Jonathan Murphy provided a rejoinder to libertarians and anarchists about taxation not necessarily being theft, that in purely hypothetical terms may have some validity, but which is so non-existent in both past and present, and so close to being impossible that the entire exercise is one of futility, and therefore, dare i say, of pedantery? Continue Reading
At his Steemit account, fellow Dutch libertarian rvanstel blogs a case for Objective Morality. Obviously, I believe in objective morality too, or I could not possibly make a case for the non-aggression principle. Without objective morality, there simply would be no right and wrong. Not for the right, but also not for the left. So any judgment or counter-judgment, and any championing of typical progressive/conservative values would be entirely pointless, as they would be no more than mere subjective opinions; subjectivity on the basis of which opponents could not be condemned. Continue Reading
Just in case you didn’t know, the state makes laws.
The state is also allegedly supposed to protect people, and their rights.
Which makes it seem that the purpose of laws is to protect people.
All of this is based on a completely naive view on the nature of the state, and on the way in which the state keeps its power. Continue Reading
In news related to the “Google Memo” controversy, Reason’s David Harsanyi manages to state the obvious:
By Firing the Google Memo Author, the Company Confirms His Thesis
You don’t say…
Is there anyone that is halfway familiar with Social Justice Warriors, their tactics and Cultural Marxism overall, that didn’t expect James Damore to be punished in some way by the Orwellian storm troopers in the ranks of Google, and companies like it? Continue Reading
First of all, I want to thank Anarchist Notebook for the civil response. It has however left me entirely underwhelmed.
I should note in advance that my opinion is nothing personally aimed at any one particular individual, but at all those with whom the shoe fits. If you know that what I write does not apply to you, it is not you that I am aiming at. You will know if you look in the mirror and are not deluding yourself. Continue Reading
As progressive, bleeding heart libertarians have a tendency to pretend theirs is the “correct” form of libertarianism, the same can be said of ‘Hoppean’ socially conservative libertarians. From both sides, libertarians who actually embrace a philosophy that would let them give meaning to their own lives, have to endure the self-serving nonsense from either side that attempts to pull the philosophy of liberty into their own preferred cultural camp. There are too many such attempts out there to bother with them all. It serves a point to just pick one out on occasion. So I’m doing that with this one.
“This week, Mises Institute President Jeff Deist gave what is probably the most important libertarian speech made in the past decade (bold emphasis added):”
What Jeff Deist did, was give perhaps the most important speech in the last decade from someone who wants to depict libertarianism as a mere subcategory of conservatism. Deist is the president of Mises Institute, an organization full of very intelligent and in most cases very praiseworthy people, with a lot of good things to say on many topics, who nevertheless have an annoying habit to look at everything through libertarian glasses only if libertarianism is regarded as a conservative subcategory. In other words, from Jeff Deist nothing different was to be expected.
“..libertarians have a bad tendency to fall into utopianism, into portraying liberty as something new age and evolved. In this sense they can sound a lot like progressives: liberty will work when human finally shed their stubborn old ideas about family and tribe, become purely rational freethinkers (always the opposite), reject the mythology of religion and faith, and give up their outdated ethnic or nationalist or cultural alliances for the new hyper-individualist creed.”
Paleolibertarians, including many at Mises, have a bad tendency to fall into traditionalism, into portraying liberty as something that required and still requires conservative cultural values about family and religion. This is once again clearly proven by the completely conservative, as opposed to libertarian, viewpoint that Deist expresses here, where all the usual conservative buzzwords are ticked off. Deist even goes so far as to paint the word “individualist” in a negative light.
Deist thinks liberty is not something “new age and evolved.” But the fact of the matter is that it is, for true liberty (in the libertarian sense of the word) has hardly ever existed in history, at least since the agricultural revolution (in other words, since before the birth of Judaism and Christianity). Persecution of people with the “wrong” thoughts, beliefs and ideas has been rampant all throughout time since then, many times at the hands of religious people or people that otherwise wanted to impose their own set of morals on society. For instance, blasphemy only became an existing act once religion became an existing phenomena, and blasphemy has been harshly punished all throughout human history. As a matter of fact, religious beliefs have been the very weapon used by tyrannical rulers to demand obedience to the state (or to be more precise, to him). A priestly class was employed to achieve this, in exchange for very rewarding compensation to priests, in the form of wealth, privileges and their own power. And who hasn’t heard of the terms “divine ruler ”and the “divine right of kings”?
