I noticed a few interesing posts recently. One by Gene Healy noted following Thomas Sowell the tension between those with constrained and unconstrained views of the world, and specifically noted that libertarians could fall into either camp. This strikes me as the distinction between libertarians whom I find interesting and engaging–Gene Healy, Albert Jay Nock, and even Hayek–and the seemingly larger mass of pie-in-the-sky theorists for whom any deviation from pure libertarianism is mocked as a grave injustice, e.g., Rand, James Markels and Radley Balko.
Thus, I noted on Gene’s blog that so many contemporary libertarians forget their heritage and ignore the likely outcome of a truly libertarian society: a proliferation of illiberal, discriminatory, conspiratorial, and, in many cases, abjectly racist subcultures. I wrote, “Historically, the most vociferous opponents of federal power were those that wanted ‘states right’ to oppress and segregate blacks. The most articulate proponents of liberty were also the oppressors of black men; Calhoun even noted that such a society defends its own liberty more passionately, as it is distinctly aware of the slave/freeman distinction. So to imagine that the libertarian dream world will be a world of wealth maximization, commerce, all night raves, parentally chaperoned keg parties, tolerance for homosexuals, and enlightened views is an aesthetic kind of argument, the chief libertarian vision, and not one that will likely result. It will just as surely conssit of Branch Davidian compounds, all white clubs, racial discrimination in most employment, and mistreament of children by their parents without legal recourse. Incidentally, that world may well be preferable to the one we live in [on balance], and I understand the von Mises/Rothbard arguments about subjective values and voluntary association. But it does seem to be a bit phoney to imagine that the libertarian world would not involve any coercion and that also people’s voluntary choices would not lead to some unpleasant, ugly, and downright immoral outcomes that even the most staunch libertarian would be a bit ashamed to defend. The painting always of a very pleasant picture and the refusal to recognize the prepolitical preferences–for race, tribe, nation, religion, modesty, chastity–that will shape such a world does evidence an ‘unconstrained’ vision.
“In other words, some notion of community, equality, and fair treatment have been important American values, going back to the discourse of ‘classical republicanism’ at the time of the founding. These [views] were often in tension with a libertarian rhetoric aimed [at defending] the right to exclude various groups and thereby undermine a coherent, just, and welcoming comunity. A truly libertarian reshaping of America would require the abandonment of this parallel American tradition. The fruition of a libertarian regime would involve, at least in part, an illiberal triumph of anti-social subcultures, unconstrained by nondiscrimination laws, obligations to generally applicable ‘morals legislation,’ and any subordination to all but the most narrow concept of the common good.”
Thus, it’s no surprise that for liberal-leaning libertarian Brooke Oberwetter, the magnetic effect of first world wages and the first world welfare state is simply an occasion to celebrate diversity and mock immigrant opponents for their nostalgia about the recent past when Americans mowed their own laws.
As I note in Brooke’s comment sections, the current result does not represent a libertarian outcome, but rather the result of a rigged system involving nondiscrimination laws, various economic entitlements, an ineffective border control, trespassing, forgery, and the illegality of any private means to express preferences on various subjects, including who we want to be neighbors with, work with, go to school with, and the like. A world where such preferences could be freely expressed would likely look much different than the current one. One wonders if the libertarians would go to bat for racially restrictive covenants in Shelly v. Kramer or the defense of local laws in the purist and racially motivated federalism of the Dixiecrats. Those positions should all flow logically from their stated passion for voluntary associations and federalism respectively. But on the libertarian blogs one notices only a deafening silence or cherry-picked examples of libertarianism flourishing, while ignoring the more unpleasant examples that are important because they actually happened. Real people when allowed did use property rights to create restrictive covenants, all white schools, religious discriminatory admissions practices, child labor, etc. Real states did clamor for states rights precisely to preserve the practices of slavery and Jim Crow.
Now these concepts–voluntary association and states’ rights–do have value outside these examples. But it’s silly only to praise libertarian or federalism outcomes that you like and rarely venture into a passionate defense of an outcome one abhors. It is particularly misleading to do so when it is deviations from federalism and libertarian theory that preserve the acceptable and moderate outcomes of the world that we live in. Fedearlism in particular is only tangentially a libertarian value; it’s just as much a self-government value, allowing localities to restrict what would be allowed at the federal level. But you rarely see libertarians defending the quintessential self-government activities of communities that would restrict interstate wine sales, crack down on drunk drivers, or teach creationism.
