We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day “More people have heard of Tom Cruise than Ben Bernanke, but that doesn’t mean that Bernanke hasn’t had a bigger impact on their life.”
– Matt Zwolinski, a blogger at the recently expanded “Bleeding Heart Libertarian” group blog. He’s writing about the benefits and costs of intellectual versus political activism, as relating to Ron Paul.
The failure of Tom Cruise to influence my life is, I guess, something I can live with, although I did rather enjoy the latest Mission Impossible flick.
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The quote here is fun, but the linked piece is dishonest. It assumes, without proof, that Paul is distracting from the cause of winning over intellectuals and all but completely discounts the notion that Paul’s candidacy might in fact be benefitting IHS in its mission (by enlarging the donor pool). The whole thing is a pretty transparent, and shabby, false dichotomy.
Joshua, it is not dishonest. That’s his opinion about the effectiveness of how best to spread ideas. He could be wrong. He could be right. Ideas fight it out in a market and no one method is necessarily going to win out but at the very least, it pays to think about the most effective strategy. This is something that libertarians, given the hostile climate we often have to work in, need to pay particular attention to. I fail to see why it is wrong to do that and talk about it without been stomped.
And if you read the comment thread, you can see that moonbat Justin Raimondo soil his pants in a rage. It is not an edifying sight and actually makes the blogger’s point for him.
I would also add that the suggestion that this guy was trying to boost IHS is a cheap shot and it is hardly a secret where this person works. And if a politician achieves office, one might as well say that this guy is benefiting various close friends and supporters who will want to work for him, or whatever. That would be possibly unfair but what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as they say.
Well, I agree that it is not dishonest, but I think it does create a false dichotomy. Serious (non-Libertarian) Ron Paul presidential campaigns are twice-in-a lifetime events, and they create a substantial groundswell of interest in libertarian ideas. The passion he excites in his followers (and in his detractors; witness the exchanges here on SI) is extraordinary. And the fact that his message resonates so well with the under-30 crowd (attend one of his rallies and you’ll see what I mean) is truly heartening. There may actually be hope for the future.
One can always contribute to IHS, or the Mises Institute, or whatever, but there are only rare, short-lived times when one can contribute (and not just monetarily) to a movement such as Paul’s. And frankly, I think $25 donated to the Ron Paul campaign is better spent in advancing the cause of libertarianism than the same $25 donated to IHS. But many people who contribute to one will contribute to both, so I agree with Joshua that Paul is likely expanding the “donor pool” for all libertarian causes. As I said, a false dichotomy.
And FWIW, I generally like Justin Raimondo, although I agree that this comment thread isn’t his best. I’m sure he’s hurt that you called him a “moonbat”.
Newt Gingrich is going round the United States saying he is going to fire Ben the Printer and have Federal Reserve fully audited.
Which (of course) means I still (in spite of South Carolina) think that Gingrich has no chance of winning the nomination.
The forces he is taking on are just too powerful. One might as well say one is going to abolish the Fed (as Ron Paul does) – as if independent auditors were sent in the whole house-of-cards would collapse anyway.
Even Fox News attacks Gingrich (in every show – by having almost only pro Romney guests on).
One can not take on the entire financial establisment and expect to win.
The world just is not like that.
Till, of course, the system collapses (which it will) – then the game changes.
Laird, Raimondo’s comments that I have ever come across have been over the top, particularly on issues of foreign policy, whether regarding the MEast, Russia, etc. He tends to dish it out pretty heavily and is a bit too keen on conspiracies for my liking. Mileage may vary.
On your main point, I understand the election cycle argument and all. The point is that this is about how effective one type of activism (politics) fares vs another form (policy ideas, writing, speaking, whatever), and then looking at how a country changes with time. A lot of people might come to good ideas via Ron Paul and remain libertarians and that might shift the centre of political gravity, but other sources of change may be just as, if not more, effective in getting a generation of people to think about politics differently, and hence change the kind of political situation we have.
Part of the problem is institutional. With so much of the MSM still in the hands of those with a statist mindset, it is very hard for a politician to get out a clear message and not get portrayed as a nut. To solve this, we need more people in the media who are not so inclined, and that is where folk like IHS and the rest of them come in.
Like I said, it is something I am agnostic about, which is why I put up the quote.
Jonathan –
If it is not “dishonest,” exactly, then it is at the very least lazy. For example:
Actually there is a rather obvious (3): attracting more attention to libertarian organizations like IHS. There is no reason why Paul himself must do all, most, or even any of the educating here. I’m fine with him just being the PR guy.
