Peter Cuthbertson doesn’t like social liberalism. In a comment on The Liberty Log, he attacks free-marketeers who also favour social liberty:
So they advocate a smaller state while they also want government to promote behaviour that forces immense financial burdens onto the state? Greaaat.
I respect Cuthbertson a lot, and he writes an excellent blog, so I’m going to take the time to point out why I think he should reconsider his view.
Those who favour social freedom are not asking government to promote any behaviour at all. They are asking government to be neutral – to let people make their own choices. As for saying that it “forces immense financial burdens on the state”, this is exactly the same argument used in the early 1980s by the Left. Every time the government came up with a policy that would involve nationalised industries employing fewer people, this form argument would be brought up. Miners, they argued, were producing something and formed part of cohesive communities. Destroying the mining industry would force financial burdens on the state, destroy the family, violate rights…
Cuthbertson falls into the trap of believing that when the government doesn’t regulate people’s social affairs, society will deteriorate. Yet I suspect that many of the institutions he values – like marriage – have been in decline despite being controlled by the government. The problem of single motherhood has been an entirely government created phenomenon – not because of it being legal (it always has been) but because of government welfare.
Measures to reduce government involvement in social affairs should be welcomed. Labour’s proposal on gay unions does not encourage straight people to be gay. I think Cuthbertson would agree with me on that. But the policy will have a profoundly beneficial effect on gay culture, encouraging gay people to enter into more stable, longer-lasting relationships. Here we have a case of social freedom encouraging the sort of society that, I guess, Cuthbertson would like.
The reality is that over time society changes its attitudes. It is no longer socially acceptable to attack homosexuality. To do so is taboo. But despite developments in how people view the world, the government is often not very good at developing social institutions to cater for these progressions. In crude terms, it is often the inability of government to react to market forces that leads to social degeneration, not the market forces themselves.
Even on the drugs issue, where many people argue that legalisation or decriminalisation would lead to social degeneration, one should not ignore that degeneration is what we already have. 75% of crime is said to be drug-related, caused by the black-market price. Drugs being illegal doesn’t stop people using them.
No one wants a degenerate society. The difference in opinion is between those that think government control is that best way of society flourishing, and those who think that devolving the evolution of society to individuals and civil society works better. I, for one, go with the latter.
That’s all very well, apart from democracy. Social liberalism may not force governments to expand, but it encourages people to adopt lifestyles which lead them into situations in which they will usually vote for larger government. No, they don’t have to vote for welfare; yes, doing so is counterproductive, as we all know. But, absent a degree of economic education that currently does not exist in the population at large, they will vote for welfare, and any politician that promotes social liberalism knows it.
I’m a socially liberal small-governmant libertarian too. It’s a total bugger, frankly.
You’re dead right, Alex.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of Tories about who are immensely proud that they’re economically radical in some way but yet fit into the socially reactionary mould. I guess it comes from a knee-jerk Daily Mail sort of reflex, as their arguments, such as they are, are so easily demolished. They’re people who want to think they’re not meddlesome busybodies but continually have a bee in their bonnet about something. Well, at heart, they’re people who believe in the power of the state to change society and not in the power of people to change themselves.
If Peter wants to discourage behaviour that places a financial burden on the state, he should logically be against favourable tax allowances for married couples.
I bet he isn’t.
Squander Two, yes, that’s what pisses me off about the gay press. Labour, as vicious a party towards gay people as their rivals, has in the last few years started flirting with them, and, tarts that they are, they’ve fallen for socialism’s charms.
But then there’s been a lot of confusion between the repeal of unjust, discriminatory laws and the introduction of laws that apply to some groups but not others. Hence the current administration’s endless cycle of balancing acts, welfare adjustments, changes in social policy ad nauseam.
Ian: “If Peter wants to discourage behaviour that places a financial burden on the state, he should logically be against favourable tax allowances for married couples.”
I disagree.
Yes, the tax allowance is a small burden, but the indirect burden of feral societies caused by messaging the population loud-and-clear that explicit family commitments (ie secure child-rearing environments) don’t matter (by abolishing it) is far greater.
Without wanting to ape New Labour, Sometimes the message *is* the most important (than the actual few quid the allowance is worth to people).
I see the tax allowance (particularly Peter Lilley’s 1997 manifesto pledge for transferrable tax allowances) as being a great investment in the true sense of the word (as opposed to New Labour’s definition).