Naturally most libertarians would not approve these outcomes, and it would challenge their worldview to defend them. Even in the area of free speech where there is widespread consensus that we must sometimes defend what we disagree with, very few people other than extreme free speech partisans feel good knowing that Nazis can march in Skokie or that terrorist supporters can spread hatred in Filby Park. That is, most of us have a certain vision of the type of society we purport to advocate for that goes beyond procedures and legal restraints. That vision involves, more often than not, just outcomes. Libertarians purport to defend a certain set of abstract principles and policies, but a wholly utopian vision of an ideal yet-to-be-realized future society keeps them consistent, even when particular outcomes appear unseemly. They’re just speed bumps on the road to that utopian vision–at least in the case of the unconstrained ones, who are legion.
Conservatives are willing to sacrifice pure consistency to guarantee the actual just outcomes that have been realized historically. Instead of acknowleding the irreconcilability of certain good, legally-created just outcomes of the present, and their likely absence from the libertarian future, many libertarians want to wish away those bad outcomes and live in a fantasy world. They imagine that in the libertarian future more people like them can live their lives as they wish, and fewer people and institutions would exist to constrain them. The true effect of a liberal society, though, would be that various discriminations by private individuals could occur and individuals likely would experience greater net constraints than the current regime where constraints are both created and forbidden by laws, e.g., nondiscrimination laws, limitation of contract remedies, prohibitions on certain types of precommitment, limitations on states.
Aside from liberty, there are other important political values such as law and order, community, respect for the individual, stability, citizenship, and all of the little details that make up a “way of life” worth preserving. I’d rather fight to protect this world that I know–inconsistencies and all–than hope for the best in a future libertarian order that cannot even explain what it will do about the various injustices that have been remedied in history by various political interventions.
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Dude, you totally misinterpreted every word in that post: it wasn’t at all about libertarianism or libertopia or even particularly concerned with any outcome of a given policy. It was about Dallasites being hypocrites, which, in my experience, they are. You’re trying just a little too hard to pick fights where no fight need exist.
And as an aside, I’m not left-leaning in the least. My political preferences are entirely consistently libertarian: limited government, free markets, don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you, yadda yadda yadda.
My personal preferences are really quite conservative. Unlike you, I just happen not to want to weild the power of the state to obtain them.
It was obvious from your original post that you thought it more or less good that Dallas and Texas had reengineered themselves into majority-minority states. There certainly were no notes of criticism or concern.
In any case, your point was a springboard for a larger discussion, which I see you’re incapable of saying anything interesting upon.
Again, I’m sorry that you perceived some normative claim that wasn’t intended. I often forget that there are sarcasm impaired people out there on the internets. You’ve taught me a good lesson here.
I congratulated Texas on something that it likely isn’t too proud of. Get it? Get it? It’s a joke.
There’s no need to be an ass about it, Chris. You misunderstood my point and have now decided to launch into an assault on my intellect by saying that I’m incapable of adding to a discussion that I have no interest in joining.
Since pressed though, I’m more than happy to admit that while such practices make me exceptionally uncomfortable personally, I have no real theoretical objection to the negative outcomes of free association among private entities. I’m significantly “squishier” when it comes to the state imposition of discrimination and I’m happy for prohibitions on it. But if someone wants to open a privately funded all white school, I have serious trouble getting upset about it. I wouldn’t send my kids there, and most generally enlightened people probably woulndn’t either, so I don’t see it as some huge social ill. If the cost of liberty is that a few whack jobs open discriminatory schools, clubs, golf courses, or businesses that have limited appeal because of their intolerant practices, that’s just fine by me.
See, as I suggested above, everything will work out, historical evidence to the contrary.
We’re only where we are because of massive violations of libertarianism and federalism principles in the form of antidiscrimination laws at the federal level and massive federal intervention against state, local, and individual discrimination. Since in a libertarian world none of this would have come to pass–after all you supposedly believe in federal power in this area and in private rights of discrimination in all cases–you have to say that on balance it was bad these things happened, that it would have been better and more consistent with your policy if they never happened. Currently, you’re reaping the benefit of various government interventions you would have opposed in principle.
Sorry to be an ass, but it’s disappointing that I write a detailed disquisition and the most you can get hyped up about is whether your ironic and opaque blog posting was misunderstood.
“We’re only where we are because of massive violations of libertarianism and federalism principles in the form of antidiscrimination laws at the federal level and massive federal intervention against state, local, and individual discrimination.”
