Coronavirus is dominating all our lives just now, but I have little to say about it other than that I, like almost everyone else, wish it all to stop, both the virus itself and the measures now believed necessary to combat it. Whether these measures have been and are insufficient or wise or excessive, I look forward to reading about in the months and years ahead, but do not now have much of an opinion about.
Instead, I would like to ask some questions about the political beliefs that most of us here share. What are the best arguments you know of in favour of libertarianism? I define “libertarianism” loosely, as a general inclination towards liberty, towards property as the way to solve the problems of contending liberties, general lifestyle freedom, and (very) little in the way of governmental power, either financial or regulatory.
Insofar as I can remember how I first thought about such things (during the 1960s and early 1970s), what made me a libertarian was that the world’s most free countries seemed also to be the nicest countries, while the least free countries were definitely the nastiest ones. This contrast was especially clear when you looked at single countries which had been divided into two countries, unfree and much freer, such as Korea and Germany.
What pushed me away from the majority “centrist” notion of how things should be (quite a lot of liberty but also a lot of government), was the thought that if extreme liberty worked amazingly well (Hong Kong seemed to me to illustrate that) and extreme lack of liberty definitely worked extremely badly, why would you want to have a “balanced” mixture of these two contending processes, one very good but the other extremely bad? There was a widespread view, then as now, that “business” needed to be quite free, but that things like healthcare, education, and (a particular interest of mine) architecture, could not or should not be treated only as businesses, as the mere outcomes of free and individual decisions, like the washing machine business or the hi-fi business. I thought: Why not? Surely this notion should be given a serious go, in at least some countries. I further thought that if it was given a serious go it would work out very well, and that it consequently would, or at least should, spread very widely and preferably to nearly everywhere.
I further believed that “lifestyle” freedom and commercial freedom went well together, each reinforcing the other, despite the loudly expressed opinion from many of my contemporaries, who also favoured lifestyle freedom but who believed that only government power applied to the advantage of hitherto disadvantaged minorities could set them free.
So, those were my answers to my above questions, and such thinking continues to make me call myself a libertarian. But are mine the sort of arguments that will best persuade others to arrive at similar conclusions?
What I’m hoping for from commenters is not so much minute dissection of only a very few arguments, but rather quantity of arguments, each quickly and perhaps rather roughly described, together with expressed preferences for this sort argument over that, in terms of persuasiveness. Thanks in advance for as many answers to these questions as commenters are kind enough to supply.
Concerning quantity of arguments in particular, different people respond to different arguments, depending on how they already think, and therefore maybe quantity is the key to successful libertarian persuasion. We need lots of arguments, including many that we have either not yet thought of, or made much use of, or which we ourselves do not now consider very persuasive. Perhaps the title of this posting should be: What are all the arguments for libertarianism?
By the way, you don’t have to be a libertarian to contribute to this discussion. Quite the contrary. Every argument against libertarianism calls for a response, which it may get, or may not get but should.
Links have been lacking in this so far, so here is one to end with, although not a proper one because it is to a video recording of a talk that I myself gave in 2012, to the now alas dormant Libertarian Home. This talk was entitled Libertarianism Is Simple To Describe But Not Simple To Argue For. Partly because of what it said, this talk started well but became less coherent as it went on. But I’m still quite proud of it, because despite its meandering nature, it does refer to many different sorts of arguments for and against libertarianism, of the sort I seek to learn more about now.
I consider myself a libertarian, but recently I seem to be moving toward a sort of national libertarianism, if there can be such a thing: that is, small government, individual liberty, but also well-secured borders, restricted immigration, keeping our military close to home, and autarky rather than unrestricted free trade.
My problem with unrestricted free trade is that the idea seems to depend on the notion that other nations are neutrally disposed toward your nation, or at least not hostile to it. But we see again and again that such assumptions simply are not true. So, I am starting to think it might be a good idea to be largely self-sufficient, and trade those items at the margins which increase our enjoyment – bananas, porcelain, lagers, teak.
Does the entertainment of such intellectual heresies get me thrown out of the club?
“What are the best arguments for libertarianism?”
The opposite of people being allowed to do as they wish is people having to do what they’re told. Told, presumably, by politicians. Have you ever actually met a politician?
I rest my case in favour of libertarianism.
Ferox, what you’re describing is authentic conservativism, which hasnt existed for a long time now…
My first contact with libertarianism was as I reading some about Heinlein. My first belive was that libertarianism must be something strange from science fiction.
I heart more about A. Rant and I don’t change my mind.
A way later, I start to think about political philosophy, i. e. Locke, Hobbes and so on. At this point I start to think in a other way: What if the individual has certain rights, not since the community given this rights but just because the single Human being exist. (Please note, I’ve this Ideas not as a american but as a quite continental European. This means something…)
From this viewpoint, libertarianism makes some sense. If there are nature given Human rights, then the gouverment does not have clearly the permit to suspend this rights. Neither the Will of the majority nor the want of an authority has the right to ignor the rights of the people.
Here is the central problem with this teaching, where do these natural rights come from?
We have a situation where the Prime Minister has decided that what passes for a free society is incompatible with the National Health Service. He therefore abolishes the (remnants of the) free society rather than the National Health Service.
There is no recourse for those whose liberty and property has been restricted, damaged or destroyed, other than to start again in the ruins of whatever is left afterwards, taking whatever funny money the government borrows, taxes or just steals to pay for it (from your other pocket). The UK government’s actions remind me of a ‘joke’ around the time of the Dangerous Dogs Act, when American Pit Bulls were the menace du jour. ‘A group of geneticists have been working on breeding out the aggressive nature of Pit Bulls by crossing them with Lassie. So far, results are mixed. The dogs still attack people, but they go to get help afterwards.‘.
@Ferox
You’ve expressed my ideas better than I ever have up to now, and I will probably re-formulate the words and phrases I use and borrow/steal some of yours.
I consider myself a sort of ‘soft’ libertarian – never hard-core because I view the idea of open borders to be suicidally insane. As well as that I would drastically reduce the role and size of the Welfare State but can’t bring myself to the position of 100% abolition of it. Where would maimed soldiers get financial support from?
I’m in favour of the right to bear arms but with at least 3 provisos:
no criminal record
sound mental health
taking a training course and passing a test.
The main argument for that is that individuals are safer and society as a whole is safer if law-abiding people can choose to own and carry guns.
The secondary argument is that although armed civilians can not defeat a standing army in a full-on war they can raise the cost of tyranny so as to deter or limit its application.
I am in favour of legalising all drugs – but would again impose licensing standards.
Two main reasons:
it is no business of the State what I put in my body
the societal costs of drug use would go down if they were taken out of the hands of criminals and were licensed and of known strength.
Now, what about freedom of speech, religion and association? My individual problem here is that I have a deep and strong loathing of the Religion of Peace which I regard as evil and society would be better without it; in my least libertarian moments I would like to see it banned.
Perhaps the best way of dealing with it would just be to allow people like me to verbally rip it to shreds and hope it would wither away as a result of that? Perhaps I could do that after Hate Speech laws were deleted.
According to Locke, natural rights are justified both by Scripture and by “reason”.
Of course, the appeal to Scripture does not work with atheists, or even agnostics. The further argument, that i have occasionally met, that one must believe in God because if one doesn’t then it becomes impossible to justify ethical principles, is circular reasoning: ethical principles are justified by religious belief, and religious belief is justified by the need of ethical principles.
IIRC Locke does not quite get around to explaining what “reason” means in this context. If we take Michael Huemer’s position that reason must include both logic and intuitions, then we can agree with Locke and say that natural rights are justified by moral intuitions, either directly or by intermediate logical steps.
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I also wish to note the contrast between the consequentialist arguments of Brian and Tim, and the Lockean theory of natural rights. One can believe in both, of course, but it is important to understand that they are different arguments.
David D. Friedman believes in both, but claims that he had more success using consequentialist arguments when arguing with non-libertarians.
Some random thoughts – I’ve not had time to apply any sort of organisation to them:
Evolutionary argument – competition is far more effective at finding good solutions than centralised ‘intelligent design’.
Innovation, error correction, efficiency are easier to do with freedom.
Symmetry of sides – reciprocity between ‘us’ and ‘them’. We have to be tolerant of ‘them’, because to ‘them’ the definitions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ are reversed.
Market optimisation problem, free trade gives the most efficient allocation of resources.
Human fallibility – mutual elimination of blindspots.
History of economic and social success.
Utilitiarian relief of suffering, promotion of prosperity.
Selfishness is turned to motivate cooperation and helping one another.
Freedom delivers justice, socialism delivers mercy.
Aesop’s Ant and the Grasshopper parable.
Ending the cycle of violence, revolution, and oppression.
We are all minorities, for some dividing lines.
Wasted resources used for control, wasted resources being controlled.
Not to drive dissent to spread underground, where its errors cannot be countered.
New discoveries arising from the need to explain and argue.
Checks and challenges as the immune system of our body of knowledge.
It is better to spread liberal culture through social contact, reproductive survival of the fittest.
There are dangers in trusting authority without checking, cynical tyrants can manipulate belief to their profit.
The more people understand, the faster knowledge can be expanded, the more resistant it is to falsehood.
The ability to argue enhances the ability to think, to solve problems, useful to everyone.