Ron, surely the married tax allowance and child benefit just encourage unsuitable people to get together and have kids they don’t want, and foster the belief that the taxpayer will look after things when things go wrong?
I don’t care whether everyone turns gay and the human race dies out or whether everyone gets married.
Society will set its own stigma on bastardy and bad parenting – which are different things – regardless of what fiscal benefits or penalties are attached.
“Drugs being illegal doesn’t stop people using them.”
Not quite. If you set an incredibly severe punishment (let’s say the death penalty or something) for using/selling illegal drugs you would reduce the demand. However there is obviously no popular demand for such a move, and most people would not regard that sort of punishment as fitting the crime. The middle way we have at the moment, of relatively low penalties coupled with the very high profits available for the suppliers, is what produces the existing problems.
“Yet I suspect that many of the institutions he values – like marriage – have been in decline despite being controlled by the government.”
I’m not sure if Culbertson deems himself a libertarian, but this posting raises a question I have been considering.
Why would any libertarian advocate the state sanctioning of various types of relationships. Cultural rituals, such as marriage, have no business being subjected to sancton and/or regulaton by the state.
Those who engage in riutalistic activities should not, IMHO, garner special favours from the state.
Often libertarians like to draw a distinction between the state and society. Is not the gay marriage issue just such a time for drawing this distinction?
Some clarification would be appreciated.
The problem of single motherhood has been an entirely government created phenomenon – not because of it being legal (it always has been) but because of government welfare.
Calling this a “government created phenomenon” is a bit of a reach. Social acceptance of single parents has changed dramatically over the last century; in the early part of the century there was huge stigma attached which made being a single mother or, *shock* being born out of wedlock, a huge stain on your character.
Rightly so these are no issues anymore.
While there is a component of the “welfare mum” who gets pregnant to get a council house, there are also lots of people who have kids and then split up from perfectly normal relationships but then can’t bring up kids and work at the same time.
The government shouldn’t legislate the way people lead their lives, the question should be how should it deal with the realities. Taking social steps backwards to some ideal from the past isn’t the way I’d like to tackle it myself.
The curious thing is that across the globe (or the democratic part of it anyway) Left parties are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but conservative parties are the opposite, and yet generally governments will swing between one of these two extremes.
The few liberal parties that exist (PD’s in Ireland, Free Democrats in Germany) do badly at the polls, and seem generally to attract about 5% of the vote.
Still, I suppose anything is better than a Government that is both socially and fiscally conservative.
Often libertarians like to draw a distinction between the state and society.
That is what we do all the time!!! I suppose that makes us Samizdatistas rather than libertarians.
I would tend to disagree with the idea that the Left tends to be socially liberal, because the Left has largely abandoned the idea of leaving people alone in any sphere of their life. Here in the US, the Left is at least as culpable as the Right in terms of attempting to regulate and censor speech, for example, and in attempting to eliminate the right to associate with who you please.
Many in the Left have what I regard as a rather adolescent fascination with sex, and seem to believe that being permissive on sex makes them freedom-lovers in general, even though they do not really recognize any other sphere of life as being properly exempted from state control. If you expand the focus a bit from sex to family life, I think you will find that the Left is just as controlling and prone to state intervention as the Right, only from a somewhat different perspective.
No state interference in people’s lifestyles.
No tax.
No freebies.
No burden.
Which part of the above is not obvious to all the “social conservatives”?
I don’t actually disagree with most of what you say, Alex. I don’t think the state is a good inculcator of ethics or personal responsibility. My view is that a socially illiberal culture (ie. Victorian England) is infinitely preferable to a socially illiberal government. Things like illegitimacy and drug abuse were perfectly legal in Victorian times, but the culture of those days ensured that people mostly didn’t indulge it (and you’re right that welfare has played a large part in smashing those cultural boundaries). But I think you’re kidding yourself if you believe a small state can exist without either a socially conservative government or culture.
My feeling is pretty much summed up by Squander Two’s post at the top – social liberalism encourages births outside wedlock, hundreds of thousands of children who simply cannot be afforded, irresponsible use of narcotic substances, indifference to one’s duty, to employment and so on. This inevitably leads to immense costs in welfare, policing, security, prisons, healthcare and so on. Broadly speaking, what is morally right is also what pushes the fewest burdens onto others. If you encourage people to indulge in a Do It Yourself morality, I think you have to kiss goodbye to any hope of a small state.