Agreed. I’ve never argued to the contrary. And I sure am glad I didn’t have to endure it. What I don’t agree with is that it wouldn’t have happened on its own over time. It’s the conceit of bureaucrats that the only reason things get better is because of some rule or regulation.
This is a larger version of the old libertarian quandry, if a cop busts down a door without a warrant or probable cause and finds a mad man about to kill a bunch of kidnapped babies, I don’t have to get upset that the babies weren’t killed in order to lament the fact that an illegal search took place. I’m glad the advances were made, but I’m not convinced that the ends justified the means, given that the ends could have been achieved in some better way that is more compatible with my political philosophy.
And I think you’re glossing over the historical evidence–I don’t see any historical evidence that shows that democratic post-industrial nations can sustain racist or discriminatory institutions on any meaningful scale. A lot of the “objective good” done by unlibertarian means was all but imminent by the time the government stepped in to codify the new order.
It’s generally acknowledged, for example, that slavery was a dying institution by the time the Emancipation Proclamation was made. As for Jim Crow laws, it’s likely that that they too would have gradually died out due to social and commercial pressure, and it would’ve been much less destructive to race relations in the South had they been allowed to do so. I think there’s quite a bit of legitimacy to the claim that race relations in this country today would be much better had they not been imposed. Does that mean I’m not grateful for the tolerance and opportunity that did arise from unlibertarian policies? No. But do I think there are better means? Yes.
Child labor regulations, in another example, were well on their way into the mainstream before there were any laws, especially as the press began to cover child exploitation and unions began gaining clout and demanded scaling back child participation in the workforce so that able bodied adults could have more jobs. And the laws have had some undesirable consequences, including making illicit and unregulated “jobs” attractive to young people who need them. Particularly in urban areas, child labor laws led to child prostitution, and more recently, child drug dealers. It’s happening still in developing countries around the world, though particularly in east Asia. Laws handed down from high tend to have unintended consequences, consequences that could have been avoided had a new order arisen spontaneously. There’s little reason that children should be excluded from work in jobs that aren’t physically intensive, for example, but because of a one-size fits all federal law, they can’t. Again, am I upset that 8 year olds aren’t working in coal mines? No. Do I think it’s stupid that a 14 year old has to choose between selling drugs or not having any spending money? Yes.
Your argument here is the very definition of the unconstrained view, at least as I understand it: if only we could get the policies right, we could get peace on earth and goodwill towards men. I’m more inclined to think that if we just let everyone alone, the crazies and the bad ways of doing things will self-select themselves out of the mainstream and largely stick to themselves. Racism, discrimination, and preventing equality of opportunity are immoral, but I don’t think it’s the government’s place to legislate morality. The best way to combat them, in my opinion, is to demonstrate that they’re inefficient, which they are. So maybe it takes a little more time than a law. Fine. My guess is the outcome will be better, the unintended consequences fewer, and the people, ultimately, happier.
Now, since none of this has anything to do with my post that went awry, and since conjecture about how the past might have been under other circumstances is of very little interest to me, I’ll leave it at that.
First off, I’m not a doctrinaire libertarian, and in fact I’m probably more moderate than Gene is when it comes to policing the libertarian boundaries. After all, I support the war in Iraq, I don’t believe that taxation should be banished, I think education is a public good, and other such positions that truly hardcore libertarians would cry “statist!” over. You just get pissed at me because I actually stand up to you when you go on a misguided paleotear.
Second, libertarians never guarantee a utopia, unlike most other political ideologies. Of COURSE we acknowledge that with greater individual liberty will come increased ability for people to act in ways that many of us would not agree with. You act like this is some kind of revelation when this has been obvious since the start. Rather than using the government as a tool to force people to act like we would want them to, libertarians only want the government to get involved when rights are affected. That’s why libertarians oppose “victimless crimes,” like prostitution and so forth. It’s not because libertarians LIKE prostitution, you know. We just see no basis for the government to ban it.
Third, I have no idea how “mistreatment of children” gets snuck into libertarian theory. Last I checked, libertarians believe that children have rights, although not as many as adults do, obviously. How this translates into an allowance for child abuse is beyond me.
I think Brooke’s last post covers most of whatever else I would say on the matter.
You raise some interesting points, but I think you exagerrate my position. I am not saying the world is perfect. I’m saying that it is what it is, and that some of the injustices that the current regime has addressed would never have been adequately addressed under a consistent libertarian system and would be free to reemerge in the future if these restrictions were done away with.