Suppressing dissent causes a fading of beliefs into dogma, lip-service, and the eventual decay of knowledge.
Necessity of trade-offs between competing risks – debate ensures both sides highlighted.
Freedom to give offence – can be used to shut down debate, disagree on norms, self-referential, has penalty inbuilt anyway.
Freedom to ‘sin’ individually or with mutual consent – allow for fallibility of our own moral judgement, justice (reward for virtue, punishment for sin) requires having responsibility for own actions, different norms define sin differently, forced virtue is no virtue, neither is forcing virtue.
Economies of scale – cooperation between larger groups enables greater efficiencies, fewer barriers, more tolerance for differences enables.
Uniformity is boring!
The majority is on average pretty dumb – brilliance is concentrated in individuals.
Persuasion is more powerful and longer lasting than compulsion.
Trade is based on people valuing things differently, so that by exchange both may profit. Trade depends on tolerance for differences, on mutually exploiting them
Wealth is a demonstration of, and reward for, helping others. Money is the measure of what one has done for the rest of society that has not yet been repaid. Justice expects that those who help others, should themselves be helped, out of gratitude.
Excessive profits are the reward, motivation, funding, and guide to resource allocation for solving society’s problems. If the problems are to be solved, profits provide the most effective way of doing so.
Competition is the best guard against exploitation.
You mentioned corona in the prelim to your discussion, I think it actually is an interesting example of different approaches. We currently have a massive socialist boondoggle trying to solve the problem with Philosopher King Fauci dictating and commanding every last detail of our lives, and bureaucrats directing who should produce what and how much, like some Soviet planning committee. It seems to me, perhaps in my tiny ignorant way, that there is a fairly straightforward individual solution to this that fits perfectly with libertarian philosophy.
Why are we telling people to stay home? Because in this unusual situation the mere act of breathing on someone might hurt them. From that point of view communicating the virus is really a form of assault and so we could easily extend our laws to say that communicating a virus knowingly like this is a minor assault (during a declared time of national emergency.)
Secondly, there is a fairly straightforward way to prevent assaulting other people — that is to go to the store and buy some personal protective equipment so that whatever you breath in or breath out is bubbled through a solution of chlorine, or another suitable anti viral agent. If everyone walked around in these suits for a month or two we could all go back to work and pretty much do everything we need to do. Probably some things might be challenging — but 80% is better than 0%.
But, you say, we can’t even produce enough PPE for our healthcare workers!! Yup, supply and demand is a problem that libertarianism has NO solutions for at all, right? Oh, wait, yes it does. On the contrary, were this the approach we took you’d be able to buy all sorts of options — PPE that looks like a business suit. PPE that had a Che picture on the front, PPE that let kiddos in school dress up as astronauts. Elegant PPE from Gucci for ladies to wear to the ball. That is exactly what the market does when apparatchiks don’t take everything over and direct production. hell they even make it in the same blue boring color as was common in the USSR.
What do you want? Government diktats, commissars controlling production targets? Big brother telling you how much toilet paper to buy? Or a self empowered solution that allows the basic ideas of common law to manage interactions between people at a local level. Plus letting everyone get back to normal, even if they walk about in goofy suits for a while.
In answer to your question — the only way to convince people that libertarianism is good is by showing them how free market economies serve people much better, by explaining how their favorite government program would work much better in a privatized competitive setting, and, most importantly, explaining how the government is not compassionate to the poor — on the contrary, government dependency ruins the poor. As Reagan once said — the best welfare program is a good job.
For me the critical question (for government) is “Who decides?”. With politics as with economics, most decisions are best left to those who would be effected by them. Any call to have someone else make the decision needs to be justified. Thus I favour a minimal government, not a non-existent one (anarchy) and allow for the expansion of government in times of crisis. There also needs to be a mechanism for holding those in authority accountable after the crisis has passed. In our modern society, that mechanism is largely lacking.
When you hear a government minister, the First Secretary of State, Mr Raab, say (as he just has) that he hasn’t got a plan for getting out of the current situation as it is still going on is like hearing a pilot say he has no plan for landing the aircraft that he is flying over the ocean and he’ll think about that at some future point. You cannot trust the government or be sure that those acting as government know what they are doing. Letting government take health decisions is like letting hijackers plan your holiday flight.
“…is like hearing a pilot say he has no plan for landing the aircraft that he is flying over the ocean and he’ll think about that at some future point”
He’ll think about it when Air Traffic Control give him a landing slot and tell him what runway to land on, which will depend on how many other aircraft are trying to land, the weather and wind direction at the airport, ground crew and equipment availability, which terminals are free, etc. Until he has that information, there’s no point in coming up with a detailed plan. And at the moment he’s concentrating on navigating the plane around the hazards where it is now. It’d be pretty silly to crash the plane into the sea because you had your head in a map of the airport trying to figure out the route from the runway to the terminal.
Mr Ed (April 13, 2020 at 4:21 pm), not having chosen a plan, and having reason to think no plan can be chosen, are two very different things. One thing we can be very sure of is that starting the economy again – in whatever state the shutdown has left it – can happen with no plan whatever. Boris can tomorrow announce that compulsion is ended, that all businesses whose owners think it wise can reopen and all people are from now on to follow their own good judgement on where they go and whom they see. It’s the shutdown that requires planning, not the restart. The very last thing we want to do is persuade the government that they must prolong the lockdown a second beyond what they think (however excessively) the medical risk demands because they also have acquired some sort of duty to instruct us in how to resume living normal lives. Isn’t that just what we don’t want them to think?
After everyone who can has restarted as best they can, it will doubtless appear that some businesses have been too damaged by the shut down. At that point, I echo Nullius in Verba (April 13, 2020 at 4:47 pm) above. Insofar as we libertarians may still think government should pay for some of the harm its orders cause, we may think it can judge that better when it’s obvious after lockdown is over than ahead of time, when it requires foresight. (Noting, however, that some advance-notice confidence that help will be forthcoming may be essential to let such businesses plan to survive – so that qualifies this second paragraph.)
North Korea?
My 2 bits: there’s an inverse relationship between the morality of the citizenship and the number and severity of necessary laws and subsequently the minimum size of the overall government. “Morality” here being defined as the social behavior of citizens. As the population increases, the variance in social behavior tends to dictate an increasing number of laws and greater social control.
“Socialism delivers mercy…” Really? Seriously?
When and where has that ever happened?
Mercy is more typically delivered out of a combination of compassion and prosperity…and generosity.
Capitalism produces more of all three.
Socialism has no surplus to give that it has not taken ultimately under threat of force and violence. The generous impulse is also stifled under socialism…caring becomes a function of government, not the individual or private group.
I don’t like the concept of truly libertarian education, because corners are cut, and those least able to afford a good education would be precisely those who need it most. Thing is, they can be government owned and still be treated as businesses.
The voucher system, whereby schools are funded for every pupil they pull in, motivates schools to be attractive to parents and students. That they are both owned by the same body doesn’t mean they needn’t compete.
The government would provide a curriculum, so that students could change schools without too much impact, and check it was being met, but otherwise keep out of the whole affair. What do they add?
Competition is important to drive up standards. Ownership and the need to make profits are not. The very best schools in Britain are often private — but they aren’t for profit.
I tend to think of the profit motive as the second-purest motive there is, with only the love of family being higher.
I will agree that healthcare is a funny sort of market, however. Many of its customers are in no position to shop around, and in the U.S. many healthcare providers won’t even divulge their prices until after the fact. And they charge different prices to everyone, willy nilly. Yeah, that’s a weird market.
““Socialism delivers mercy…” Really? Seriously? When and where has that ever happened? Mercy is more typically delivered out of a combination of compassion and prosperity…and generosity.”
It doesn’t require prosperity. It is usually motivated by compassion and generosity – but with other people’s money.
Justice gives to people what they deserve. Mercy gives to people what they *need*, even when they don’t deserve it. (i.e. “… To each according to his needs.”) It takes from people what they earnt (i.e. deserve) when it is in excess over what they need. (i.e. From each according to his means. …”) Socialism is motivated primarily by the virtue of mercy, of unbalanced compassion for the poor and unfortunate (even when their poverty is due to their own behaviour or inability) simply because they need it or want it and don’t have it, when other people do. They reject the idea that the cost of paying it is even a consideration – that is to put greed and selfishness ahead of compassion.
It’s important to understand because socialists feel themselves to be the virtuous ones, and if you are to argue them out of it you have to understand why. They think of it, and usually call it, ‘justice’, but this is a confusion. It’s far closer to mercy. And if you think of it in those terms, you can more easily explain how mercy can be well-intentioned but foolish and unjust, with bad consequences. It gives them a way to defend their self-image as ‘good people’, (attacking which will trigger resistance and disbelief), while allowing themselves to acknowledge that it might not necessarily be wise or practical. They don’t always, but it is at least more possible.
If you can understand that it is mercy and not justice, then you can see what is being missed. The other side of the balance is whether such prosperity has been earned. And you can then maybe understand why those who have earned it but don’t need it feel so hard done by when the socialists take it away – it offends against our sense of justice.
But the profit motive doesn’t work for schools and hospitals, because of the distance between the worker and the owner in terms of desired outputs.
