at the point of conviction. Moral choices are a result of constraints placed upon it by culture, and once culture fragments into individuals, morality becomes relative. (2)It is naïve to think that family and communities don’t have interests outside individuals doing their “own thing.” The previous thread showed how drugs, education, even having a local ordinance on housing requirements place limitations on the individual in support of the family community. (3 It is naïve to think that cultures don’t try to institutionalize their values through legislation, and that usually means in opposition to individual desire. Public nudity is a perfect example. Cultural values almost always place restrictions on individuals.
(4)Finally it is naïve to think that an economic approach can be an all encompassing governing philosophy. Human beings don’t work that way.
I find that Ayn Rand’s objectivism to be abhorrent. I don’t know if it’s a natural outgrowth of Libertarianism or not, but it does strike me as a result of unconstrained individual will.
I think it would be impossible for a significant number of purely, unmoderating Libertarians to get elected, and if elected it would be impossible to govern. The opposition will always contrast cultural values (either Conservative or Progressive) in opposition to unrestrained individual will.
Now that all said, I do think we need more Libertarian approaches to our current state of government. We need to lower taxes, not because it’s freer but because it makes economic sense. We need to reduce the size of government because such a large government is unaccountable and insensitive to local issues. We need to not have a top down approach to issues but let the family, community, and yes the individual make more decisions for themselves. Again not because it is freer but because it is more efficient and responsive to needs.
Indifferent … you’re right – poor choice of words. If I read Hayek correctly, it wasn’t that Hayek didn’t care what the group chose, he was just opposed to any group formally trying to dictate what the group should choose. He denied they could know. The only way to find out was to let the process play out and see the result.
The point is, your church isn’t a market system. The church isn’t built by aggregating the information provided by believers or how they interact.
*cough* *cough* Remember, you’re talking to a Lutheran. In Lutheran theology, that is exactly how the church is built: by the community of saints (i.e. all believers) in their relationships with the triune God as revealed by scripture, which we can all read for ourselves—and have different struggles with, that we all learn from. And that has gone on for some 500 years.
I’m led to understand, on good authority, that this is even fashionable among you Catholics these days. ;-)
I was wondering when someone was going to mention some libertarian philosophers instead of Plato?! Particularly Bastiat, not to mention Locke.
Thanks. Randy Barnett is an excellent legal thinker. It seems to me, though, that what he calls “natural law” is just the outcome of utilitarian analysis applied to certain widely held values in American society. That’s not the way most people on Ricochet use the term.
Well, we’ll have to put a stop to that right away.
We Catholics believe that the “Deposit of Faith” is sufficient. We may be trying new ways to say it and explain it, but it’s the same core body of beliefs.
Completely tangential side note: there is a body of theology devoted to the phrase “keys of the kingdom.” If you read the text without nuance, it suggests that Peter (of all people) has the power to bind Heaven. So he’s got that going for him.
Being in the weeds with you is good. It means we’re getting somewhere :-)
While the market as a whole has no pre-set goal, societies within the market most certainly do.
Coase was perhaps the first economist to explain satisfactorily why firms naturally arise in the marketplace (as they do). He meant businesses, but it’s also possible to think of families and other societies and institutions as being firmlike.
The market needs no goal of its own to enable societies (firms) to reach their goals.
Well, the thing you said earlier was more reasonable. I agree that people can often be tempted to use unjust coercion when they’re confident in their vision of the good. But it’s possible to have ideas about the good, and still adopt a reasonable approach to disagreement, respecting that the freedom we want sometimes goes hand in hand with some undesirable behavior and negative cultural trends.
Also, ideas about governmental neutrality can themselves feed into a different kind of utopianism or naive idealism. I have ideas about the good, and I don’t expect everyone to conform to them, but I do think it’s reasonable for me to employ them in the public and political spheres, in prudent and reasonable ways. I don’t think I should have to squirrel them away into some mental closet, to be brought out only when I’m alone or maybe in church.
Some people, in the name of governmental neutrality, are prepared to get pretty Draconian about suppressing anyone who seems too confident or open about having concrete ideas about the good. Intolerance in the name of tolerance can be particularly ruthless, and lacking in self-awareness.