I also think you’ve set this up to be an irrefutable position, one immune to facts. You say slavery was on the outs and that significant discrimination would be unlikely to reemerge. The second one is probably true, but who can really know how it would play out? And, not knowing that, why would one want to adopt a dogmatic abandonment of any tools to address various injustices. There’s a difference between saying I start with a strong bias for freedom, particularly at the national level, but no one should be allowed to marry his daughter/sell himself into slavery/conspire to fix prices/support the enemy in wartime, etc. And saying that as a matter of philosophical purity I will always and everywhere abadon the right to make such interventions and, moreover, the results will almost certainly be just and beautiful. Finally, getting back to that little detail called history, I would simply say that it can be strongly disputed that slavery was on the outs owing to the efficiencies of the cotton gin, the commitment of the southern slavocracy to its “peculiar institution” without regard to economic incentives, and the hardening of southern attitudes during the 1850s, as exemplified by the almost Nietzchean views of John Calhoun on how slavery was a “positive good.”
Finally, you say, “I don’t see any historical evidence that shows that democratic post-industrial nations can sustain racist ordiscriminatory institutions on any meaningful scale.” South Africa did until the late 1980s. And those nations that did make these changes did so through laws like the ones that came to pass in the US. Would you have waited that long for our own Deep South to get rid of private and public segregation just to be pure to libertarian theory? Is it so offensive to a comprehensive notion of political right that the federal government passed an anti-KKK law in the 1870s?
While I do think the court intervetnions of the 1950s like Brown were largely ineffective, the federal civil rights laws–largely permitted under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment–were the demonstrable cause of the actual changes in the South, which was hitherto fiercely resistant to calls for political and social and economic reform. Their character as coming form the democratic sphere of our government gave them greater legitimacy in the eyes of southerners, who, like all citizens in a public, agree to govern and be governed in turn by generally applicable and popularly created laws.
James, all rancor aside if possible, I’d like to pursue something. You say that you are a “moderate,” by which I assume you mean willing to deviate from pure libertarian theory, on certain issues, among which you count education. Presumably there’s something about education that “trumps” pure libertarian theory, in your mind. If libertarian theory can be trumped, then it seems it is never a sufficient basis for rejecting a particular state action. In other words, your point is that we should have a strong prejudice and presumption in favor of leaving people alone, etc., but in any particular instance we should be able to discuss whether that prejudice/presumption should be trumped because of particular values, concerns, whatever.
This approach means that people will differ over where libertarian theory should be trumped. For example, you might say education for one set of reasons, and I might say homosexual marriage for another set of reasons. Fine. But here’s my question — under this rubric, don’t a libertarian’s political views as to when libertarian theory gets trumped tell us a whole lot about a libertarian’s personal values? I mean, you think education is a public good because you value education in a way that trumps any dogmatic libertarian approach. Same with homosexual marriage (except I value its NON-existence) for me, and even for some friends I know who call themselves libertarians.
It seems you are always trying to distinguish sharply between a libertarian’s political views and his personal values and preferences. We have had several arguments because I don’t really think you can make that distinction. But your position has always been, “Hey, I just think the government should leave people alone; that doesn’t tell you anything about my view on prostitution.” But it does! For a “moderate” libertarian willing to trump the dogma in certain cases, it tells us that you’re not bothered enough by prostitution, that you don’t think the social harms from prostitution are harmful enough, to merit a trump.
Perhaps the dogmatic libertarian can retreat behind the “I oppose government force across the board, no matter my personal values as they relate to a political issue” line, but you, the so-called “moderate” libertarian, cannot.
James if you are not as doctrinaire as some of your peers–and you are not, I concede that–then I applaud you.
That said, taking something like parents and children. I acknowledge that libertarians wouldn’t allow parents to beat or murder their children, but since there’s no natural right to be allowed outside of the house, to get an education, not to be sent overseas for an arranged marriage, working on a farm from age six, I don’t see what libertarian principle allows intervention, because no natural rights are invovled in any of those cases. Some involve obvious failures of parents to secure the welfare of their child, but then we get into a line drawing question that might disallow, as we discussed the other day, the right of parents to serve alcohol to minor children. In other words, any political theory can definitively answer some questions, but many others are practical and murky in nature and in that respect libertarianism oversells itself by saying it liberates us from the grey areas of other political philosophies and it sells itself short by not recognizing the genuine practical problems involved in many political areas that do not involve rights, or at least clear cut rights claims, e.g., the rights of police versus the rights of private citizens, the rights and duties of parents, what type of contracts to allow and disallow on the basis of their harm to third parties, etc.