Really? Can you think of even a single example of this? Does it seem remotely plausible to you that any resources whatsoever have been diverted from IHS to help Paul’s campaign? Doesn’t it seem more likely that donations to IHS have actually increased – if only marginally – as a result of the increased attention libertarians are getting? Doesn’t it seem more likely that the people Paul is getting attention from are mostly people who were barely aware libertarins existed before they’d heard of him? If indeed any resources have been diverted from IHS at all, isn’t it at least plausible that they have been amply compensated for by future attention the organization is likely to receive? And, if the intellectual side of this equation is a long-term pursuit, as it surely is, how much harm is there really from IHS having one bad year only to recover and go about its business, but possibly with an expanded base of interest, in the future? Now, these are empirical questions, obviously. And Zwolinski does absolutely nothing to answer any of them. Since it is at the VERY least possible that IHS is doing better for the prominence of the Paul campaign than it would otherwise be doing, I think it is fair to say that Zwolinski needs to address at least some of these questions to make his case.
It is a pointlessly polemic article. Zwolinski did not have to cast his argument in terms of an opposition between Paul and IHS, and indeed would have had a better case had he not done so. The reasoning here is so shoddy that I cannot really believe he means it as stated. It is in that sense that I have called it dishonest.
The author tries his best to change reality.
“If what Ron Paul is doing is bringing in resources that would otherwise not have been spent on furthering the cause of liberty, then yes, it’s not entirely a zero-sum game. And that’s certainly part of what’s going on, maybe a big part. But to some degree, Paul’s campaign is consuming resources that would have been spent promoting liberty in other ways”
A campaign has an end date. There is no time limit on donations to a Libertarian oriented organizations (assuming they continue to exist). People vote with their money, they find those “other ways” more inefficient than Ron Paul.
A possible zero-sum game is nonsense. It is undeniable that Libertarianism has not been this widely thought about and debated in our lifetime. The author acknowledges that there has been an increase in interest, and that it obviously comes from outside the community. The market or Libertarian thought is increasing.
“There’s no doubt that Ron Paul has created a great cultural interest in the idea of libertarianism – more people are talking about the idea now than they were, say, two years ago, more is being written about it, and so on. Academic publishers have taken notice of this, and so have been more receptive to books exploring libertarian ideas – in some cases even actively seeking out academics to write such books. So in that way, the Paul phenomenon might lead indirectly not just to the increased consumption of academic research but actually to the increased production of it as well.”
Since Ron Paul is attracting new people into the Libertarian sphere it should be obvious money flowing into that sphere will increase. At the same time it’s possible the hope of mainstream traction will stimulate Libertarians to also spend more time or money in the sphere.
When was the last time IHS grabbed newspaper headlines, or was in a nationally televised debate? How about discussed daily on news channels? It should be quite apparent that since the 2004 elections Ron Paul has done more to introduce people to Libertarian concepts than IHS has (possible ever if we go by voting results). The author was free to discuss where he thinks donations will see more impact. If he was thinking clearly he’d see that Ron Paul donations would only increase awareness of his organization because not only is it more effective at pulling in new people, but there is a time cap and a notional cap to donations.
IMO its sour grapes. IHS was not on the RP bandwagon like some of its other Libertarian competitors, mainly over small philosophical disagreements. If IHS were actually efficient they would cheer the larger market they can target and try their best to keep or increase their slice of the pie. Instead they are fighting against a one time event that has been much more visible and effective then any of their previous work.
One last comment by me before I lose the will to live.
I don’t think that the author of this post is trying to imply that the interest in their ideas has not been influenced by the Ron Paul campaign; then again, the Tea Party movement (which overlaps with RP but is not the same, either), is, I would humbly submit, an even bigger driver of such interest.
Or take another example of an influence outside the strict political realm: In 2008, 2009 and 2010, sales of books like Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged soared, suggesting a clear interest in such ideas. Organisations in the UK, such as the Cobden Centre (which advocates Austrian ideas on money and banking), have been set up and are now regularly getting the message out in the media, including via members of Parliament.
I don’t perhaps think it was necessary for the blogger to frame his piece as an either/or at the expense of Ron Paul, and some of the contributors to that blog might be trying to deflate the the Ron Paul balloon which they see lacking in substance or some other reason, but I don’t sense a general animus at all. It seems a pretty fair and friendly article to me, and I am simply vexed at how sensitive people are about a man who has, after all, carved out a very good niche in the political world.
MJ, whether it was “sour grapes” is unclear, but I rather doubt it. For what it is worth, the philosophical differences that it might have with some of the Ron Paul crowd are not minor or silly. As I have pointed out before, some libertarians are unclear as to just how libertarian Ron Paul really is on some issues (disagreements about his views on state’s rights, his vote against NAFTA, his ultra-minimalist views on defence, etc), and are disturbed by some of the folk who seems to follow him and have given him money.
What is IHS?
Glad somebody asked, Alisa.