Re: 94
1). Libertarians do not presume the innate goodness of man. It objects to practically every form of organized, coercize power run by humans. We believe that most people act out of self-interest, not necessarily selfishness. Like Adam Smith said, we owe goods not to the benevolence of others, but to their self-interest in providing them.
2). I don’t know any prominent libertarians who object to families having their own interests. I am sure we disagree on how far communal vs. individual interests should extend. Many here would say that a family’s right to prevent exposing their child to drug culture outweighs an indivudal’s right to use drugs. Or prostitution/gambling/etc…Libertarians disagree and there probably isn’t a middle ground on that.
3). This is where I part ways with some libertarians. I am a federalist as well and while libertarianism is my ideal, decentealizing authority and “laboritories of democracy” is the most practical path there. I’d much prefer two states with different policies on drugs or nudity for that matter than a one-size-fits-all federal edict.
continued—
But what if there’s a significant market for something with strong negative externalities for non-participants, who will then be unable to meet their goals? Markets can fail, right, insofar as humans are fallible? How to respond to that situation?
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence – it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master…”—George Washington
Rachel, thank you for yet another thoughtful post. As with most of your posts, I have to think a while before I comment.
Reading the comments, I see people talking past each other. We should remember that Ronald Reagan was a social conservative and a libertarian leaning small government conservative. Why? Because virtue and small government go hand in hand, just like their opposites do.
It is true that personal autonomy should not be an individual’s highest ideal or even civil society’s highest ideal. Government, being an instrument of coercion, is different. A virtuous government (if one were possible) wouldn’t try to grow itself or increase the amount of coercion it imposes on its citizens.
If a society isn’t virtuous enough to live in freedom, to whom among it would you give the power to govern others?
Re: 95
4) Libertarianism has been simultaneously accused of being all-encompassing as well as shallow for not analyzing the human condition enough. It is almost entirely concerned with economics. It is not a philosophy for an individual per se. It is largely silent on how individuals “should” behave. Rather, it is concerned with how the state shouldn’t behave.
That’s fine, just fine. Please let me know who is going to be put in charge of deciding the “good” and then deciding how much disagreement is “reasonable.” At the moment, the best we have been able to come up with is Obama. Kind of bad, imho. But I suppose you find even that better than the Chinese Politburo, with their “one child” policy.
But all we need is just one person with perfect wisdom, and who is perfectly incorruptible. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?
But in what sense are you describing a market failure? A boom and a bust? Or a market not providing a service you desire?
This, by definition, will have to happen to someone (if not everyone), correct? When you buy something, it becomes more expensive for others; altering, and maybe eliminating, their ability to meet their goals. What you can do is outbid those you disagree with, which, in my mind, is more likely to maximize conflicting ideas of the good than voting, especially low information voting.
Actually, Coase is a great guy to read if you’re concerned with market failures. Plus, his major works occupy 213 pages of a 6-by-9-inch book, meaning they’re a quick read. (Do you own a copy?)
The quick answer is that it’s very hard to respond to market failure with coercive “solutions” that won’t end up actually making the situation worse (see the Coase blockquote here).
Firms themselves are a response to market costs (inefficiencies), but as the size of a firm grows, eventually diseconomies of scale outweigh economies of scale. “The government is, in a sense, a super-firm… But the ordinary firm is subject to checks in its operation… The government is able, if it wishes, to avoid the market altogether, which a firm can never do.” – Coase, Problem of Social Cost
Pigouvian taxes were one answer to negative externalities, but as Coase showed, not necessarily the best idea.
Oh stop being dramatic. You don’t realize this, but all you’re really doing is griping that justice and society-building are hard. Yes. They are hard. There’s no easy solution, including a false pretense of neutrality.
Presumably that depends on what situation you want to attain. If the goal is for as many people as possible to get what they immediately want, then sure. But that might not be the goal. If the goal is a good society, not just one in which immediate demands are met, markets may not reach that end.
So I said earlier that, as Coase noted, people form and join firms to partially insulate themselves from market costs, that this is in fact a naturally-arising feature of markets. In other words, a market in its natural state need not be, as many Socons (and libertarians!) apparently suppose, an atomistic collection of individuals, independently (and seemingly randomly) interacting. Rather, it incubates voluntary associations, associations internally insulated against certain market costs but also presenting a corporate persona to the wider marketplace.