Well said, Chris. (In the general point you’re making about libertarianism, not in terms of your little clash with Brooke–will stay away from that.) This is why I always insist on splitting the fine hair between libertarian and classical liberal.
Roach: In your response to Brooke, I think part of the problem is the dissonance between what you think is an “adequate” response to a problem. I think what Brooke and many other libertarians, including myself, believe is that the ends do not justify the means. Libertarians generally envision the same ends as everyone else, but have a much different idea as to what means are allowable to reach those ends. All too often, other ideologies see a “problem” and then posit a governmental solution that happens to jibe with their own feelings of social justice/morality/etc. Libertarians see the same “problem” and then ask whether government action is truly the best answer, and if it is, how that action can be best circumscribed by human liberty. Libertarians do believe in government — that’s why we’re not anarchists — but it’s a government that is always under a watchful eye. Other ideologies, I find, place way too much faith — for lack of a better word — in government, either thinking that government solutions are usually the best ones or that government power will not be abused.
As a short example, I am generally of the opinion that the public road system was necessary at the start. There was simply no way that America could develop the kind of infrastructure necessary to support our current economy, or to allow our then-economy grow to the current economy, through purely private action. So I’m not a doctrinnaire libertarian decrying the public road system as having been built with a gun to my head, etc., as some libertarians might. However, I now think that there is good cause today to start privatizing the roads, as technology today finally affords an easy method for collecting tolls without hindering travel. My preference, as always, is to avoid government action, since government power is the most easily abused. But it is not a lockstep judgment.
Which brings me to Wade’s comments.
Wade: I don’t believe it is a matter of “trumping” libertarian theory. Again, libertarians believe in government. They believe that government is necessary in order to protect individual rights. They believe that some government is necessary in order for a society to be stable and able to protect itself from invaders. That we may differ as to how to best accomplish these objectives does not mean that the doctrinnaire libertarian and myself differ on principle. Some principles are easy to apply, which is why the doctrinnaire and I would agree on prostitution. Some are more difficult. The difference, it would seem to me, is to what extent practicality is included in the analysis.
Take, for example, Social Security. The Cato Institute, a harbor for libertarians, has come out in favor of privatization. The doctrinnaire would point out that even privatization entails the government forcing people to save money, thus privatization is bad. But this is not a practical conclusion, as all libertarians would probably agree that privatization is preferable to the current system. The doctrinnaire would simply ignore that. Better to be “right” than to reach a better solution. And that is the line between us: I’m willing to settle for “more libertarian,” while the doctrinnaire wants nothing but “pure libertarian.” See the difference? So it’s not really the arbitrary personal-preference distinction that you think is in play.
James, I understand the Social Security point, which is simply that an incremental application of a libertarian solution is preferable to the status quo, and even to a likely-failed attempt to get rid of the whole system. I guess I need to know what you meant when you distinguished yourself from the doctrinaire libertarian on the basis of your belief that “education is a public good.” That positive formation indicates that you don’t mean to support an incremental privatization of the school system, with full privatization being the end result. So what education policies do you favor, and how does your position on them make you a “moderate” libertarian?
Also, if you believe that a private road system was necessary, even just at the start, because that was the only reasonable way to get a road system, then I think you are engaging in “trumping.” You didn’t look at the issue and say, “Well, I’m value neutral as to whether we need a road system, but I don’t believe in government force, so I oppose public roads.” Instead, your interest in seeing a road system developed, and your practical belief that there was only one way to do that at the start, led you to support government action, if just for a time. How is this any different from someone saying that they value this or that about a social institution — say, marriage — that they think there’s certain practical steps that need to be taken to preserve it, and that therefore they support government action? The only differences I can see are in (1) the degree to which the “no government action” presumption/prejudice is in effect when beginning to look at an issue, and (2) the subjective preferences that cause one to “trump” the prejudice on the issue.
I’m not surprised that a moderate libertarian, who subjectively values commerce, would take the position on early roads that you have. But it’s no different from a conservative doing the same regarding marriage. The overarching “no government force” principle doesn’t help us; the debate is really a subjective one about values and preferences, and an empirical one about what method works best to implement or preserve those values and preferences.
This has all been interesting, and perhaps you’re less doctriniare and thoughtful than your peers, James, but if we’re debating public policy and we all realize that government exists to secure certain mundane ends and that liberty though generally a strong preference can be abrogated for a variety of practical reasons, why should it be so laughable that governments would concern itself with children and their upbringing, education of citizens, private behaviors with public consequences (drugs, prostitution), etc. We may conclude in all of these cases that government should not involve itself, we might conclude that where it once involved itself, it should do so no longer, as you suggest with roads.