Alisa, it is Institute of Humane Studies, a large think tank in the US.
There is, it is fair to point out, a bit of tension between say, some of these think tanks and organisations such as the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, (run by Lew Rockwell), as as some old, but fading animosity between some of these groups and the Capital “O” objectivist movement of Ayn Rand. (I find the Rand crowd a lot more agreeable these days). A broader issue is that some of these groups are more obviously doctrinally “pure” than others, or more fired up about cultural/social issues, than others. There are “Austrian” capitalists, and “Chicago” ones, or hybrids; some libertarians are consequentialists, others more of a natural rights/teleogical school. Some tend to hold very conservative values on most things, even to the point of being indistinguishable from the likes of Pat Buchanan on things like immigration and race (Rockwell, say, who is thought to have written some of those Ron Paul letters); others take a socially liberal stance on things like drugs, sex, art, and so on (think Reason magazine). Some tend to be gradualists, some want the revolution now!
I am afraid that libertarianism, like other isms, has its share of breaks, rows and personality conflicts. A great book on the history of the libertarian/classical liberal movement in the 20th Century, focused on America, is “Radicals for Capitalism, by Brian Doherty. He’s particularly good on the “Big Four”: Rothbard, Rand, Hayek and Milton Friedman.
Thanks, Jonathan.
I would second the recommendation of “Radicals for Capitalism”. An excellent book.
That would be the same Brian Doherty who published an objection to the very post we’re discussing in Reason, which is also on point and worth reading: (can’t include title or will get smited).
I am equally vexed at poorly reasoned objections to Paul coming from Libertarians, of all people. Fair enough that Paul is not a model Libertarian – why not just say that, rather than drumming up false oppositions with IHS? It’s ridiculous.
Sorry, the above should of course read “published an objection to the line of posts we’re reading,” since it is his objection that generated the current one.
Yes, I’m arguing semantics and beating a dead horse…don’t off yourself yet.
“I don’t perhaps think it was necessary for the blogger to frame his piece as an either/or at the expense of Ron Paul, and some of the contributors to that blog might be trying to deflate the the Ron Paul balloon…”
“It seems a pretty fair and friendly article to me.”
I’m not sure how both statements appear back to back. Maybe it fits your definition of fair, but it certainly not any definition of friendly.
Is it “fair and friendly” for an article to state the single largest attractor of new people to libertarian ideas is neither worth the readers time nor money (yet the author is!)? It’s a rebuke of a libertarian who nationally polls dead even with the current president, a historic event. It’s exactly the same message that comes from the threatened GOP and DNC. I’d like to think we can agree that it is silly (because the author could maximize utility by leveraging the greater visibility of RP (unless of course the author believes he can’t compete amongst the new audience)) and spiteful (for the above reasons).
Oh dear, here we go again. I’ll quote the author of the blog post that has riled some people up, since it deals with the Doherty point to some extent and my own defences of the Zwolinski one:
A bit later, he finishes with this:
No, you’re missing the point. This was a quote about the sources of influences in our lives, and I happened to come across it when reading this item about Ron Paul and the elections, as I do. It was not meant to be a direct attack by me on RP (I have criticised his stance on some issues elsewhere). However, as you chose to bash the author of the piece for his being dishonest (an absurd point that I have refuted), it seems only fair for me to take a look at the arguments he presents for the pros and cons of political campaigns and other sources of influence.
Try not to be so precious about a politician just because he happens to say things a bit different from the statist norm.
I am complaining here about the linked article, not your post.
The point is not absurd, and you have not refuted it. Gainsaying is not a refutation.
I wonder when pointing out flaws in other people’s arguments got to be “precious?” Or, for that matter, when your arguments got to be this lazy. I’m sorry you have a sort point for people posing rational disagreements with criticisms of Paul, but not everyone who defends Paul is a fanatic. Your generalizations are clouding your judgment, and they are unfair to your regular readers besides.
Joshua, you remind me my dental appointment I have coming up.
I give up and won’t write about Ron Paul again this side of November. Promise.
I would rather you just engaged the points raised. But duck out if you must.
Within a few hours a lifelone supporter of the Federal Reserve (someone who will not even support a real audit of it) will win the Flordia Primary – and go on to win the Republican nomination.
Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase (and so on) all finance the Romney campaign.
Perhaps he will turn out totally different as President – if, somehow, he becomes President.
But I see no evidence that Mitt Romeny even thinks there is something serously in need of changing at the Fed (as Gingrich does) let alone a need to get rid of the Federal Reserve.
As Ron Paul, and that wonderfully wise person Paul Marks, rightly, think should be done.
Still in few hours I will be supporting Romney. As the de facto candidate against Comrade Barack.
Ug.
Time for a Divine Intervention?