Humans are naturally social creatures, “joiners”. Being embedded in various societies – family, church, a comfortable work environment, mutual aid societies (when they existed and to the extent they still exist) – is a natural, good part of being human, and not incompatible with markets when you allow for the naturalness of firms.
Rachel, for many people participating in markets is an exercise in delayed gratification.
Markets don’t just exist to gratify immediate wants. Instead, markets allow many people an unparalleled opportunity to delay gratification for a reasonable hope of later reward. People invest, buy insurance, save up for a house and kids, take a job they hate now and use the saved pay to start the business they’ve always wanted later…
True, markets also offer credit, where you can be gratified now and pay later – at a cost. But it’s narrow thinking to focus on the instant gratification markets offer while overlooking the delayed gratification.
Not to split hairs, but this is a case in which your immediate desire is for a means of delaying gratification. The point isn’t that markets naturally favor impulse gratification over long-term planning. The point is that they specialize in giving as many people as possible what they are immediately seeking (whether that’s instant gratification or a means to delay it), whether or not it’s good for themselves or others. What if that isn’t the result we want?
First, as a factual matter, the search costs in a market can be quite high, in time as well as money, which is one reason why people form firms.
More importantly, people who seek out instruction in virtue also have an immediate desire for the virtue they hope to ultimately acquire. That’s why they’re seeking instruction. People on a quest for a good society have a present desire for their hope of a good society to be ultimately realized.
People who act on any hope for the future are motivated by sparks of present desire for that ultimate good.
Rachel, I do enjoy the way you always avoid answering that question about who is going to be in charge of deciding morality for everyone else. No easy solution? There is no solution at all. None that works. Didn’t your OP start by criticizing libertarians for ducking the hard questions? Ironic, since you won’t confront the hard question of your preferred system – who is going to be in charge?
Since this is still a democracy, and since the tide of public opinion has been running against you for at least 50 years, I daresay that whoever winds up in charge of the public morals – you’re not going to like it.
What is the result you want? And if the market doesn’t produce the result you want, what do you propose to do?
This high falutin’ philosophical discussion is all well and good, I suppose, but really, how does it/we get out the vote and beat Democrats in 2014 and 2016?
First, getting SoCons and libertarians to feel more comfortable cooperating with each other is more likely to help them actually cooperate when it counts.
Second, if your worry right now is getting out the vote, you’re free to a post on it.
On the Ricochet Podcast, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein described life in an increasingly less civilized Sweden. She said in secular countries or those which lack a national identity the Muslim community has easily gained a strong voice. She says that if a society feels that it has little to defend or does not know what it stands for, they cannot inform immigrants on what is expected of them or on how they best could assimilate.
Isn’t this our question: how do we teach virtue; or what institutions best maintain the virtues a society values. I think the areas of personal and civic virtue are of greater importance and urgency than the political questions. I have not seen how libertarian philosophy is useful in answering these questions.
The result I want is a thriving and flourishing society, and if the market is failing in significant ways to create that, the place to start is by diagnosing the problem. We can’t do that if we just take it as assumed that whatever world the market creates is ipso facto wonderful and just.
Let’s suppose, hypothetically, that the failures we diagnose are pretty massive. Enabling people to effectively pursue their immediate goals has actually left us with a society in which many or most people are miserable, lonely and vicious. Is it possible to engage in some sort of broad consciousness-raising campaign, ultimately enabling the market to “save itself”, re-connecting with authentic human good? I don’t know. Tough question. But whether or not it’s possible, I definitely don’t think it’s inevitable, and I think we put ourselves in a very vulnerable position when we’re overconfident about markets as a reliable means of attaining authentic human good.
Just so you know, I’m not a pure libertarian myself. (I support anti-drug laws for example.) Still this comment (#115) takes me aback. I’m not sure where to begin.
It is one thing to stop someone from smoking a joint, and the benefits of such laws are hotly debated. Interfering with someone’s economic decisions (as long as they don’t involve theft or fraud) is tyranny, especially when its out of fear that people might make the wrong decision.
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C. S. Lewis