In other words, outside of a few undeniable and absolute liberties on which there is broad agreement (at least on the right)–to the fruits of one’s labor, to due process, to life, to be free from violence–isn’t it somewhat counterproductive to short-circuit debates on things like gay marriage, drug criminalization, antitrust laws, public health laws, governemnt discretionary spending etc. with discussion-ending invocations of liberty and coercion, particularly when the liberty invoked is not an historical freedom of Americans but an abstract no-physical-harm-test kind of liberty that would decry public roads, nuisance law, etc.
You’re not doing this now, James. And you acknowledge that it’s sometimes down in an overwrought way by your peers who cry statist at the least infringement on freedom of action. You also acknowledge a “Gray Area” for reasons of practicality and because of the incompleteness of libertarian theory on certain questions. I don’t mean that mockingly or critically either, it’s just that the theory does not by itself answer all political questions, such as how to secure a national defense. So wouldn’t it be better just to discuss some of these issues on the merits to see if they’re more like or more unlike other restrictions on our freedom that are necessary and beneficial to us because they permit a stable, wealth-creating, and just society? I don’t decry starting with a strong liberty presumption, but ultimately we’re debating in the murky territory of better and worse, efficient and inefficient, unintended consequenes, and all the rest.
To embrace a near-religious faith that the libertarian regime would always, or almost always, lead in the positive direction and that those who favor more energetic government more often do harm is unsustainable, or at least I would say it is if we do not distort the historical record. Consider the chaos of a Somalia, the devolution of the Kerrensky regime, likewise with Weimar and the Articles of Confederation.
In other words, we must study history, public policy, social sciences etc. and see what is able to achieve our agreed upon ends, when we are in fact agreed. We’ll find, no doubt, that many government interventions are positively harmful. But we’ll also find that some are sound. And we’ll find others that are sometimes good and sometimes bad. And we’ll find others on which the jury is still out. Finally, we’ll find other situations where our fundamental values dictate who thinks the outcome is good or bad, whether something like Korematsu was worth it, or the Civil War for that matter.
I suppose I’m suggesting that libertarian theory, at least as advocated by many libertarins, short-circuits debates that are necessarily fact-driven and should be conducted on the compare and contrast level rather than on the level of clashing absolutist pronouncements.
Laws do not reflect what society thinks of itself and wishes to be — laws reflect where the power is.
The “elitist few” instruct the “ignorant many”.
That’s the way it is. Right now.
Can self-interest ever be replaced by the best interests, the common interest, of humankind? If so, how?
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that there is ALOT of room for improvement. Pick whatever political ideology you want – the bottom line is that we are all connected (look at terrorism..look at the economy) & we need to adjust accordingly.
Wade: “I guess I need to know what you meant when you distinguished yourself from the doctrinaire libertarian on the basis of your belief that ‘education is a public good.’”
What I mean here is that I believe there is cause for public funding of education. Now, that does not mean that I require public schools, but rather that I would support the use of tax dollars to fund education, even if that education funds scholarships to private schools. If there was a way to achieve the same results without public funding (as some assert is possible with education tax credits), then I would support that. But in my cost-benefit analysis comparing the loss of individual rights from taxation to the gains created by there being a better educated populace (gains that I believe would include individual rights, as people with more education would be better able to employ and defend their own rights as well as the rights of others), I think the balance weighs in favor of education being a public good. The doctrinnaire libertarian would put all the emphasis on the taxation side of the ledger — effectively arguing that even if there are substantial gains to be had, it’s not worth the loss in individual liberty to take the taxation money in the first place. It’s sort of a “the later good does not mollify the earlier sin” argument in keeping with the ends-not-justifying-the-means bit I mentioned before. But since I think that individual rights will, in the aggregate, increase as a result, I am willing to make the exception.
To bring this to your next point regarding roads verses marriage, what it mostly comes down to here is that the gains from morality-based legislation and such other social institutions are much harder to quantify, and such laws are much more likely to result in negative effects that far outweigh whatever subjective good is achieved and individual liberties lost. To remind you of my position on gay marriage, my view is that “marriage” is already defined as being between a man and a woman, so there is no need to change that definition. But I see no compelling reason not to allow gay couples to have access to civil unions that, in all constructive ways, are the same legal institutions as marriages. The dire warnings from conservatives about the threat to heterosexual marriage and the like all turn up rather empty, in my view. Policy arguments that compel me to agree that there should not be the ability for one person to marry more than one other person, or that they cannot marry a child, aren’t present when it comes to civil unions. Now, I don’t think it would be fruitful for us to debate the merits of this issue here, but I felt I had to flesh things out so that you could see that it’s not a personal preference issue on my end. I am weighing both sides of the debate, and finding the pro-civil union side to be the strongest one.