Schools and hospitals are odd, in that the person providing the actual service (teacher, doctor, nurse etc) often cares quite deeply about the quality of service provided. Many teachers certainly will work longer hours than they could get away with and still get paid (albeit not all). Nurses tend to care about their patients, and look out for issues beyond merely doing their rounds. Meanwhile the managers are often ambivalent about the service, and the owners don’t care at all.
That is quite different from say a retail shop where the managers and owner usually care deeply about the service provided because they need the shop to stay open, but the workers are literally only doing it for the money. (One way round that is of course to pay by percentage sales, because that incentivises the worker.)
If schools are made into businesses, then the teachers adopt the same attitude as most workers. They work less hard and care less, because instead of seeing their pay as a reward for service they see it as for the time spent, and resent every time the bosses short change them to extract more profit.
I’m sure there are a few libertarian types who wish that were not true, but it is. People will work more than they have to if they think what they are doing is worthwhile. But they will work less than they should if they think they are being taken advantage of.
There’s a few natural experiments of this in the world. The “international schools” that proliferate everywhere the local school system sucks is one. I have brief experience with non-profit and for-profit schools of this sort, and the non-profit deliver a far better service for less cost to the parents. I have worked for non-profit schools, and am happy to do so again. I will never work for a profit one (partly because they pay worse — salaries being a significant cost for a school).
If there were a system of paying teachers and nurses by service delivery, then it might be different — which is why the right often seek to do just that. But despite many efforts, no reliable system has been devised, and most of the attempts to date have been ignominious failures. One stumbling block is that teaching and health care is collective by their nature — if I withhold information to improve my relative position, then I generate an overall worse outcome.
There’s nothing wrong with profit, and I hope my wife’s business makes a lot more, but some things don’t work that way.
All very nice and theoretical but reality is knocking at the door NOW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I2LKTwv4jg&t=7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnWilZseV9U&t=1s
I’ve always considered myself a libertarian. Early in my life as a child rejected by the selective secondary school system; I couldn’t see why children at the age of eleven could not simply choose the type of school they wished to attend since the educationally backward or non aspirant would prefer a secondary modern and the ambitious, for whatever reason, would elect to go to a grammar.
Later I experienced the enormous difference between what I could achieve in a bureaucratic Civil Service, (negligible), and what I could in the same subject, do with freedom of decision and action, (considerable) outside on my own, even with far fewer resources. This experience has been repeated with variations all through my life until retirement.
The layering of our present society with rules and regulation instigated by a distrustful elite has served merely to infantilize the population and stifle innovation and wealth.
Brian,
With respect, as soon as you frame the conversation as a series of folders in a filing cabinet you are instantly hung up op edge cases, or trying to distort the folders to accommodate different views.
Accepting, somewhat reluctantly, that folders are the only way progress the conversation (and I’m with you on this debate) I’ll out myself as belonging to the extreme camp, which, though I use the label with trepidation makes me an anarchist.
Instantly, I’m a bomb thrower…..
What I think puts me in this folder is the view that:
No matter how well intentioned, inevitably governments become awful. They demand a monopoly on force.
Bigger government = worse government
People, individuals make choices, no top down view can accomodate the multiplicity of those choices.
I could go on, but if you look at any individual position implied by this view, straight away it gets murky…..
If I have any rights to the fruit of my labour, no one has the right to unilaterally help themselves to such fruit. Yet, this is accepted as part of the ticket in a compassionate society.
You either accept the will of the majority or ultimately demand that your individual voice / choice has primacy. See how far that gets you today.
As I said, I don’t like the label or what it implies, but, yup, I’m an anarchist……
It is wrong to use aggressive violence, or the threat of it, against other people – it is wrong to attack their bodies or steal their stuff. Anyone who has seen (or read) such plays as “The Trojan Women” (written thousands of years ago and many hundreds of miles away – among people of a different language, religion and culture) understands that morality is not subject to “historical cultural stages” – what is just was always just and what is unjust (a violation of the bodies or goods of others) was always unjust. No matter how common injustice was. Justice is to each their own, injustice is to use force or the fear of it against the bodies or goods of others.
Once that is understood libertarianism naturally follows.
It is also true that the economic consequences of libertarian principle tend to be good – for the universe is so constructed (either by God or by chance) that doing what is morally right tends (tends) to have good economic consequences in the long term. But it is a great mistake to base the case for JUSTICE (for not robbing or attacking other people) on long term economic benefits – still less on “happiness” (a doubtful concept that is hard to measure – and too often falls into the trap of “pleasure” and many people get great pleasure from the idea of inflicting unjust pain and suffering on others, indeed perhaps we all have such a dark side to a greater or lesser extent).
As for the morality of the people – Aristotle was mistaken (yes it is possible for even “the philosopher” to be mistaken), it is not the job of the state to make people “just and good” – indeed “Blue Laws” and so on create a society of hypocrites and are a gift to Organised Crime (which gains vast material gains, and POWER, from the things that are made illegal). As Prime Minister Gladstone understood – of one thing I am certain, it is not from the state that there can be moral improvement.
It is often said that the dark side of human beings justifies a big government – the truth is the opposite as the government is also made up of human beings. And human beings tend to do the most dreadful things when they can claim is for a noble purpose.
As for the media – they tend, in the modern period, to concentrate on individuals or political parties they dislike, they do NOT (generally) oppose the size and scope of the state as such. Indeed in the United States the government bureaucracy and the media are joined-at-they-hip and they unite in hatred of anyone who opposes their “educated” power (educated because they both products of the education system). In the days of the New York “Barnburners” the idea of the press as an educator of the public against the horrors of Big Government may well have been true – but in these days of “Schools of Journalism” it is the opposite of the truth.
So the idea that the media will act as a safeguard against. the “abuses” of big government is absurd (and the bad things are not “abuses” – they are the natural way a big government operates) – and the idea that “educated” people can be trusted with power more than un “educated” people (a false idea that goes all the way back to Plato) is even more absurd.
As for the “break up of private concentrations of wealth and power”.
It is quite true that such things as Church Taxes are wrong (wrong because they are the unjust taking of money by the threat of force) and that such things as private aristocratic landowners not being allowed to sell their land or people not being allowed to sue them for their land when they do not pay their debts – is also wrong. This is what is wrong such societies as Sicily in the 18th century.
However, the solution is plain – and it is not a Big Government. Get rid of the Church taxes (and do NOT replace them with higher State taxes) and allow private landowners to sell their land if they want to (as was eventually allowed in the early 19th century), but do NOT force them to do so – as was done by the mass plundering (sorry “land reform”) after “unification”. Do not steal land from either individuals or from private bodies corporate – such as churches.
The “new Sicily” after Italian “unification” was worse, much worse, than the old Sicily – as can be seen by emigration from Sicily.
And the destruction of the “economic power” of the old landowners and the Church by the stealing (and it was STEALING) of their land did not lead to a land of happy peasants under a big government – it led to the rise of the MAFIA as the new small holders were not strong enough to stand against it (ironically the organisation was made up of people from the same “social class” as themselves) which extorted money from them without mercy – and the “Enlightened State” just crushed them with taxes, persecuted their language (which as just as old as Tuscan “proper Italian) in its government schools, and took their sons for the army – there had been no conscription in the old Sicily.
In Japan the new enlightened Big Government pushed up taxes on the peasants (the “reform” of 1872) to fund its government schools and new conscript armed forces (the later leading Japan to the disaster of endless wars against nations with much larger populations – wars they could win battles in, but could only lose in the end). The taxes of the new state were so high that some farmers had to sell their daughters to brothels – very “enlightened” and a true “moral enlightenment”.
In Latin America (as in Sicily of old) “land reform” has left Civil Society without its natural leaders (the old estate owners) and opened the door to the rule of criminal gangs such as MS19 (motto “rape, kill, control”) – it must be a great comfort to the peasants that the men who steal what they have (Latin American taxes are only “low” if one leaves out the “unofficial” taxes) and rape their children in front of their eyes are from the same “social class” as themselves.
As for the anti landlord stuff of J.S. Mill and the anti private industrialist stuff of J.S. Mill – well the best that can be said of it is that he was loyal to his father (James Mill) and family friends David Ricardo and Jeremy Bentham – his ideas are both economically false and immoral so it is a bit of a problem that is he is now the best known British liberal thinker of the 19th century.
“Chesty” Puller was right – a “Social Bandit” spouting about “the rights of the people” and “social justice” is just a bandit – a robber and a murderer. And the correct response is to answer their force with force – shoot them dead.
It is much the same with the French Revolution itself – far from “taking liberty too far” it was not about INDIVIDUAL liberty at all, contrary to Hegel the French Revolution did not increase individual liberty too much – it did not increase it at all.
Someone who really thinks that ordinary people were more free in the 1790s (under the French Revolution) than they had been in the 1780s (under the French Monarchy) is just wrong – as they were far LESS free.
“The Rights of the People” being a very different thing (indeed in this case the opposite of) the rights of an individual person.
I’m not a doctrinaire libertarian the way I was as a teenager (back when I started reading Samizdata, actually – I started maybe 2004, and I would have been ~18 then). But I still believe in it in a broad-strokes kind of way. Here’s a summary:
**Pro-libertarianism**
– Technocracy is overrated: There’s no special class of superior people. A lot of people claim to be better, and in specific ways they likely are (e.g., I can confidently say I’m the best person in this channel to give you Canadian personal/small business tax planning advice), but that superiority is both hard to distinguish from the outside, and usually very limited in extent. So if I want to solve a narrow problem I’ll go find an expert to solve it, but there doesn’t exist anyone who’s an expert in anything. Most things that modern governments do require a dizzying range of different specializations, where you’re trading off different considerations. An economist can tell you what social isolation will cost, and an epidemiologist will tell you how many lives it’ll save, but who decides whether that’s a good trade? You inherently need a general view, which is extremely difficult for a technocratic regime.