It is quite clear that family has never been regarded as a problem by many dictatorial types of leaders in history; history which didn’t start with socialists and communists. There have been theocracies, inquisitions, persecutions, wars, torture, witch hunts, imprisonments, and mass murders, justified by religious and conservative values all throughout history. These persecutors had traditional ideas and family values. That’s why they persecuted people in the first place. Because they refused to give any quarters to those who had different ideas. Galilei Galileo, to name but one very well known example, had no reason to admire the libertarian values within the pious people that hounded him.
Religion and the state, and family and the state, have not been mutually exclusive, despite what paleoconservatives would like many libertarians to think. And I don’t think it even needs elaborating that nationalist, ethnic and/or culturally homogeneous sentiment and the state have most certainly not been mutually exclusive. Yet the point is made in such a way that we are to think they were, and are.
Conservatism may not be new age and evolved, but libertarianism is, for it gives the individual the kind of liberty that, historically, neither conservatives nor progressives have made any allowances for. Libertarianism says that you don’t have to be a conservative or a progressive, but can adopt any non-aggressive viewpoint you like and that makes sense to you in order to get the most happiness out of life. Without the state, or anything or anyone else, being able to impose their own values on you through force. The latter is most certainly not a conservative or progressive idea, but a libertarian one. And is precisely the reason that libertarianism is neither conservative nor progressive. And is precisely the reason that libertarianism, if realized and maintained, is a new idea and an evolved idea.
For an example, it is in the war of independence that the American colonies fought with the British royal kingdom, that libertarians were the radicals, whereas the conservatives Tories were constantly trying to either slow down the clamor for revolution, or sabotage it. Pre-1775, libertarians and conservatives were on opposite sides on many issues, including the war for independence itself, and only nationalism would allow conservatives to pick the right side of history. To make it clear: nationalism and not libertarian values made conservatives choose American independence over staying with the British kingdom.
In terms of obedience and loyalty to the state as such, conservatives were indeed conservatives, wanting merely to replace British rule over the colonies by American government rule over the colonies, whereas the libertarians were arguing against rule, period. In that very same era, religious persecution of more libertarian thinkers was rife, thus proving religious people were mostly antagonistic toward enlightened libertarian ideas of self-ownership.
These are merely some examples of proof that libertarianism is not only not conservative, but that conservatives and religious people have historically been downright hostile to libertarian principles.
“…It scarcely needs to be said that family has always been the first line of defense against the state, and the most important source of primary loyalty — or divided loyalty, from the perspective of politicians.”
It scarcely needs to be said that family has never successfully defended people from the state and its transgressions. It also doesn’t need to be said that no individual need be forced to choose to be loyal to anyone they don’t choose to be loyal to. The latter serves to show that the above, quoted argument presents a false dichotomy. Loyalty can only be a matter of free choice. Actually making a somewhat conservative statement, I would say that neighborhoods, communities and other types of microsocieties can serve this function as well. In a number of cases, families actually manage to drive people into the arms of the state. Families can be wonderful in exactly the way Deist supposes, but can also be destructive. Family bonds are not holy, and are not ideal by default. Blood ties do not necessarily have to mean anything. Even the Bible proves this by having Cain murder Abel, and having Abraham be willing to murder his son to prove his faith to God.
Families have never stopped the state from coming into existence, nor have they ever stopped states from growing in power, nor in keeping individuals with family values from showing allegiance and obedience to the state. A certain type of state, perhaps, but not the state qua the state. Yes, families may be a first line of ideological defense against, say, communist states. But why wouldn’t they be, when the communist state wants to target precisely families as its enemies in the fight for loyalty? Yet, does this say anything about the state by default? Leave the family unit alone, and families will have much less of a problem with the very concept of a powerful state, as history has proven.
“Our connection with ancestors, and our concern for progeny, forms a story in which the state is not the main character. Family forms our earliest and hence most formative environment — and at least as an ideal, family provides both material and emotional support. Happy families actually exist.”
Happy families actually exist. So do unhappy and dysfunctional families that do not provide material and/or emotional support. Is there any point to this argument? Some of us have a well-developed connection with ancestors; others do not. Some of us have concern for progeny; others do not regard progeny as a goal in life. And while the state may not be the main character in such stories, it can and most times certainly will be A character. So what does any of this have to do with libertarianism, in which the state ideally plays no character at all? Unlike conservatism qua conservatism, libertarianism qua libertarianism is precisely about there being no state to play any important part in life. Therefore, the question is why libertarianism as a political philosophy ought to embrace subjective conservative values.
But government wants us atomized, lonely, broke, vulnerable, dependent, and disconnected. So of course it attempts to break down families by taking kids away from them as early as possible, indoctrinating them in state schools, using welfare as a wedge, using the tax code as a wedge, discouraging marriage and large families, in fact discouraging any kind of intimacy that is not subject to public scrutiny, encouraging divorce, etc. etc.