Roach: “…perhaps you’re less doctriniare and thoughtful than your peers, James…”
Less thoughtful? I’ll take it as a typo.
Roach: “…outside of a few undeniable and absolute liberties on which there is broad agreement (at least on the right)–to the fruits of one’s labor, to due process, to life, to be free from violence–isn’t it somewhat counterproductive to short-circuit debates on things like gay marriage, drug criminalization, antitrust laws, public health laws, governemnt discretionary spending etc. with discussion-ending invocations of liberty and coercion[?]”
Sure, but I don’t think that I “short-circuit” such discussions. My position is arrived after a weighing of liberties involved. What makes me a libertarian is that I value the individual liberties more than most people when I do my calculus, and I have found that, as a general rule, government would be best off sticking to the defense of individual rights rather than becoming immersed in practically every facet of our life today. The overall thing that I am interested in is the maximization of human liberty, as I believe that this will lead to maximization of economy, wealth, and happiness, and laws that reduce liberty must thereby be demonstrated to provide benefits that far outstrip the loss of liberty. I think that American conservatism and American progressivism both believe in “liberty,” but in the end they find some liberties to be valuable and others to be of negligible value. Libertarians do not so judge things, viewing the liberty to engage in things of obvious merit (like speech) as just as worthy of fighting for as the liberty to do things that aren’t so palatable, like smoking pot.
I think the reason that you perceived me as a doctrinnaire libertarian is because you mostly see me writing on your blog and not elsewhere. And when I write on your blog, it’s mostly to disagree with you since I see little use in a “I agree, Roach” post. You wouldn’t tend to see my disagreements with more strident libertarians, or my disagreements with progressives. For example, my first article for Brainwash, where I argued that atheistic libertarians like myself shouldn’t have a problem with references to God in the Pledge of Alliegence or other such public ceremonial deism displays, was followed the next week by an article by now-Reason writer Julian Sanchez arguing the opposite. I don’t expect you to keep up with that, after all, but there is more to my position than what I write here.
I’ll concede all that, and even concede that we’d probably not have as much friction and race face to face than we do in the easily-misunderstood world of online debates.
If I may summarize at least part of your position with which I agree: It is an important difference to note that liberal regimes must sometimes do illiberal things to preserve themselves–immigration policy, support education–than to say that they may do anything they wish for any reason, including the classical product of using a regime directly and explicitly to make men more virtuous. In other words, I’m concerned with public morality and less so with private morality with no social effects. As a practical matter, like libertarians, I think that what people do in their own homes, discretely should not occasion too much concern of the government.
I wrote not too long ago, “some notion of the public and private realms should temper how laws are enforced and how “morals legislation” generally should do its work. In other words, legislation against gambling halls, strip clubs, sodomy, or whatever–setting aside the merits of any of these laws–tends to prevent the public and open exercise of these things. None of these laws necessarily affects private behavior, which should continue to have its traditional constitutional protection. This is important because public and open behavior tends to make things that are otherwise harmful or looked down upon more normal and therefore less shameful; ultimately, these behaviors will be more widely practiced if they are done so openly. Tthe community, by permitting them, may be seen not to condemn these behaviors. Thus, if the effect of these laws is merely to move certain behavior into the private realm, that would count as a victory and a useful outcome–consistent both with people’s rights and the community’s need for order and standards. I believe this is a fair assessment of how much of this legislation has worked both in the past and in the present. A broad notion of tolerance for what goes on in private, even for petty illegal behavior, that does not openly show contempt for the community and its laws, is an important concomitant of a free society. Even if there were no laws on any of these subjects, what one should feel free to do in public as a matter of prudence and respect for the need for community values should be more circumscribed than what one does in private.”
Chris, don’t you think you are just substituting (to borrow from Dworkin) one Herculean account of political decisionmaking for another. The libertarian Hercules claims to deduce iron laws of nature that will always lead to just outcomes–whether drawn from economics, or public choice theory, or just a plan reductionist view that the state always screws up the natural forces of equliibrium, etc.