– People are different: Government is generally a very blunt instrument, and bad at nuance or special cases. Every individual is a special case in one way or another. Limiting all your interventions to big blunt government programs deprives you of the flexibility to deal with individual circumstances. It’s easy to miss this from on high, but it’s usually critically important in practice.
– Evolutionary algorithms are really good: One of the most powerful ways to find good answers is evolution. Try stuff, see what works, throw out the things that don’t. It created humans from rocks and water, most obviously. But even if you’re a creationist, this also describes many human processes – the best information source in the world, Wikipedia, was basically created this way. (And it’s worth noting that Jimmy Wales intended Wikipedia to be a traditional encyclopedia, but the wiki he made as a side thing took off while he still only had like 20 expert-written articles – that says something important). Capitalism is exactly the same. When you don’t have a nice simple system like physics with easy experimentation, you can’t find answers deterministically, so you need to guess. Guess-and-check is a very strong approach there. Socialism destroys the guessing (because people can’t try a variety of approaches if everything is centralized), and crony capitalism destroys the checking (because you don’t reject approaches unless they’re allowed to actually fail, with some consequences).
– It works really well: This is basically Brian’s argument from the OP.
**Anti-(extremist-)libertarianism**
– Some things just don’t work: The one that pushed me away was, of all the weird things, electromagnetic spectrum allocation. I just cannot think of a plausible minarchist system that makes any sense at all. Anything I ever heard suggested would always obviously wind up with a spectrum that’s horribly misallocated, and big chunks of the last century’s technology just not happening. That seems like a pretty big failure to me. There are others as well – for example, tort law environmentalism has some intellectual appeal, but it’d be better for lawyers than the environment in practice(just look at patent law). There’s real advantages to politicians cutting through that in some circumstances. And of course, there’s issues like coronavirus (or, if you’re a skeptic, look at the Spanish flu). The private sector does a lot to create and enforce norms, but government has a big role to play there in terms of coordinating and speeding up responses, and in terms of keeping people from doing stupid things for money.
In this vein, there’s also a goodly number of things where making them work in a libertarian system basically turns it into an idiosyncratic copy of a mixed-system government. Tort law environmentalism is a good example here too. Basically, it means the government makes pollution law, but it’s a judge instead of a minister. Is the judge really that much better at it? My first point above says no.
– We can afford charity: Yes, government welfare is less efficient than private charity, and more easily abused. But we’re wealthy societies, and we can accept some inefficiency to reduce the number of people who fall through the cracks. It helps lower the chances of revolution, in extreme cases, but even without that I think it’s a good tradeoff to have a bit of a welfare net.
– The systems that work really well aren’t minarchist: I agree that West Germany worked a lot better than East Germany, but West Germany was hardly a libertarian utopia. Even Hong Kong had a government, and one that was bigger than Ayn Rand would have liked. If we’re trying to copy and expand upon the things that work well, we shouldn’t go too far into the unknown.
I oppose libertarians for much the same reasons I oppose socialists. Libertarians embrace many of the ideological principles of socialists. They believe that individual humans are blank slate atoms, without history, culture or biology. Libertarians, like socialists, are globalists who believe in open borders/free trade, regardless of the destruction heaped on local communities. Communities do not matter. People are identical atoms.
Fundamentally, libertarians share responsibility for the destruction of the American Midwest, for the opioid epidemic, and many other evils of the modern world.
I too have an issue with open border/free trade libertarianism, as I said in the first post in this thread.
But I disagree that libertarians believe people are “blank slate atoms” or “identical atoms”. Instead, I suggest that libertarians believe people are all individuals rather than groups, that they differ greatly from one another in both capacity and in preferences, and that despite their differences all should stand equal before the law. A libertarian society would be the most difference-tolerant society imaginable.
Nor do I agree that the opioid epidemic can be blamed on libertarians. Libertarians tend to believe in the legalization of drugs. When opioids were legal in the US, there was no epidemic. After they were made illegal, the drug traffic began, and all the accompanying social ills came along.
Fundamentally libertarianism is, as another commenter has pointed out, about who gets to decide things for you – you, or some official who is convinced that he knows better than you?
“Libertarians, like socialists, are globalists who believe in open borders/free trade, regardless of the destruction heaped on local communities.”
Socialists just draw the borders in a different place. This is the basis of trade unionism.
Protectionism asserts that shortages of essential goods and services are good, because that raises prices, which raises wages, which make us all rich. In order to prevent cheaper outside competition from supply cheap goods, dropping prices, and so making us poor, they erect various barriers to trade. They block out the cheaper competition, make sure only they are allowed to supply the need, maintaining the shortage, and thus maintaining their high wages. The reasoning is the same for all Protectionists, the differences are in where they draw the lines around their definition of ‘us’. A trade union, for example, draws the line around the union workers. They seek to enforce a ‘closed shop’ where only union members are allowed to supply labour, thus creating an artificial shortage, thus keeping their own wages high. A trade guild does the same for business owners, only those with the right accreditation, the right guild-issued certificates and guild-rationed training are allowed to provide services, thus creating a shortage and therefore a high price. Nationalists draw the boundary around a nation, so nationality plays the role of union membership, and illegal immigrants play the role of ‘scabs’ crossing the picket lines. The economic reasoning is exactly the same. Protectionists seek a monopoly over supply, in order to engineer and maintain a permanent shortage, which raises prices and hence their own income.
The problem with their reasoning is that they follow the chain of consequences no further. It is true that considered in isolation, Protection applied to your own business benefits you, at the cost of the rest of society. However, this ignores the fact that every other business is doing exactly the same thing! So you pay the costs in higher prices of everything every other industry supplies, which always more than offsets the gains from your own industry doing it.
This is unavoidable at a very fundamental level, because the wealth of society is not defined by money, but by how much stuff there is to go around. True wealth is measured in goods and services produced and received, not dollars. Any mechanism that deliberately creates shortages, to keep prices/wages high, is inevitably producing less stuff. And less stuff to go around means society is poorer, whatever the numbers in the bank accounts might say.
The way a society as a whole gets wealthier is not through wages rising, but through prices falling. A society is rich when everything is so cheap that even the poor can afford it. Wages are themselves a price – it is the price of the labour you are selling. If wages go up, that’s the same thing as saying that the stuff you make and do is becoming more expensive. Making everything more expensive is not good.
It’s also partly down to a fundamental misunderstanding about the value of a job. People say they want a job, they want employment, they want work. No they don’t. They want the goods and services they can get by shopping. The goods and services are the positive. The job is the negative that you have to put up with to get them. But because this negative is a necessary step to getting the goods and services you want, it winds up being seen as a positive too, and that turns everything backwards. Similarly for wages. We do of course see wages as a positive, because it allows us the goods and services we want. But it is better to think of it as a direct barter – we produce stuff to sell to everone else in exchange for the stuff everyone else produces to sell to us. Looked at that way, we can see more directly that finding ways of making more stuff for less effort is better for everyone. But if we look at wages as the goal, it appears as if making less stuff for more effort is better, because we get a higher wage that way.
When Protectionists get control of a country, they create ever greater shortages to ramp their wages ever higher, and then seem mystified by the price of goods spiralling out of control, everyone having to queue in shops for goods that have suddenly become scarce, and the entire nation collapsing into poverty and starvation. This can’t be because of them! It must be the greedy capitalists/competitors who are deliberately sabotaging their economy! To discredit their wise leadership and thus return to the status quo ante. So anyone who doesn’t get with the programme is obviously a traitor and sent to the Gulag. That doesn’t work either, which tells them that they didn’t do it hard enough, so they ramp up the authoritarianism indefinitely.
Socialists are just one particularly pernicious species of Protectionist. But the same reasoning applies to all of them. You can’t get rich (as a society) by creating shortages and making everything more expensive. You can’t get rich by raising barriers to trade.
Doesn’t all of that treat the actual practice of international trade as a “spherical cow”?
The devil is said to be in the details, and some of the details of our trade with certain countries are pretty devilish indeed.
Free trade between the US and the UK? Sure thing. With countries which treat rules as opportunities to steal? Not so much.
“Doesn’t all of that treat the actual practice of international trade as a “spherical cow”?”
To some degree. Any explanation has to be initially quite simple, sufficient to capture the most important features, and then more details have to be added later as the main points are understood. Economics is complicated.
But ‘spherical cows’ are still a better approximation to reality than a methodology that subtracts cows where it should add them.
“Free trade between the US and the UK? Sure thing.”
The UK and US are pretty bad for this sort of thinking, too. The UK less so now than it was, now that Boris’s Free Market Leavers have taken over from the Euro-Protectionist Remainers, but they have not entirely given up on it, and the US is still tied up in Protectionist ‘pork barrel’ politics, and while I think Trump is privately not nearly as Protectionist as he sometimes appears in public, but he is constrained by having stood on a nakedly Protectionist, nationalist political platform. Lobbyists fund politicians for Protectionism. Voters vote for Protectionism.