Yes, yes. Modern governments do. But this still doesn’t prove why libertarianism qua libertarianism, which would not allow for any such state intrusion in these matters, need be conservative. And just as government uses manipulative means to establish loyalty to itself, so can families. Families may not always be capable of using force to establish this, but in libertarianism qua libertarianism, neither can the state. And families can be quite adept at indoctrinating people as they grow up, in terms of values and religious beliefs. So no proper argument in favor of conservative values as a necessity for libertarianism has been made here. As a matter of fact, the same argument can be made for the progressive side of things. On the progressive “libertarian” side, it is (e.g.) communes that could take the place of traditional families to achieve roughly the same goals. No sufficient point is made that traditional families are the necessary requirement here. As I have established earlier, blood ties do not necessarily mean much at all. If they did, many more people would like Thanksgiving family get-togethers.
“This may all sound like right-wing talking points, but it doesn’t make it untrue.”
It doesn’t make them untrue. But it does make them insufficient. And incredibly self-serving if coming from what is quite clearly a right-wing conservative.
“…Religion forms another important line of defense against the state. In fact the whole history of man cannot be understood without understanding the role of religion.”
The role of religion has been to teach people blind allegiance, blind obedience and blind faith. It has been to impose values on people without questioning whether they are the correct values (because one does not question God). The role of religion has been to indoctrinate susceptible children into a belief system with the help of nightmare predictions about hell and damnation in the case of sin. The role of religion has been to pay no heed to rational discourse, even when it comes to morality, and that understanding the difference between right and wrong requires the dictates of a supreme being rather than one’s own moral compass in combination with reason. The role of religion has been to provide motive for the persecution of people with different beliefs or lifestyles. And ironically, the role of religion has been to give power to rulers, by telling the religious, through allied priestly classes, that God commands obedience and loyalty to the ruler.
If religion had truly been an important line of defense against the state, no proper argument could be given to account for the fact that the large majority of the religious happen to be statists. Because of the Republican party, and presidents such as George W. Bush, religious people threw their support behind large scale, destructive state aggression against other states. Because of the combination of religion and state, the War on Drugs has wrecked countless lives. As a matter of fact, the very Pope himself is championing the state, and state intervention in a collectivist form. If religion had truly been an important line of defense against the state, there would have been no “divine right of kings”, no theocracies, no political power for the Church in the middle ages, no Constantine, no Spanish inquisition, no Salem witch trials, etcetera, etcetera.
The notion that religion is an important line of defense against the state is, frankly, absurd in the extreme.
“Even today healthy percentages of people in the West believe in God, regardless of their actual religious observance. And believing in a deity by itself challenges the state’s omniscience and status.”
This is an entirely meaningless argument so long as religion itself is not turning people into libertarians. And quite clearly, the number of people with which it does so is negligible. The argument is meaningless so long as the state does not attempt to turn all citizens into atheists, or force them to do things that are counter to their religious beliefs. Libertarians are against state impositions by definition. Are conservative and religious people only against the state when the impositions are inconvenient to their religious beliefs? The reality seems to prove so, at least for the majority of them. Deist is trying to make a case for religion where there is virtually none. The only case he has, is that religion would be important as a last line of defense against a state that is openly hostile to religion, such as a communist state. But libertarianism is not merely against communist states. It is also against theocracies. Guess what; most Middle Eastern countries are either virtual theocracies, or are states heavily based on religious doctrine. Is religion a last line of defense against the state in, say, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan? Is the family unit a last line of defense in these countries?
“Again, religion stands as a potential rival for the individual’s allegiance — And it has a pesky tendency to resurface no matter how much authoritarian governments try to suppress it.”
That is why most authoritarian governments try not to suppress it; certainly not historically. States do not have to rival religion for the individual’s allegiance to get them to obey and be loyal to them. Theocracies and other states not openly hostile to religion clearly prove this.
…Mecca is not Paris, an Irishman is not an Aboriginal, a Buddhist is not a Rastafarian, a soccer mom is not a Russian. Is it our goal to convince them all to become thorough Rothbardians?
At the least, I think it would be our goal to ultimately convince them to not initiate aggression against others, either by themselves or through the state. Otherwise I would not see the point of this entire speech. The speech was supposed to be one in favor of libertarianism, right? And not one merely in favor of conservatism?
Either way, I fail to see the point of this particular argument. If we have to assume that some people have no intention of ever embracing the core tenets of libertarianism, then who cares what they believe in? Whether I am kicked by a mule with his right hoof or his left hoof makes no difference to me.
“….In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people. Libertarians ignore this at the risk of irrelevance.”