I sum up this feeling in more detail here. Also check out this.
Julian, believe it or not, I get it.
But I think that’s pie in the sky in the real world. Social liberalism creates so much crime, so great a pressure for a welfare state, that fiscal conservatism dies very quickly. Do you really think we could really have millions of children born to women who cannot afford them, millions of people unable to afford healthcare or education for their children, crime at insane levels because of the breakdown of the family, without the political pressure for a welfare state being inevitable and without police, prison and security costs placing a big burden on any taxpayer? Even if you would want to live in such a society, you can’t.
I agree with R.C. Dean. The left are no more socially liberal than High Tories are. Oh yes some of their more opportunistic political figures may make some socially liberal noises while in opposition but they soon turn authoritarian once in power.
I.e. They don’t mean it!
Peter C: laying aside the difference between democracies and libertarian-anarchies, basically my argument is that the state provision of freebies leads and inspires the “social degeneration” you describe – and that in its absence, the culture would alter to reflect the change. The stigma for spongeing would return, because it would be friends and family from whom one continually has to beg.
BTW, with no (or micro-) government, the costs of healthcare and education etc would massively drop, due to no longer having state provision around to suck up inflated prices, no longer having patents, and no longer having to pass expensive regulatory checks.
In addition, the average take home income would massively rise (no NICs or income tax) and its purchasing power would rise (no VAT and no passed-down-into-prices corporation tax).
The “idle underclass” and its demand for welfare is a problem the government has created, rather than solved.
I too disagree with the idea that the left tends to be socially liberal. The left in the US is extremely close minded with its own pet issues and certainly does not support freedom. PC is after all an invention of the left with its constant obsession with making sure that absolutley no one is ever offended.
Things like illegitimacy and drug abuse were perfectly legal in Victorian times, but the culture of those days ensured that people mostly didn’t indulge it
Didn’t publically indulge in it.
Opium dens did exist, there was a huge amount of child prostitution, there were work houses for “orphans”.
and no longer having to pass expensive regulatory checks.
Sorry, but could you define what you mean here in terms of how it applies to medicine.
Like with air travel, I don’t want the market to decide what is an adequate level of training and/or maintenance for aircraft or doctors.
Knowing that people will stop using them doesn’t help me, if, for example, I am smeared over the bottom of a Florida swamp.
“Knowing that people will stop using them doesn’t help me, if, for example, I am smeared over the bottom of a Florida swamp.”
An entirely worthy sentiment with which I wholly sympathise. However, airlines are and have been state regulated for years and, tragically, people still end up smeared at the bottom of a Florida swamp.
Similarly, the practice of medicine is heavily regulated (and in the UK it is largely nationalised) but we still witness horrors like the Bristol Royal Infirmary and Harold Shipman.
There is a widely-held belief that markets will not maintain standards as well as governments but I see no evidence to support this view.
Dave: there are two stages of “regulation” and the way each would be replaced differs.
First stage: “test whether it could work at all”. Equivalent to drug proving and to prototype-test-piloting. At the moment the state mandates perfection (especially for drugs) before public release. The private-rocket people are worried it will do the same for them. In a libertarian situation, instead, the maker tests it “enough” but not necessarily to perfection – the bulk of the risk is then taken by “early adopters” would would rather eg: try a promising new cancer drug, than die in its absence.
Second stage: “test whether it’s being made to a high quality”. This would be market driven, and the actual testng would likely devolve onto trusted assessors (like the AA star rating for restaurants in the UK). Quality would also reflect in price, with low quality for those willing to take a cheap risk, as versus expensive individually-tested equivalents.
Taking your example of airline, line A might use expensive, risky suborbital hoppers that (when they don’t crash) outspeed anything else. Line B might use cheapskate creaky ex-Aeroflot birds, but charge peanuts. Line C might use tried designs from trusted manufacturers, and charge normally. You as the customer then get to decide the risk/price/performance combination you prefer.
David,
Actually, looking at things like the Valuejet which ended up in a swamp it was airlines after de-regulation not following what were regulated industry practises surrounding maintenance.
There is a widely-held belief that markets will not maintain standards as well as governments but I see no evidence to support this view.
I invite you to test this view by picking a surgeon at random and flying on unregulated airlines 😉
Julian,
Line B might use cheapskate creaky ex-Aeroflot birds, but charge peanuts.
You think that letting the market decide is a valid way of doing this?