Ultimately it must boil down to the old question of ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’
In any non-libertarian society, there is necessarily a privileged class of people – call it the police, the security services, the nomenklatura, whatever you like – that has the right to initiate force against you in order to get you to comply with their wishes rather than your own.
Now, considering the span of recorded human history in your answer, with what degree of confidence can you realistically say that they will exploit that coercive power in a way that serves your best interests instead of their own best interests?
Or, as the left-anarchist cartoonist Donald Rouum put it in one of his ‘Wildcat’ strips: ‘You anarchists must have a great deal of faith in human nature!’ ‘Well, thanks mate, but I don’t see what it says about your faith in human nature if you think no-one can be trusted with power over anyone else!’
Scenario: A “Libertarian” society exists and has wealth and peace, this attracts a great many immigrants who are not interested in liberty but only in acquiring the wealth they see in that society. They eventually outnumber the original inhabitants and their voting power turns the nation into a socialist shit hole.
Explain to me how libertarian policies would prevent this from ever occurring. Not “might”, not “could”. A guarantee in policy.
Did you actually read this thread before you jumped in with your multiple straw men?
“Scenario: A “Libertarian” society exists and has wealth and peace, this attracts a great many immigrants who are not interested in liberty but only in acquiring the wealth they see in that society. They eventually outnumber the original inhabitants and their voting power turns the nation into a socialist shit hole.”
A “socialist” union has a lock on industry and has wealth and peace, but that attracts a great many non-union workers who are not interested in socialism and the brotherhood of the workers but only in aquiring the high wages they see in that industry. They eventually outnumber the original inhabitants and their habit of not going on strike for higher wages every five minutes turns the industry into a capitalist sweat shop shit hole.
Same argument, right? All you’ve done is rename the union a ‘nation’, instituted a closed shop, one of the most damaging of the socialist practices that we banned decades ago for unions because of its utter destructiveness, and you have just implemented Socialism under another name. You have already lost. You’re already a socialist shit hole, in disguise.
You see, you can’t keep Socialism/Protectionism out using nationality as a dividing line, because the beliefs of Socialism are not confined to foreigners. You can’t keep the Socialism out by complaining about foreigners coming in and hoovering up all your jobs and benefits, to which only people of your own nationality should be entitled, because protection for jobs and a benefits system are themselves Socialism. You can not be entitled to claim jobs and benefits purely based on your nationality, having done nothing else to earn it, because that’s Socialism. It’s just selfish Socialism – Socialism for ‘us’, not ‘them’. Like parasites fighting one another over exclusive posession of the host.
Nationalism seeks to preserve and protect those aspects of Socialism/Protectionism that suit us, retaining exclusive access to them for those we count as ‘us’, and walling out the competition.
The only way to get rid of it is to win the argument. You have to explain to everybody why Protectionism doesn’t work, why it harms rather than helps them, why giving it total control leads inevitably to ruin, and why Free Trade produces prosperity. You have to convince them that you’re right and Protectionism is wrong. You have to fight the *idea*, not the believers in the idea. You have to *convert* the Protectionists to sanity, not wall them out. You have to go out and convert other nations to Free Trade, make them prosperous too, and thereby stop hordes of foreigners *wanting* to come here. You have to educate the world.
But that’s hard work, and we’re comfortable here in our wealthy welfare state, and we want to keep it for ourselves. So instead of going out there converting everyone else to be like us, we abandon the field to the Socialists, and wall ourselves up in a tiny fort, knowing full well that the enemy is already among us inside the walls.
—
“Did you actually read this thread before you jumped in with your multiple straw men?”
I presume they only read as far as “By the way, you don’t have to be a libertarian to contribute to this discussion. Quite the contrary. Every argument against libertarianism calls for a response, which it may get, or may not get but should.” 🙂
Arguments against are an excellent opportunity to present the arguments for.
Nullius, you are an eloquent advocate of your positions. But your arguments against the infiltration of socialism don’t really apply to Islam, do they?
We aren’t going to become a Sharia-dominated society from within unless we allow those who want to see it to infiltrate from without. Native-born Americans or UK subjects are not going to convert to radical Islam en masse, but if we import enough Islamic radicals they can generate more right here, and then we get to go the way of France.
What is the answer to that, if not abandoning open border utopianism?
“But your arguments against the infiltration of socialism don’t really apply to Islam, do they?”
The argument against Economic Protectionism can be extended to Cultural Protectionism, too.
Islam has a lot of details that are irrelevant to the discussion – the only parts that matter to Libertarians are their position that there is only one valid definition of virtue (theirs), virtue (their definition) should be compulsory on everyone, and they’ll use force to impose it on the world if persuasion doesn’t work.
And those are all features that already exist to a lesser degree in Western culture. Again, the real enemy is already inside the gates. In fact, the enemy has long been inside the gates and we’ve spent the last several hundred years defeating them. We used to burn heretics, and persecute atheists, and ban homosexuality, and grant lesser rights to women, and practice slavery, and impose our views about the only right and virtuous way to live on others. When the first libertarians started this fight, we were outnumbered in our opinions to an even greater degree than today. Our society changed, because liberal culture is more powerful, more persuasive. Freedom is stronger.
In the same way that a Free Market out-competes a Protectionist Market, so a Free Culture out-competes a Protectionist Culture. It lets everyone pick the best of every culture. It means cultures have to offer the best terms to get adherents. The terror that if we let in competing cultures we’ll lose our own is the same fear that if we let in competing businesses we’ll lose our own. No, you’ll only lose your own if your product is not as good as theirs.
Most of Islam is stuff Libertarians don’t care about. Pray five times a day? Up to you. Don’t care. Don’t eat pork or drink alcohol? Don’t care. Give to charity? Go on pilgrimage to Mecca? Don’t care. Want to wear a black sack over your head with just a narrow eye slit? Don’t care. What you wear is none of our business. The only bits we care about are the same things we care about in our own Western culture – when people impose their own personal choices and opinions on others by force. And so to impose our ways on Muslims by force – except in those limited areas needed to prevent harm to others – is to defeat ourselves and invite the enemy into our own hearts.
Again, the only way to ultimately defeat them is to convert them. Not to our particular set of cultural choices, but to the overarching principle that everybody’s cultural choice must be free. In this, they are exactly the same problem as all the other authoritarians. And we have plenty of authoritarians already here, who we have already made great progress at defeating.
Libertarians think freedom is more powerful and more successful, and so don’t fear to compete on equal terms. Authoritarians think force and compulsion wins, and so want to compel their rivals to submit before those rivals compel them, or if they cannot win by force, to ‘fort up’ and wall them out forever. As with Free Speech – a Libertarian invites debate, an Authoritarian seeks to silence and exclude. That tells everyone watching that the Authoritarian believes they’d lose, if people were free to listen and make a choice. If you have no faith in yourselves, why do you think you deserve to win?
Just to be clear, you are an advocate for unlimited immigration then?
I am not. I think allowing the immigration of demography-changing numbers of people whose culture is implacably hostile to ours is foolish, maybe even suicidal. I look to France and Sweden for examples of this.
If a libertarian candidate believed every single thing that I believe, except that he wanted open immigration, I would vote against him.
I don’t understand how you can look at majority-Muslim countries, read polls of attitudes of Muslims in western countries, see the worldwide Muslim reaction to things like the Danish cartoons, see the disaster that large-scale Muslim immigration has been for France and Sweden and even Germany, and still blithely assert that we should allow, even encourage, such policies.
“Just to be clear, you are an advocate for unlimited immigration then?”
Not on its own, no. It has to be done in concert with everything else.
An advocate for Free Speech will insist that the opposition must be invited to the debate. That doesn’t mean they think the opposition should be granted the stage to themselves, and that our side should not vigorously challenge their arguments, and make the case for liberty. To invite them and then offer no counter-argument is worse than not inviting them at all. But that doesn’t mean advocating that we not invite them. Just that it is a part of a larger package.
“I am not. I think allowing the immigration of demography-changing numbers of people whose culture is implacably hostile to ours is foolish, maybe even suicidal.”
Their culture as of a couple of hundred years ago was indeed implacably hostile to ours, just as our own culture of a couple of hundred years ago would be implacably hostile to what we get up to today. But things have changed, for them as well as us. They’re still 50-100 years behind us in the process, but they’re on the same road. Muslims are being gradually Westernised, the closer the contact the faster it goes, but cultural change is always a slow process, on a timescale of generations. Most of them are not hostile any more, and the number who aren’t is increasing all the time. Yes, there is some social friction, but it’s not a serious danger, and no different to the hostility we get from home-grown sub-cultures.
“If a libertarian candidate believed every single thing that I believe, except that he wanted open immigration, I would vote against him.”
Fair enough. You’re free to do so, if I haven’t persuaded you of the advantage. It means I need to continue the debate and find a better argument.
“I don’t understand how you can look at majority-Muslim countries, read polls of attitudes of Muslims in western countries, see the worldwide Muslim reaction to things like the Danish cartoons, see the disaster that large-scale Muslim immigration has been for France and Sweden and even Germany, and still blithely assert that we should allow, even encourage, such policies.”