Keeping this in mind is not the same as telling them they’re right, and even much less embracing these concepts ourselves. By the very same token, it could be argued (regardless of whether either of these viewpoints have merit) that libertarians ignore progressive values that matter to many left-wing people at the risk of irrelevance. But Deist, not surprisingly, doesn’t take that into consideration. Because, again, Deist is arguing from a self-serving position as a conservative.
“I highly recommend you read or listen to the entire speech. Libertarians everywhere would be wise to heed Deist’s counsel. He clearly understands that unless libertarians acknowledge these realities, they will be irrelevant in an age of renewed nationalism and decentralization.”
First of all, libertarians need to acknowledge only what libertarianism is supposed to stand for, and not what conservative or progressive statism stands for. And most of the people on both sides of the aisle represent statism, not libertarianism. This is the reality that Deist and other conservative “libertarians” do not seem to acknowledge. Furthermore, author “The Question” of Anarchist Notebook then proceeds to contradict himself, at least from the libertarian perspective, by stating that we live in an age of renewed nationalism and decentralization. Either one is a nationalist or one believes in decentralization. Nationalism generally boils down to worshiping the national state. That’s why you tend to find nationalism most with strong and authoritarian states.
Next up, decentralization (if indeed the clamor for it is renewed, which is begging the question) is not a reality that libertarians would not be willing to acknowledge and welcome. So there is no point for him to make here. Nationalism, because it virtually always is contradictory to decentralization and libertarianism, is a different matter. It is generally a sentiment in which the nation-state is worshiped and one’s own state is regarded as superior to that of others. That is why nationalism tends to be one of the prime motivators of people hungry for, or at least being willing to engage in, international conflicts.
It should also be plainly obvious that although in some quarters nationalism is on the rise, it should not be exaggerated to the degree that it is. Trump only won the election by marginal numbers, and that is with the Podesta emails being released. These numbers are nothing special, considering who his opponent was, and the mere fact that Republicans win elections often, even when they are not as openly nationalist as Trump is. In Austria, the Netherlands and France, political correctness was once again victorious over nationalism in their national elections. In the U.K., the Conservative Party won, but only barely, and the much more nationalist UKIP was obliterated.
Finally, just because nationalism may be renewed, does not lead to the conclusion that libertarians then ought to pay tribute to it, adopt it, accept it, or make a libertarian tenet out of it. Quite the contrary. There is no more need to do any of these things, just because it is ‘renewed,’ as there would be a need to do any of these things if politically correct, statist, collectivist and leftist sentiment were to be ‘renewed.’ Such an argument would be no more than an appeal to popularity. Libertarianism is not a fad or a trend, and it is not supposed to adapt to the winds of change, if the change is not in line with libertarian philosophy. Libertarianism is not about winning a popularity contest. If it were, it would generate an argument for meaningless “big tent” libertarianism, which is precisely what most conservative libertarians oppose.
If the philosophy of liberty should become irrelevant in modern times, then so be it, how horrible this may be for liberty lovers. You don’t attain liberty by accepting that liberty is dead, and joining your ideological opponents. And if our ideological opponents are not our opponents at all, but our fellow liberty lovers, then what is there, really, for libertarians to heed, or not to acknowledge?
“Further, the myth of a “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” libertarianism is dead. A true libertarian society would be both fiscally and socially conservative. “
This is a typically self-serving statement by a writer who is conservative first, and wants to fit the libertarian peg into his own conservative hole. The words “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” mean absolutely nothing from the viewpoint of actual libertarians, precisely because libertarianism is neither conservative nor liberal (in the progressive sense). For libertarians, there is only “fiscally libertarian, socially libertarian” because it is about any way you choose to live so long as no aggression is initiated. Fraudulent libertarians do not understand this, because they simply do not understand or accept true free choice, and true liberty. They can only interpret these concepts from either the conservative or “liberal” point of view. Conservative economics is not the same as libertarian economics, and social progressivism is not the same as social libertarianism. Many conservative libertarians likely do not even truly cherish liberty, except in so far as it suits them personally. What they seem to want is conservatism period, and the only thing that makes them libertarian at all, is the realization that the state is standing in the way of achieving their goal.
A true libertarian society would be neither conservative nor liberal, because in a society of free will and free choice these two concepts would be rendered as meaningless as it would be that someone is nutritionally conservative or progressive.
Quite frankly, the argument is so devoid of logic it is baffling as to how someone dares to make it. If something is libertarian (as in resulting from free choice, without the application of coercion), then it cannot be conservative by nature, for the mere fact that people are entirely free to be progressive in social attitude if they want, regardless of any consequences this attitude may have for them personally. I have no idea whether paleolibertarians stumble onto their own negation of any meaning to the word “libertarianism” by accident, or if there is a certain intent to it.
