The Libertarian Folly of Losing is Winning

This is a post just to share a thought and guard against wishful thinking. The recent NYC primary election of privileged radical Zohran Mamdani has reminded me again of evidence of an often repeated folly of libertarians: the delusion that when once the public has experienced failed Leftist policies, they will all of a sudden be struck with self reflective insight, soon recanting past support of the failed policies, and then, finally, the newly enlightened public will support libertarian principles. An odd result of this line of thinking frequently suggests that it's good if the others win because their failure will become a future victory. This thinking rests on the big assumption of effective and accurate feedback within a well-functioning process.

Now I'd like to state for full disclosure that I have sympathy with libertarian ideas and principles, and have been influenced by them throughout my life. However, the older I get, the more conservative I have become, and the less tolerance I find myself having with overly idealistic libertarians who are not fully plugged into reality and the way the world actually works. I think to be conservative, you must base your views, as best you can, on concrete truths and observed history and lessons learned from tradition. In this regard, libertarians fail. Soft Republicans also keep the libertarians company on this point more often than I’d like.

Case in point, the election of Zohran Mamdani. The WSJ has a new opinion article that describes the failures of the Democrat Party in NY, leading to the rise of Zohran Mamdani. So an even bigger progressive radical is required to fix the problems that the more mild progressive policies created. Yeah, right. Now, a conservative will look at the situation in NY, especially NYC, and think that it is becoming lost. To mitigate the downward spiral of NYC, a practical conservative would throw weight behind the besieged Mayor Adams (running as an independent) to fend off the truly fanatical Zohran Mamdani. From there, efforts could be made to help recover some conservative influence in governance. Or at least mitigate the awful. On the other hand, you get the libertarian types who want to see Zohran Mamdani because it will be so, so awful that it will inevitably lead to a libertarian utopia. The odds are slim to none, I say.

A feedback loop works great in a well-engineered control system. In a basic design you get inputs and outputs. In between there is a system process function. The feedback mechanism reads the outputs and compares them to desired outputs. This feedback information is then fed back into the inputs and the process function is altered to generate new outputs. Political systems don't work as cleanly as engineering control systems, though; you are dealing with humans. The logic and algorithms don't compute the same. This partly explains why libertarians will always be wrong in thinking that losing will bring about winning. Their imagined feedback loop never kicks in to produce their desired libertarian output.

It's much harder to build something than it is to destroy something. Building is difficult. Destroying can be fun and produce short-term benefits for those who desire it. The further away you get away from sound processes, the further you will be removed from sound outcomes. In engineering there is the concept of positive stability and negative stability. This is especially important in aircraft design. Of the three types of stabilization: Positive, Neutral, or Negative, you typically want positive. Why? Because when there is a disruption that unsettles the system, there is a tendency for self-correction. Conversely, in a negative system, when there is a disruption, the system continues to become even more disrupted and out of whack. So, on a basic level, you want to move in the direction you want, and not the opposite. Because one key point with regard to a Negative Static Stability system: once certain disrupted limits are reached, the system becomes uncontrollable and it leads to disasters and chaos.

There are a number of industrial and engineering concepts that might be beneficial to the general public. An introduction to these concepts might help public discourse and policy. But I'd like to start with the political right. In a crude analogy to politics and actual implemented public policy, know this: losing is NOT winning. Losing will tend to lead to more losing. Especially since progressives have tended to want to rig things with a Negative Stability when they control things. We can always hope for Joe and Jane Voter to see policy outputs and become the feedback loop to allow for correction; however, conservatives and the Republican Party need to be a lot more assertive and forceful in reinforcing the American system.