Because it’s the only way to defeat them. Walling them up in isolation and poverty is giving the authoritarians exactly what they want. Isolation stops the process of Westernisation, allowing them to grow and develop their military power undisturbed. Like Iran. You can isolate it, and wall it in, but that just gives the Mullah’s the entire stage to themselves with which to whip up a frenzy of West-hatred, unchallenged by any direct experience of Westerners or counter-argument from them. In the mean time, they’re building up their military, and a nuclear capability. Wall them in, and the problem grows until it can no longer be contained.
The way to defeat them is to offer something better. Give them the internet. Give them free speech. Give them Western music, and Western fashions, and Western books, and Western goods, and Western TV. Show them the contrast between the West, which has luxuries and technology and fun, and the Mullahs who offer poverty and ascetic deprivation and rules and filthy beardy old men giving them orders. They’re not stupid.
It’s a marketplace of cultures. You’re trying to advertise the benefits of yours. You’re trying to convert them. It makes no sense to exclude the customers of your rival cultures from entering your market place!
A war is not won without cost. We have to go out and engage the enemy to defeat them, we cannot win by hiding from them. The same goes for a battle of cultures and ideas.
I’m a libertarian because I believe it’s the only philosophy I’m aware of which will, if applied consistently, alleviate oppression, coercion, and extortion, in all fields and by all powerful organisations.
Most “causes” that involve people arguing for more freedom (whether you agree with them or not) have their root in powerful organisations, be that government or church (often very entwined) designating that cause as illegal or immoral. Women’s suffrage, landless peasants not being able to vote, criminalisation of this activity or that one; most were at one stage or another illegal, and that leads people, I believe, to have moral issues with them. Most things, once decriminalised, have become more and more acceptable (in time, not overnight).
And if people still hold onto their old bigotries, their -isms and their -phobias, that’s okay too; it’s a big world out there, and precisely because of liberty, there will naturally grow all sorts of organisations, so that largely, people will not be compelled by either law or circumstances to associate with people that they don’t want to (in most cases, anyway. There will always be exceptions). So I think libertarianism – separating social or civil issues from government edict – does more for social justice than laws.
Also, a sizeable amount of libertarians are attracted to it precisely because they truly believe in what Brian calls “lifestyle freedoms”.
I also believe that, economically, freed markets (NOT the state-backed capitalism we have now) will lead to less inequality as well. NiV mentions tariffs, which is one way of maintaining inequality – compelling people to buy products from a smaller range of competitors than actually exist, ergo the state helping to garnish the pockets of the owners of (eg) the steel factory.
There’s many other ways in which state-backed corporations are able to exempt themselves from competition, thereby giving their owners an un-just advantage, and keeping prices artificially high and/or making products artificially scarce.
A proper freed market would lower prices, as more competitors drive costs down. Price would, in the mathematical sense of the word, “approach” cost – the PROPER application of the Labour Theory Of Value – and we would become wealthier, as we could all afford more “stuff”. People would have easier access to capital, easier access to knowledge, and there would be fewer barriers to entry into various professions. This would lead, naturally, to more and more people literally owning their own “means of production”, and fewer people relying on wage-labour to make ends meet.
So, instead of employees competing for jobs, employers have to compete for workers – by higher wages, better working environments, and other such perks. So, libertarianism is the correct way to approach “wage-labour” concerns.
And if products are cheaper, and wages higher, then of course, that means that the pay differential drops, which also eats into the issues that people have with inequality – but, crucially, with no concurrent drop in productivity or innovation.
Basically, it’s a better solution to most of the problems that people get animated about, and the problems most often appealed to the government to fix.
Apologies for crashing the immigration debate without reading other people’s thoughts first.
The reason i am crashing it is that i have a radical proposal: people who oppose immigration can call themselves libertarians, IFF we understand libertarianism as the desire for our own freedom, combined with respect for other people’s freedom, but without unqualified obligations to actively defend other people’s freedom.
In the case of migration, we might desire freedom to emigrate, and respect other people’s right to emigrate, without actively defending people’s “right” to IMmigrate. We might even oppose immigration, if we expect it to restrict our own freedoms — as i do. Although it seems that literally nobody at Samizdata is opposed to immigration for the same reasons that motivate me.
Another way of putting it: i feel no obligation to defend other people’s freedom. I think of freedom, not as something God-given, and certainly not as something granted by the State, but as something that each of us has to earn for themselves. Would-be immigrants are responsible for their own freedom; they are not responsible for my freedom, and i am not responsible for theirs.
This is only a sketch but i don’t want to belabor the point.
“people who oppose immigration can call themselves libertarians, IFF we understand libertarianism as the desire for our own freedom, combined with respect for other people’s freedom, but without unqualified obligations to actively defend other people’s freedom.”
I don’t understand the distinction you’re making. Pretty much everyone has a desire for their own freedom, even authoritarians, so that doesn’t add anything to the definition. So what does “respect” but not “actively defend” other people’s freedom mean? Does that mean that you won’t personally act to take away somebody else’s freedom (e.g. to cross borders) but won’t speak up in defence of it? Or you’ll speak, but not any other act (like vote)? Or you’ll speak up but not intervene physically, applying force? That you might verbally oppose their freedom, and verbally support others acting to block them, but not act to take it away yourself? Or that you won’t speak up for anyone taking away anyone else’s freedom, but you won’t do more to prevent that than to speak? Or that you would act voluntarily but don’t consider yourself obliged (either legally or morally) to do so? Or something else?
I’m not arguing. (Not yet, anyway!) I’m just not sure what you mean.
“In the case of migration, we might desire freedom to emigrate, and respect other people’s right to emigrate, without actively defending people’s “right” to IMmigrate.”
Again, I don’t understand the distinction. To emigrate is to immigrate, just seen from a different point of view.
“I think of freedom, not as something God-given, and certainly not as something granted by the State, but as something that each of us has to earn for themselves.”
OK. What have you done to earn yours?
I define freedom thus:
“The belief in the greatest amount of individual liberty compatible with equality of liberty for all.”
This statement surprises me. My view is that Samizdatistas at large would be very pro-Immigration (from a Spanish POV) for UK types to immigrate/emigrate into the Med, whilst also being very opposed to immigration by Middle-Eastern types into the Uk. Or Spain, for that matter.
Guessing I misunderstood?
NiV:
That comes closest to it.
But it’s also a matter of costs and benefits.
At one extreme, i would not risk my life for a small increment of freedom of one person in India unknown to me. (To paraphrase Hume.)
At the other extreme … well, you can easily come up with a scenario at the opposite extreme.
But it is also down to the fact that freedom is something that must be earned, or at least actively preserved, because whoever can give you freedom can also take it away. Which brings me to:
It is just because i have not done enough (and 2 generations of my family before me did even less) that i have come to accept reality.
That’s like saying that to leave home is to enter somebody else’s home. Or perhaps that you have no right to leave home unless you let anybody enter your home. 🙂
Neonsnake:
Leaving aside the apparently semi-circular definition of freedom in terms of liberty:
You are implicitly assuming that the State ought to guarantee our liberty (if not our freedom), because only the State can possibly (very theoretically) ensure “equality of liberty for all”. I am uneasy with your implicit assumption.
My guess is that, indeed, you misunderstood the position of samizdatistas, of which i am not one.
The reason i guess that, is that you seem to have misunderstood my sentence which you quoted, which is about WHY i oppose immigration (mass immigration, to be more precise), not WHETHER i oppose immigration.
Immigration?
An open town gate to friends – and a closed town gate to foes.
It is working out who is a friend and who is a foe that is the difficult bit – who has ill intent (intent to violate the nonaggression principle).
Of course if there were no government benefits or “public services” a lot of this would not even come up.
It was the opposition to Proposition 187 in California that really opened my eyes on this.
All the taxpayers of California had voted for was to limit access to government benefits in relation to illegal immigrants.
They were NOT voting to put them up against a wall and shoot them, or even voting to kick them out – they just voted to stop letting them have the money of other people.
And the establishment elite (including the leftist courts) went nuts – how dare anyone not be forced to give the illegals money and government services.
And some “left libertarians” or “bleeding heart libertarians” came out with the same excrement as the rest of the leftist establishment elite.
If people from, say, Latin America really fall in love with the principles of the Constitution of the United States then they should be welcomed (regardless of skin colour) – but if they come to destroy what is left of those principles and do not even believe the land is justly part of the United States (thinking that the wars of the 1830s and 1840s should have gone the other way), then to welcome them is madness.
As for Europe.
What sort of “libertarian” believes that people should be executed for a mocking cartoon? Or a mocking poem?
But Muhammad was clear – any man who mocked him must be killed.
This is one of very many things one can be kicked out of the Conservative Party for just mentioning. Not just the Labour Party or the falsely named “Liberal Democrats”, the Conservative Party.
Not only not standing against the threat (this threat or all the other threats) – but punishing anyone who even mentions it.
If this, censorship and persecution, is what “Diversity” means (and it clearly DOES mean this) then it is not a doctrine that can be morally supported.
A diverse society can work – Florida may not be to everyone’s taste, but it clearly works and it works because basic freedoms, to some extent, are upheld. In a city such as Miami “Anglos” are a minority – but there is a lot more basic liberty than there is here.
So diversity can work – but “Diversity” (capital D) is just vile, because it is all about crushing basic liberties.