But they are no different from the left-libertarians that try to negate the meaning of libertarianism by infusing it with all kinds of progressive nonsense and expectations. I’m a libertarian, and in a libertarian society your conservative values would mean nothing to me, nor your religious views, nor your own glorification of the family unit. At the same time, progressive values about economic equality, or sensitivity about certain politically incorrect words, would mean nothing to me. You could not impose them without resorting to aggression. You could initiate forms of ostracism among likeminded fellows, but the reverse is easily just as true, all of which merely means that various different ‘enclaves’ with internally shared lifestyles would form. Even then, libertarian society would not be “conservative” but diverse, even if the diverse would ignore each other completely.
“Libertinism is sustainable only by forcing a healthy, productive sector of a community to subsidize the behaviors of a few social parasites.”
Utter nonsense. Productive people can be libertines in their private time, and thus subsidize their own lifestyles. Plenty of people in the productive sector visit prostitutes, watch porn, have open or other non-traditional marriages, buy and consume drugs etcetera. Often, in so far as they cannot indulge in libertinism, it is because the state has a habit of imposing its own values on society. As a result we have seen the Prohibition Era, the War on Drugs, anti-obscenity laws, anti-gambling laws, anti-prostitution laws and various other kinds of coercive state sermonizing about lifestyle choices. So ironically, it has been conservatives who have employed the state and its monopoly of violence to impose their personal morality on the rest of society, at taxpayer expense.
Anyway. Even if libertines were to be ostracized by the conservative sector of a libertarian society, they could simply form their own lifestyle-sharing societies. Different societies could trade regardless of their differing lifestyle choices, or they could opt to boycott each other, in which case all sides are equally impacted economically (unless various non-conservative enclaves decided to collectively boycott and punish the conservative enclave for its busy body attitude to people with differing lifestyles). Sure, the consequences of certain lifestyle choices may not be as healthy as they are of others, but this changes nothing about the fact that people in the productive sector can be libertines, nor does it change anything about the fact that, sans aggression, their behavior is perfectly in line with libertarian philosophy. Where “The Question” or a Jeff Deist would imply the latter is not the case, they are not being libertarian in their viewpoint at all. They would merely be conservatives posing as libertarians.
Is libertinism ultimately sustainable? There is no reason offered it couldn’t be, if certain choices were not made. If libertines would continue to procreate, and to subsidize their own habits, and to continue to be productive in the economy, there is no reason a libertine lifestyle would be unsustainable. But even if it weren’t, it would still not render it “unlibertarian.” Just as it is not about either progressive or conservative values, about either voluntary group loyalty or total egotistical forms of individualism, about non-aggressive intolerance or tolerance, hate or love, about acceptance or ostracism, libertarianism is not about sustainability of any particular lifestyle.
It is about private property rights and the non-aggression principle as the foundations to be able to live a free life. Period.
“Blood and soil, God and nation – these are things that people value most, not cheap, imported goods or fast Internet connections and casual sex after a puff of weed.”
It doesn’t matter what people value most, as far as libertarianism goes. What matters is that they accept non-aggression and private property rights. Nobody has to care about anybody’s god or bloodlines. The moment they are forced to, there is no libertarianism. So the question becomes simply whether people want to use force to impose their views on others. If they do, they are not libertarian, period. End of discussion. And they do not deserve to be embraced or in any way catered to by genuine libertarians. Within the strict boundaries of libertarianism (its two axioms), people can value whatever they want about blood and soil, God and nation. And other people can reject and ridicule these concepts with equal vigor.
Libertarians that do not understand or accept such simple things about the philosophy of libertarianism – the philosophy of liberty -, should come out of the closet and declare themselves statists. If they are ultimately still genuine libertarians, then it is time to stop trying to make the issue much more complex than it really is, and to stop trying to smuggle values into libertarianism that have nothing to do with it.
The irony is that Jeff Deist and other paleolibertarians don’t want libertarianism to alienate conservatives that are potentially libertarian, while actually doing precisely that to all non-conservative libertarians and non-conservative potential libertarians. It would be different if they would just as eagerly try to appeal to, say, progressives if progressive values were on the rise in terms of popularity, but we know their interest in conservative values is a self-interest. So they need to stop pretending that it is about alienating, or not accepting, conservatives, when they are clearly busy doing precisely that – alienation – to all those who couldn’t care less about traditional values.
“Any libertarian policy that ignores or rejects this truth is both flawed and useless to solving the very problems libertarianism claims to address.”