You, on the other hand substitute your own Herculean account. This one requires the decisionmaker to act with fine and sagacious attunment to particular mode of “justice” instantiated in a “historically realized” “way of life.” You then criticize libertarians, who are obsessed with bloodless abstractions and deductive reasoning, for lacking the wisdom of recognizing this “way of life.” In its own very different way, this is just as much an exercise in epistemic heroism as what your criticizing.
It also seems to have its own blind spots. You celebrate a kind of rural red-state version of America as your account of the instantiated way of life (God, Guns, and Guts) that is American, but don’t seem to give any recognition or celebration of the competing traditions that are no less American–its all William Jennings Bryan and no Clarrence Darrow. It’s all Waylon Jennings and no Charlie Parker; no place for Lenny Bruce, the Beats, or Whitman. In Wade’s view–although I wouldn’t want to suggest you share it– its a world in which Willie Nelson is just a worthless pot-head–that’s a pretty impoverished view of what it means to be aesthetically American. You can dismiss this as just aesthetics but your account of political judgment is in part aesthetic (as you suggest appreciating what is just is no different from, and is indeed tied up in, appreciation of a “way of life”). That’s why your aesthetic myopia says something just as telling as Radley Balko’s blindspot for the tragic: underscores why your approach to things smacks in its own way of the hubris of unconstrained vision.
Isn’t there a middle way lurking here, that two Herculean camps are ignoring, one much more modest and humble about our capacity for knowledge, either of our “historically realized” justice or of the iron princples of natures, that is neither purely traditionalist or libertarian, one that it is process-based, epistemically skeptical, pluralist, and that might be consistent with a political philosophy that is susceptible to being portrayed as either libertarian and conservative?
MM –
You’re being unfair. I called Howard Stern “worthless” and am proud to back that up. I called Willie a “country music pothead,” which he is (can’t we agree that 5 joints a day = pothead?). My point in that comment was to point out something perverse in Gene’s apparent acceptance of a disgusting character such as Stern and a pothead talking about the virtues of pot-smoking, but his apparent distaste for a doctor warning about pot’s negative effects.
In truth, I’m a Willie fan.
Also MM, I largely agree with your comment, as I think Roach likely does as well. There is something depressing about an anemic conservatism that rejects the very existence of all subcultures and clings to utopian visions of a 1950s-style America that don’t match any historical reality.
I agree with you there. I became a confirmed Willie fan several years ago at Jazz Fest, before it went down the tubes, when I saw Willie play to a long-haired, motely, whiskey-drinking, pot-smoking crowd and got a lump in my throat when, as he sang the refrain from “The City of New Orleans,” big American flags appeared out of the midst of the audience and the crowed erupted into cheers. And when he sang, with feeling, the last bars of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”–about a land “up yonder” that “knows no parting”–it struck me how much emotional content religious metaphors inspire in both the American mainstream and counterculture. Yet, how many D.C. law and order conservatives would dismiss these folks as so much unruly lefty rabble?
MM you raise some good points, that I confess I don’t fully understand. I agree that there is a kind of lame conservatism that lives in a fantasy land that would deprive America of that true spirit of individualism that embraceses both Russell Kirk and the village atheist, Merle Haggard and Lou Reed, etc. That said, at some point in the 1960s or so, the blue state, left-wing, bohemian side of that ledger became more alienated than ever before, decrying all previous manifestations of the particular culture of America as evil and relevant only insofar as we are moving past them.
I don’t think there are any short cuts or that conservatism is much more than an idiomatic way of thinking about politics rather than a full-fldged philosophical account that provides answers to particular political, moral, and cultural questions. So in that sense I think conservatism, at least I understand it, avoids this particular “rationalist” vice of libertarianism and other philosophies that claim to provide a formula for successful and just politics without the admixture of intuition, historical perspective, common sense, and all the rest that are needed to make actual political decisions.
Finally, even if the political approach I advocate could come to pass, I don’t think problems would disappaear from America or the lives of individual Americans. Life is funny, full of tough decisions, uncontrollable trends, and the quest for individual and collective meaning. I simply think that a conservatively inclined American politics more properly balances these individual and collective yearnings than the ideological and liberal one that we find ourselves in. Let’s not forget, it as in the “bad old days” of the America of yesteryear that the beats, Whitman, and these other interesting characters emerged. Eclectic individuals emerged then as they always do in response to a broader more widely practiced morality. But political and cultural nihilism and relativism are not a formula for anything interesting; instead, a faux sense of superiority emerges in culture, literature, and individual people. I think this is where someone like Alan Bloom was spot-on in his diagnosis of what is going wrong at would should be the citiadels of American high culture, its universities.