Come come, Mr. Marks. Apparently to some of the commenters here, the proper approach is to invite our foes inside the gates with open arms, so that we can show them how friendly we are and win them over with our ideas – hopefully before they decide to kill us.
Otherwise they will always remain foes (?!?) …
“It is working out who is a friend and who is a foe that is the difficult bit – who has ill intent (intent to violate the nonaggression principle).”
Exactly! This is the bit where we decide whether we believe in the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, fair trials, and Blackstone’s ratio.
“What sort of “libertarian” believes that people should be executed for a mocking cartoon? Or a mocking poem? But Muhammad was clear – any man who mocked him must be killed.”
There’s an interesting story about Muhammad on that topic. During the early days back in Mecca when Mo was just getting started, he criticised and insulted the Arab pagan Gods. The tribal elders were angry at this, and demanded that he be stopped, or handed over to their justice. However, Mo’s uncle, Abu Talib, protected Mo. He did ask Mo to tone down his rhetoric, but Mo refused, and Abu Talib chose not to force the issue. It was only when Abu Talib died that Mo had to flee Mecca and take refuge with the Jews of Medina.
So the question to ask of Muslims is whether Abu Talib was right to defend Muhammad when he insulted the Arab people’s religion and their Gods, or should he have been silenced or handed over to their tribal justice?
Most Western Muslims nowadays don’t think anyone should be executed for a mocking cartoon*. By the original standards of Islam, that means they are technically no longer Muslim. But it would be a bit awkward making a point of that, because under the original law that would put them under penalty of death for apostasy, so if you want any moderate Muslims to survive, it’s probably best not to mention it. The old religion is gradually being changed, and everybody is pretending not to notice.
Muslims are certainly not libertarians. But then, neither are a lot of other people.
—
* (When asked about the statement “Organisations which publish images of the Prophet Mohammad deserve to be attacked”, 85% of UK Muslims asked disagreed, 11% agreed, 4% didn’t know or didn’t answer. Table 16.)
Basically i agree with everything in Paul Marks’ latest comment; but i wish to point out that he is not cynical enough to recognize the Frankfurt propaganda about immigration for what it is: a principle of legitimization for the ruling class (similarly to the Divine Right of Kings, or the General Will) and an excuse to crack down on freedom of speech, and opposition to the ruling class.
This reminds me of an interview i watched of a Polish cabinet minister, maybe the PM, in which he said that they are not opposed to immigration from Ukraine, because Ukrainian immigration has a net positive contribution to Polish society and economy. They are opposed to immigration from, er… some other countries. (And i don’t remember what he said about those other countries, but he was at least as outspoken as Trump.)
And you think that stat supports your assertion that we should allow mass waves of Muslim migration to the west? That only(!?!) 11% agree with the statement, “Organizations which publish images of the Prophet Mohammad deserve to be attacked”???
How about the quarter who want Sharia Law? Or the half who think homosexuality should be illegal? This is the group that you would invite into the country in demography-changing numbers, in the hope that you can win them over with cable tv and fashion magazines?
What if you are wrong, and young radical Muslims cannot be beguiled by Western culture?
“And you think that stat supports your assertion that we should allow mass waves of Muslim migration to the west? That only(!?!) 11% agree with the statement…”
It used to be 100%. Five years ago it had got down to 11%. So we’re 89% of the way towards our goal. Would you rather it went back to 100%?
“Or the half who think homosexuality should be illegal?”
Heh! I’ve had plenty of arguments, even on supposedly ‘libertarian’ blogs, about equality law for homosexuals and the transgender. Are you seriously proposing that we bar people from the country because they’re homophobes and transphobes? Or more generally, because they’re not libertarians?
Actually, I’d have somewhat more sympathy with your argument if you did. If your argument is that we should exclude people from the country if they have illiberal, anti-libertarian attitudes and opinions, and we actually target those characteristics directly, then while I don’t entirely agree, it is at least more honest and consistent. What I don’t accept is when people use other characteristics, that give the wrong answer 89% of the time, as a proxy for that direct test. It would be like arguing that because rapists are disproportionately male, we ought to bar all men from entering the country. I wouldn’t have an issue with barring rapists from the country, but to say you’re targeting rapists when you’re actually targeting men is dishonest.
Our own society too used to think homosexuality should be illegal, within living memory. I’m very pleased to see how far we’ve come, too, that people on the traditionalist right are now saying it’s a good reason to bar somebody from entering the country!
Clumsy wording on my part, then – it’s not something that I think the Government should guarantee, it’s more an attempt to frame my personal feelings, to put into words my own philosophy, if you will – nothing to do with the Government – it’s just a slightly more formal way of saying that my liberty to wave my fist around ends at the tip of your nose, I guess; in which case I’d have no legitimate cause for complaint if you stopped me from swinging said fist.
Ah, yeah, I see. I’ve re-read it and your follow-ups. Makes sense now.
I’m more in the space of – contrary to the idea of actively inviting people in – that I’m not opposed to individuals moving from one country to another, and I believe that they should be free to do so. I’m not in a space of making distinctions on who can and can’t move based on broad distinctions like race, skin colour, accent, the county or country that you were born in, the class you were born into – or indeed your religion.
I feel that making such assumptions is, in my own version and understanding of libertarianism, very anti-libertarian, and goes against the principle of treating people as individuals in their own right, not just as an accidental member of group X or Y, whereby you are mentally convicted of crimes that you haven’t committed, purely by sharing a given characteristic with members who have committed such crimes.
I think there’s some reasonable arguments, or more properly, common arguments, against libertarianism in this thread, particularly the ones pertaining to being against the liberty for an individual to move.
There are some others which I take fairly seriously:
“Libertarians are bigots” – yes, there’s a subset of libertarians who really like the “freedom of association” gambit, and focus in on the small matter that it allows for freedom of dis-association as well. It allows them to justify their bigotries, despite the original meaning of freedom of association being VERY different indeed (unions).
Tied into this is the concept that “freedom of speech” means “freedom from consequences” or that “free speech” means “free reign”. Again, a subset of libertarians feel that they should be able to say what they want, and get really outraged when people disagree, and squee that their freedom of speech rights are being transgressed (spoiler: they’re not, they’re just losing the argument).
The professionally outraged snowflakes: the anti-trans crowd, are a good example of this, although not the only one. They would prefer to deny liberty for individuals, in order to stay outraged at something that doesn’t affect them at all.
Libertarianism will lead to fuedalism: yes. If you understand Libertarianism in the very narrow sense of Anarcho-Capitalism, or of Minarchism (which are oxy-morons). In the actual sense that it originated from, no. It’s systemically impossible for it to lead to fuedalism, it actually destroys fuedalism and capitalism (in the sense of appropriation of the product of labour being skimmed off the top)
These are the arguments I think we should focus on dispelling, personally.
And yes, it involves having some balls, I’m afraid.
It involves being a bit bold in the face of islamophobia, or homophobia, or sexism and etc.
It involves not being scared that being anti those things will leave us less privileged, and that’s what so many feel scared of, and leads to the Jeremy Clarkson/Piers Morgan outrage culture of throwing a fit every time something new happens, like a vegan sausage roll (ffs, who gets outraged over a fucking sausage roll?). It means not being that person, that cowardly person throwing a fit every time something happens that doesn’t affect you, but is not in-line with you.
And that’s hard for people. I get that, and it’s a slow process. But slowly, we’re getting there, and that’s an argument for libertarianism, I think.
“What if you are wrong, and young radical Muslims cannot be beguiled by Western culture?”
This is the main reason libertarianism will never be taken seriously. There is simply no reasonable answer to this because “then you’ve lost your country to foreign settlers” is not an answer anyone will accept. Libertarians are as dangerous as communists because “what if you are wrong” is never something they accept.
Let’s clear up our respective positions. Mine is this: I don’t want to blanket ban any culture or group of immigrants from any country … but I also don’t support the idea that they all have a right to demand entry. I think that we should pick and choose, at the very least on the basis of “do they agree with our basic principles of pluralism and freedom to offend?” If they don’t, I have no wish to impinge on their rights to hate Western culture, I only ask that they do this where they are, rather than here. In other words, I assert that we have the right and the obligation to be selective in who we let into the country, with the goal of preserving our basic societal structures from being overthrown by fundamentalists. And I think we should regulate the rate at which we absorb newcomers, so that we don’t end up with a large bloc of people voting to ban women from walking around with their faces showing.
What is your position? If young Achmed shows up at the border and says, “Western society is a cancer, and I am the cure. Oh, also, I need welfare benefits now!” do you advocate admitting him so that our fast food and well-produced television dramas can change his mind before he blows something up? If you do not advocate that, it seems we are largely in agreement, except that I am not claiming some high-minded “kumbayah love everybody” position of virtue.
Do you not recognize, as I do, that we have enemies, and that those enemies are determined and resourceful? That they have already seen “Ally McBeal” and “Dancing With The Stars” and are still determined to kill us? Do you not think we would be better off if they remained in their own countries rather than coming here?
I saw one Ally McBeal, and my only real memory of it is that, once I saw it, I wanted to kill the people who made it. I never watched Dancing With The Stars, but I can’t imagine my reaction would be different.
So I don’t think your test would be accurate for what you’re trying to measure for.
“Best” can have more than one sense. For example, an argument can be best rhetorically or best dialectically. Are we looking for arguments that are likely to persuade people in general (r), or arguments that would carry weight with a rational mind (d)? The two aren’t necessrily the same.