The only problem that libertarianism claims to address, is the state and any other person or organization that initiates aggression. It does not by itself give a good Goddamn what you believe in, what social ties you prefer having, what lifestyle you prefer to lead, what type of person you want to spend your life with, what you like to smoke or inject into your veins, or anything of the sort.
Conservative and religious people need to know and accept that about libertarianism, or they simply could not ever be libertarian. It is that simple. Conservatives nor progressives can blackmail libertarians into accepting their lifestyle and only their lifestyle in exchange for a libertarian society, because the latter would be rendered totally meaningless in its very principles, and the State would actually make more sense. They cannot suggest their own membership to the libertarian community, by demanding that we all embrace their conservative or progressive subjective values. Because what we would end up with, is no more or less than the state itself, in order for these conservative or progressive values to be enforced. For what is the state, if not merely the expression of a nation’s subjective moral values and the desire to impose them on all others?
Conclusion:
I could keep responding to people that make self-serving conservative cases for their own version of libertarianism, but that would be moot, as I expect that these people are conservative or religious first, and are only libertarian in so far as it would not interfere with the personal values they cherish most. But the whole point of libertarianism is that I do not have to care one way or the other about their values, so long as no aggression is initiated. And so they in essence reject the first principles of libertarianism, because these principles are clearly value-free, except in their own self-contained way. Private property rights and non-aggression are moral values in and by themselves, but beyond themselves say nothing about anything else. That means I do not have to care about your God or Godlessness, your family values or your values as a loner, your opinions about hedonistic lifestyles or the hedonistic lifestyles people lead.
Because many conservative and progressive people who claim to be libertarian do not get this simple fact, they see openings to smuggle their personal values into the foundation of libertarianism. Their arguments will always amount to the same, and are all easy to dismiss precisely because their arguments themselves are not based on any understanding of libertarian principles to begin with. They may claim a libertarian society is not sustainable, or may not succeed (in whatever it is they think libertarianism is supposed to “succeed”), but don’t understand that libertarianism is not about sustainability or “succeeding”. It is not a lifestyle, or a complete belief system; it is set of moral principles. It does not, for instance, have anything whatsoever to say about whether the human race as a species should procreate, or whither away. The latter choice is to be made by people with free will, free choice and according to their own consciences. I realize that especially religious people may have a big problem with this, because God has ordered them to go forth and multiply.
As long as people adhere to libertarian moral principles, these principles succeed by default, because they exist for their own sake. For the sake of private property rights and non-aggression as tools for individual liberty. Not for any other higher, subjective aim that all should champion. What happens to your life, or society, outside of adhering to these moral principles, is entirely up to you, or to society.
An oft-repeated slight of libertarians by statists, is that people tend to support libertarianism when they’re young, but reject it as they mature. Supposedly this is because only immature or juvenile people would see merit in libertarian philosophy.
Aside from the obvious question whether this claim as a whole is even true, it is also seriously begging the question if, and why, libertarianism would be popular with people that are immature, and less so with people that are mature.
In order to answer this question properly, one simply needs to look at just what the political philosophy of libertarianism and the overall political attitude called statism represent.
First of all, we need to comprehend just what makes immaturity and what makes maturity. In my estimation, immaturity in an incapability to deal with the world, with reality, and with life itself without what one might call a “security blanket” close by. Reality, the world, and life itself can be very rough and unforgiving, and can for these reasons be very scary for those with little stamina or a solid backbone. Just as they would be for children. How will people find and keep a job, in order to be able to pay bills? How will they get healthcare in the case of a medical issue? How will they deal with the existence of injustice and crime in society? The list of worries about the reality of existence goes on and on. For many, it may be simply too much to bear, and the notion of having to navigate life independently, maturely and without the constant presence of a guiding and protecting presence may resemble a nightmare. Immature people will tend not to take the consequences of their actions and decisions very seriously, so long as there is a safety feature that can be used when things may get dire. To be completely dependent on oneself if one has to face the consequences of one’s actions and decisions, would certainly either act as a wake-up call for those looking to live life irresponsibly, or confront them with those hard consequences if they resume their irresponsible and immature lifestyle.
In our youths, we have parental figures that basically allow us to live life without having to worry too much about the consequences of our actions. Those parental figures will generally take the blame, and the responsibility of any negative consequences. They will bail us out; they will pay the costs of the damage we do; they will offer us the services we need free of charge. And all of this, they will do provided we accept that we generally have to live by their rules and obey their directions. As adults, we go it alone, decide for ourselves what we spend our money on, choose who we associate with, buy the services we need, and face the costs of the damage we may do.
As we mature, we take more and more responsibility for our own lives and our decisions, and we accept more and more that making bad decisions will confront us with the consequences of them. We realize we cannot have it all, and we must make choices that we have to live with.