That works if the people flying the plane are fully aware of the risks. I am assuming, however, the airline is under no obligation to make the passenger aware of the potential risks. They’ll make all sorts of claims about being lean and mean and so forth, not about the fact they service their planes less frequently.
When they crash, and they will, most likely they will go out of business e.g. Valuejet.
Do you think that is acceptable?
Dave: in an ancap system, it’s not quite so simple as “going out of business”. The bosses responsible would be publically flayed-salted-drawn-and-quartered by outraged relatives, and what little law there is would look on and nod happily.
Or more likely, they’d realise that in advance, and make damn sure that by the time you’re onboard you’d already signed a disclaimer saying yeah, you know the planes are creaky, and you’re prepared to accept that given the price.
in an ancap system, it’s not quite so simple as “going out of business”. The bosses responsible would be publically flayed-salted-drawn-and-quartered by outraged relatives, and what little law there is would look on and nod happily.
Yeah, that would be my problem with An-Cap systems.
Which is one of the reasons I think its one of the weakest types of Libertarianism to argue for.
The Dems/socialists are not at all socially liberal, they are just as keen to manipulate citizens behaviour via the state as the social conservatives. They are both statists, but its just the agenda that is different. PCism is an anathema to to liberty.
If an airline owns old Aeroflot crates and its widely known, why is it wrong for people to chose to ride on them?
Alex said:
Those who favour social freedom are not asking government to promote any behaviour at all
and then said:
Measures to reduce government involvement in social affairs should be welcomed. Labour’s proposal on gay unions does not encourage straight people to be gay. I think Cuthbertson would agree with me on that. But the policy will have a profoundly beneficial effect on gay culture, encouraging gay people to enter into more stable, longer-lasting relationships. Here we have a case of social freedom encouraging the sort of society that, I guess, Cuthbertson would like.
Mollies of Merrie England, the government wishes for you to to marry and behave yourselves!
This “social freedom” granted by government still feels a bit like social engineering. Surely the libbo perspective on this is to abolish state marriage altogether? State sanctioned gay unions are more government not less.
I’ve always thought the place to get married was in church. If you can’t find a religion to marry you you can always make up your own.
Prudey lefties are if anything keener than prudey righties to blame social problems on media violence, and have been known to take a decidely dim view of jazz cinema. Though I think prefered tut-fodder are shitty italian video nasties the “facism” of boisterous American action films.
Kit: I agree with you that state marriage should be abolished:
http://www.libertyclub.org.uk/articles/issues-privatisemarriage.htm
One imagines that a couple of centuries ago high in the Ozarks some black sheep son of the Laird of Auchtymuchtie wintered with a squaw, trapped what he pleased as well as what he needed and lived a life as free as any man ever could. And why not? He had no extraneous responsibility resting on his shoulders. He had no care for a woman’s needs or his friend’s welfare or his neighbour’s. He had not to model masculine virtues to a new generation of boys busting, like he had, to live free.
Perfect freedom is a heady brew but its limit is reached early, when one begins to care for another human being. That is the essence of the issue and the great challenge to libertarians. How does one accomodate other people into the freedom to do and to be?
For what it’s worth, I think Nature equipped us with the solution and Man, especially modern man, has has done a fine job of screwing it up. Starting with the latter, his desire to be somebody and not nobody, to be wilfull over the wills of others, his need to expunge his inner hatreds and pain or just to damned well exercise his intellectual pride have left no avenue of free expression unchecked or unregulated. He it is who has governed, since government suits his purpose. And for the most part he has governed execrably, as one would expect.
Seeing that they might be free if only he would resile, good men fall into many a trap. Here’s one: “Those who favour social freedom are not asking government to promote any behaviour at all. They are asking government to be neutral – to let people make their own choices.” Well, Alex, there happens to be another force – a restraining force – at work in the making of these choices. It is an absolute, yet we abuse it all the time, in ignorance and to our cost. It is Nature, our particular northern European psychology developed over the tens of millenia and expressed unconsciously but faultlessly though our social traditions and mores.
It describes the limits of individual freedom and authenticates social responsibility. That the axis is moved continually leftwards by governments, often of both persuasions, is damaging and demands resistance. But any correction will be equally damaging unless it stops at a point which respects the truth of the northern European mind and its needy attachment to the primary institutions of traditional social organisation.
This is the reason why social conservatives are right and why social liberals, sadly, are wrong.