I don’t actually have much to offer in the way of rhetorical arguments; I’m not really very good at rhetoric. I’m not sure that such arguments exist. As for dialectical arguments, my own favorite is a variant on Plato’s Euthyphro: Do rights exist because governments choose to enforce them? or are there pre-existing rights that governments have an obligation to enforce?
Neonsnake:
To quote John McEnroe: you can’t be serious!
When you first heard or read of religious freedom, you did not ask yourself: what about religions that prescribe human sacrifice?
Anyway, that is not the real issue.
The real issue is that the NY Times and the BBC are cancerous institutions, and no group that the NY Times or the BBC take as mascots should be allowed to immigrate, in any country.
EVERYTHING advocated by the NY Times and/or the BBC serves the interests of the Anglo-American ruling class: it serves to increase the power of the ruling class and decrease the freedom of the rest of us.
And if you sing the tune of the NY Times and/or the BBC, then you are a threat to my freedom. Although a very minor threat 🙂 since we do not live in the same country, and you are not very influential in your country (I assume).
“What if you are wrong, and young radical Muslims cannot be beguiled by Western culture?”
They can, and are being.
What if *you* are wrong, and we were to ourselves abandon Freedom of Belief and Freedom of Speech as bedrock principles of Western culture out of fear that another group of people would take away Freedom of Belief and Freedom of Speech? What would we be saving?
Do *you* believe in Western culture? Do you believe in freedom? Or do you believe Western culture doesn’t advocate freedom?
And what are we to do with *you*, if *you* cannot be beguiled by Western culture?
“When you first heard or read of religious freedom, you did not ask yourself: what about religions that prescribe human sacrifice?”
Oh yes. That’s in the Bible. Judges 11.
The answer to your question (as I expect you knew well) is that there is a difference between the belief and the action. It’s not a problem to belong to a religion that requires human sacrifice, and indeed to advocate for it. It *is* a problem to actually *practice* human sacrifice (on the unconsenting or uninformed, at least) because that does harm to others.
Any country that allows people to advocate for a change in the law necessarily allows people to believe illegal actions should be made legal, and done. But advocating for a change in the law is not the same thing as breaking the law.
What can be said of religion can also be said of politics. You can belong to a political group that believes in restricting other people’s freedom (whether that’s the freedom to cross borders, or the freedom to choose your own religion), and argue for it, but the Harm Principle would forbid society actually enforcing it. Even Authoritarians have Freedom of Belief and Freedom of Speech.
That’s a shame.
I’m sorry to hear that.
I am, then, because the BBC have sung my tune (whether I wanted them to or not, and without them consulting with me first), your enemy.
A shame, I considered you a “friend”, in a sense. I cared whether you were ok or not, with all this.
I guess, then, you are not, and we are enemies from now on.
NiV, I think it’s really obvious that they know this quite well. I love you for continuing the fight, I really do.
There’s a question over – okay? So? the people coming in? Lets’ pretend they’re right. So, what do we do with the first generation or second generation that are already here, that no-one has eve had the balls to answer me.
We’re obviously talking about Muslims here, as always whenever the topic of borders comes up.
OK. What do you expect me to with my Muslim friends who are already here?
No more immigration. Ok.
What about those who are already here?
Send them home? To where? They are British.
Gulags? Yeah, we’re not keen on the Chinese solution.
Firing squads? Seems to be the most popular solution. Fuck it. Let’s just kill them. No?
What is the most popular solution to say, 1st, 2nd, 3rd generation of Muslim immigrants in the UK?
I have this fella works for me. Gay fella, married to a bloke. Adopted these two girls, twins, who would otherwise spent their lives as foster kids. Recently adopted their baby brother. The mother is, shall we say, a disaster.
He spends his time showing his baby photos to another staff member, a Muslim girl. She thinks it’s the cutest thing ever (the kid is cute).
On the basis of this thread, I should send both of them to the gulags. He’s a degenerate, and she’s a Muslim.
….
*shrugs*
They are both, evidentally my enemy.
I’m struggling, I confess.
“it’s just that people pretend it is so they can claim there is nothing we can do.”
They pretend it is so that it doesn’t occur to anyone that we can do it to *you*.
Society can declare whoever it likes to be unpersons. Racists. Sexists. Homophobes. Right-wingers. With a simple change to a piece of paper, they can strip you of your rights, and throw you out of the country. Or jail you. Or execute you. It’s only bits of paper, after all, that says they can’t.
Authoritarians always design the mechanisms of social enforcement assuming that *they* will be in charge and making the rules and deciding who is desirable and undesirable. And when they’re doing it to other people, there are no limits on what they will do. But everyone is in a minority on something. Everyone is a hated outsider or an undesirable to some group. And when that group gets power, as they inevitably do sooner or later, they are going to think in exactly the same way.
Hence their terror of Muslim immigration: because they know that the more conservative Muslims are like themselves. Hence their conviction that the Muslims can never be persuaded to believe in freedom: because they themselves are unpersuaded.
Authoritarians want freedom for themselves and nobody else. But that doesn’t work. Sooner or later they’re always on the losing side in the ensuing power struggle. The only way they can keep freedom is if we build a society where everyone is free, where we grant freedom even to our enemies, so that our enemies will grant freedom to us. One where we grant freedom to the enemies of society, so that when society classes us enemies we stay free. Such a society is inconceivable to the authoritarian mind, though. They know that they themselves would cheat the moment they got power, so why wouldn’t their enemies? They cannot look more than a single move ahead in the game, and so cannot believe anyone else does either.
People choose never to change what’s written on pieces of paper, because they know those pieces of paper are all that protect their own rights and freedoms. Everyone’s rights are respected only so long as society respects everyone’s rights. That isn’t difficult to understand. It’s just that people pretend it is so that they can justify keeping their grip on power.
bobby b is the thread-winner as far as I am concerned – for humour (I laughed out loud), but there is a serious point here. When people from a rather different culture live amidst modern western culture (especially PC culture, but I do not limit it to that) some discard the old but others see the modern PC west as a horrific worked example of where yielding to it will take you (and western mouthpieces praising your culture and damning its own help you think this in more ways than one).
If the west regains a culture of free speech, I think the ratios between the two could improve – but I would not have advised Churchill to let the Nazis invade in the hope that experiencing British culture would soften them, and I can see the obvious immigration analogy to Ayn Rand’s “moochers and looters” (with the Nazis playing the role of looters). Meanwhile, if ‘good’ arguments for libertarianism means ‘persuasive’ arguments then I think self-confident Victorian society’s ability to practise minimal immigration control is of little use for getting lots of votes, though I suppose a certain kind of slowly-recovering-from-PC intellectual might be sold on free speech if they could be persuaded that only a more self-confident society could survive high immigration from cultures less keen on their particular fads. (And of course, the historical fact could be reassuring to those attracted to libertarianism for other reasons.)
As regards the OP question, Dominic Cummings used “Take back control” in the brexitref:
Presenting libertarianism as the way to have the most control over one’s own life – for that majority of us who will not be the ones controlling others lives even if our society is into that kind of thing – might be a good argument to present.
“but I would not have advised Churchill to let the Nazis invade in the hope that experiencing British culture would soften them”
Me neither. But would you have supported the Marshall Plan in which we offered aid and support to help Germany rebuild after the war? To teach them liberal Western values, and to bind them into economic co-dependency? To help them join us, become more like us? Or would you have recommended an even more punitive repeat of the Treaty of Versailles to keep them out?
Nullius in Verba (April 19, 2020 at 8:14 pm), since you ask, I recall that in 1945 we occupied (west) Germany, executed some people, banned political parties for a while, put up “looters will be shot” notices (which were enforced) and rebuilt their politics from the ground up over several years. Because west Germany was a food deficit area, there was a good deal of actual starvation (as in, ‘you die’ not ‘you hear your stomach rumbling’) so an effort was made to sell UK and US people on the idea that western nations could not just sit by and let this happen; I have seen the news films in which the starving Germans are shown and the argument pitched – with full recognition that it was not the easiest sell – that we must act. Both Roosevelt and Churchill had foreseen before the war ended that the border adjustments Russia demanded would doom the Morgenthau plan (which would have left more eastern agricultural land to Germany), and so leave the whole western zone a food-deficit area, so either the allies – which everyone knew meant ultimately the US – fed them gratis or else their industry was rebuilt to let them pay for food. Truman and Atlee were well aware the options were some kind of Marshall plan, or endless charity in a world where those the Germans had attacked also needed food and aid, or continue watching Germans starve until they rebuilt their economy unaided and/or shrank to a number that made it no longer a food-deficit area which was clearly going to take some time.
If you wish to suggest that we ban all muslim immigrants from voting and any political activity for a while, subject them to martial law, and put an assimilation programme in place dedicated to eliminating key parts of their former culture and rebuilding the rest of it from the ground up, by all means pitch that argument.
“If you wish to suggest that we ban all muslim immigrants from voting and any political activity, subject them to martial law, and put an assimilation programme in place dedicated to eliminating key parts of their former culture and rebuilding the rest of it from the ground up”
No, I don’t think so. That sounds a lot more like the ‘Nazi invasion’ you mentioned earlier.
https://youtu.be/e6QC_qEyl0Q