When we look at the state, what we see is essentially no more than a political form of a parental figure on the societal level. It is there to ‘guide’ us, to ‘bail us out’, to defend and protect us from the angry outside world, to ‘teach’ us, to ‘soothe’ us and ‘nurture’ us, to ‘fix’ things for us, and to instill us with ‘norms and values’. The price for this parental replacement of our parents at the level of the family unit, is that, just as with our parents at the family unit, we have to live by its rules and obey its directions. We are supposed to love our government and our state, the way we loved our parents as children (and usually continue to do so). We are supposed to be loyal to it, and trust it, preferably without many conditions or questions. We are supposed to see it as our own, much more so than other states. As we would fight to defend the honor of our parents, we must be willing to fight for the honor of our state.
Is there any question that the arrangement that most resembles life as a dependent and immature person, is the statist arrangement? Is there any question that the move toward maturity; the move toward independence and dealing with life and reality as a grown and responsible person, most resembles what is expected of one from the philosophy of libertarianism?
There is a reason that protective family bonds are often associated with the state. The “motherland” or “fatherland”, the “mother” tongue, Big Brother, etcetera.
The state serves the function of the parent to its citizens. It can be a nurturing mother, a stern father, or both. It serves as a security blanket for people who fear the unknown that a stateless society would represent. It is no coincidence that a stateless society is associated with “chaos” and “Survival of the fittest”. For if one kind of person is not regarded as fit enough to be self-reliant and independent, it is the child. It is the state that takes care of people through various departments and the provision of services, such as public education and healthcare, because the assumption is not only that most people cannot take care of these necessities themselves in a voluntary manner; they should not even be expected to. Are we going to leave the ‘weak’ to their own devices? Would it not be essentially the same as parents leaving their children to their fate? The state serves to protect its citizens from threats internal and external, but threats from itself are not regarded as threats, but as discipline for disobedience. The state tells us what ethics, norms and moral values we ought to have, just as parents try to instill the ‘correct’ values in us, because parents assume they know better than children, and to know more about life. The state feels it is its responsibility, at least publicly, to treat us as equals amongst each other, and to remedy any great inequalities between us citizens that exists. It admonishes those of us who are not eager to share what is theirs, as it would admonish its children when they are not eager to share with their play mates. Despite this, both parents as well as the state do not actually themselves share all they have, for they are regarded to be superior and to have special privileges by virtue of their role. Especially in modern times, the state even uses verbiage about “free” services, the way a child receives free services from its parents. Of course, in reality there aren’t free services in either case. In both cases, money first has to be earned in order for any services to be provided at all, and in both cases loyalty, obedience and respect for their dictates are default demands.
Because money does not come out of thin air, the expenses of the state must come from somewhere else, and the only place that generates money is people in the productive sector. So one of the few differences is that in the case of the state, the “children” are always paying for their own services. The more successful ones are admonished for having more, and perhaps not being willing enough to share, and the less successful ones are soothed and reassured, while it costs the state itself nothing. The state redistributes resources from its citizens the way parents may redistribute toys between children, the difference being, of course, that children all get their toys as presents, whereas citizens actually earn their resources through labor.
The analogy between parental figures at the family level, and parental figures at the societal and national level is so clear it is baffling how critics of libertarianism even dare suggest that libertarians, not they themselves, are the immature and dependent ones, desperately needing a government as a security blanket to feel safe in a scary reality.
Libertarians are the ones no longer needing mommy or daddy to guide them through life, to pay their way, to soothe their egos, to instill the correct values in them, to be there to support them when life seems unfair. Statists are the ones that do.
Grown-ups embrace liberty and the responsibility that comes with it. Immature people fear it.
It is statism, not libertarianism, that is tailor made for immature people.
This classic book is a very well argued treatise on how central planning and big government will lead countries on the path toward totalitarianism. It is also a stubbornly pro-status quo book in the sense that it insists on the state being not only a necessity, but also on the state having a role to play in things that Hayek never bothers to argue or prove it really has a role to play in. In this sense, Hayek proves himself to be a typical “capitalist” statist whom casually dismissed the very possibility of a stateless society. Casually, because he assumes as a starting point the obviousness of the necessity of the state, and the idea of it not being necessary so irrational as to not even warrant any kind of argumentation to back up the belief that it is. Anarchists, therefore, need not even regard this book as something they could take entirely seriously either. Seeing as Hayek regards the state not only as necessary, but also sees a necessary role for government in things like social welfare, employment, infrastructure and even economic policy at least to a degree, it is quite clear Hayek cannot even justifiably be called a libertarian, and even calling him a classical liberal would be stretching the term. Hayek could more accurately be described as a neoliberal; that is, a statist with semi-capitalist beliefs.