99.9% of our drugs problem is caused by not understanding why people take drugs. What we might call in an earlier day – superstition.
Drugs do not cause addicton.
If that is the case then there is no need to regulate them to the point of a ban because only those who need drugs chronically will take them chronically.
Now here is a real surprise: people in chronic pain chronically take drugs. This if there is no identifiable “physical” cause is called addiction.
Which is why the drugs market is so inelastic. People will do quite a lot to relieve their pain.
Drugs do not cause addiction. Pain causes chronic drug use.
Drugs are not the reason people can’t get pain relief. Government is.
http://windsofchange.net/archives/003370.html
It boggles the mind that even the most sophisticated libertarians can’t understand this simple idea – people take pain relievers for pain relief.
This completely explains why most people do not get “addicted” to drugs – most people are not in pain.
What I find most amusing is that most libs have given their minds to the goverment or “moralists” on this issue – “drugs are a hazard because drugs cause addiction”. What rubbish.
My guess is that with most social issues we do not understand the nature behind it:
The explosion of single motherhood is caused by the lack of marriagable men. Women are going to have babies. It is in their nature. Now the state does quite a lot to see that this imbalance continues. It incarcerates too many non violent criminals for instance.
You see this in the “girls gone wild” effect in America. With the M/F ratio in American colleges 40/60 girls will be promiscuous to attract a mate.
What we do about all this is another question. But the fact that as utopianist libertarians or ? we prefer to ignore human nature does us no credit.
http://www.nap.edu/issues/13.2/courtw.htm
There is lots of this kind of information out there but very few seem interested. Hardly any of those interested seem to take it to heart.
While being as much of a fan (worshipper?) of the Gods of the Copybook Headings as Guessedworker, I think it is worth pointing out that one man’s deterioration is another’s improvement. (In all likelihood, mine.)
M. Simon, it is my experience that many teenage single mothers found themselves in their predicament because in their young naivety, after ending up pregnant and having no idea where the father is or even who he might be, it sounded really great that if they simply went through with the childbirth the government would lavish upon them free housing and sometimes hundreds of pounds a week in “welfare benefits”.
I am actually acquainted with a young lady who admits she had no intention of bringing up a child at the age of 16 but when she found herself pregnant and the government told her she’d be entitled to free housing if she ended up having the baby she decided to go through with it because she longed for the independence she thought she’d enjoy from having her own house, away from her mother. This girl’s case is not, I am afraid, a freak incident – this is happening all the time, all around the UK. Had the government’s “very expensive taxpayer-funded rewards for teenage mothers” scheme not existed this girl would undoubtedly have either (a) tried a lot harder not to fall pregnant in the first place or (b) had an abortion upon discovering she was pregnant – because she was in no position to provide for even herself, let alone a child.
I imagine that teenage pregnancy accounts for rather a lot of the single mothers we have in the UK and I don’t think this rather disturbing trend can be so easily attributed to “the lack of marriagable men”.
M. Simon, and I’m sure others here, will appreciate my latest bumper sticker effort:
http://www.theplaintruth.cjb.net/article.pl?sid=03/08/04/1537213&mode=thread
M.Simon,
Thank you for the links. I agree about the drugs/ pain issue. I think your analysis is apt. I have commented on several libertarian threads that recreational drugs should be decriminalised – but only when society places psychological stability at the top of the agenda. That means reversing all the liberal trends that have got us in this mess – a socially conservative programme.
Re: the link about imprisoning black criminals, I can see two problems. First, black mores are not identical to northern European mores. Poligyny is a natural occurrence in African societies. Children are raised in extended families rather more than in the classic European nuclear family. It is damaging and foolish to expect differing racial psychologies, arising in totally different climatic regions, to live by the same survival strategies.
Second, the high production of testosterone among blacks (3 to 20% higher than white, depending on age and population) does, along with other factors, lead directly to more violence. This tendency may be exascerbated by the relative straitjacket of a European-style society, even a liberal one. In any case, we are where we are and criminality has to be addressed by some effective means. Exactly how is a never-ending debate. But making marriageable men available seems to me to be unlikely to become a principal consideration.
Meanwhile, we as a society can only look forward to more of the same until the terrible instability and harm to our social institutions caused by liberal reform is properly understood, and corrective action taken.
David Mercer: Hah, I oppose your bumper sticker. Black markets are free markets. Down with tax!
Nice article