Having said that, the book could, if it were capable of making a dent in the dogmatic beliefs of those on the left, be a very worthwhile one, by arguing how central planning must by definition eventually lead to tyranny. Hayek spends most of the book hammering this point across, and also makes the case that fascism and National Socialism come from the same lineage as socialism and communism, all of which are ideologies that are entirely based on central planning and control over the personal affairs of citizens. This should put to bed any notion that fascism and Nazism were “extreme right-wing” ideologies. Instead they were simply off shoots from socialism and communism, developed intellectually by people who recognized the “logical” flaws in the latter ideologies, and realizing simply that establishing socialism internationally was doomed to failure. As was the case with socialism and communism at any level, with fascism and National Socialism dealt brutally with anyone that was regarded as an enemy to the ends that the regime had in mind.
The problem with the book, ultimately, is that its effectiveness is dependent on how willing its intended audience is in accepting these facts as stated in the book. Seemingly targeted at left-leaning readers with proclivities toward more and more central planning, it was always going to be doubtful that the book was going to make any big changes, as the majority of the left are not driven by reason and facts, but by emotion and utopian ideals that counter human nature. Whilst it could be expected that its intended readership may respect its tone and intent (which is really moderate and reasonable), there never was any reason to expect many of them to agree with its content. And as we can clearly see from the actual state of affairs in our current times, no heed whatsoever has been paid to “The Road to Serfdom” by any status quo politician or their voting blocs, as both progressives and so-called “conservatives” have happily marched forward on this very road toward ever more central planning (see the EU as one shining example.)
As such, with no true originality for actual libertarians, and no real receptiveness with those on the left, the book has been claimed to be much more influential than it ever really was. It is a middle of the road, compromising affair that could do nothing but end up falling on deaf ears.
Well written, certainly with some interesting sections, but ultimately pointless.
Final Score: 7/10
The United States: land of the free, home of the brave… Sure. In your dreams.
At this point, libertarians with any sense should know that the U.S. was nothing of the sort. Ever. Not before the war of independence and not since. The reasonable Articles of Confederation were rendered null and void quickly by the Constitution, which was no more than a coup by a moneyed and landed oligarchy looking to keep all their special privileges and advantages, except that the British were out of the way and the American post-colonial oligarchy was running the place instead. The Founding Fathers, and other “revolutionaries” either were Tory conservative oligarchs or ended up turning into them once victory was all but secured. Only a small hand full of them were men of integrity: Patrick Henry, George Mason, a few others. But the conservative oligarchs and friends (Washington, Hancock, Hamilton, Madison, Franklin, the Adamses etc) were victorious. Read about this in Murray Rothbard’s “Conceived in Liberty: volume 4”.
And so the constitution was not a document that lauded in an era, and a nation, of liberty, but one that laid the foundation of the United States of today. A nation of empire, of rights violations and small tyranny, of welfare and warfare, of corruption and power mongers, and of collectivism.
There is a nation that currently is not being tangibly given form, but certain it is theoretically and spiritually. What is stopping it from taking place in reality? It is the standard imperialistic practice of the common, power-monger ruled nations of Croatia and Serbia (of which Croatia, hypocritically, once declared its independence and “liberty” from greater Yugoslavia). There is a tiny piece of land that is unclaimed, right between Croatia and Serbia, on the Danube river. This piece of land has been claimed and baptized as Liberland, the very first real libertarian nation. But Croatian police arrest anyone that dares enter the land, even from outside Croatian borders. Liberland has thus far not been recognized by any so-called “official” nation-state.
The organization has been set in motion some time ago, and a prototype constitution has already been drafted.
Any libertarian that would be interested in taking note what a constitution would look like for a REAL free country, as opposed to a fake one, should read this constitution here. Bear in mind that Liberland is not anarchocapitalistic, but minarchistic.
This is what the U.S. constitution should have looked like, if it was truly a document about the liberties and rights of citizens.
But of course, then it wouldn’t be dropping bombs on dozens of countries, taxing people into oblivion, condoning all kinds of privacy and rights violations and all other types of conduct more befitting a belligerent and petty tyrannical state where even having a lemonade stand in front of your house requires getting permission from the government.
So how long did it take for a movement called “libertarians for Trump” to realize that they are dealing with a politician? What is it about certain libertarians that they simply refuse to accept historical facts about the nature of politicians, and aspiring politicians once they are in power? The phrase “fool me once, shame on you…” does not even apply here, as these libertarians allow themselves to be fooled time and time again. Continue Reading