A liberal prof & a libertarian
June 15, 2011
Prompt: Republicans are supporting subsidies that will increase the deficit? Only if the subsidy goes to big businesses (e.g., OIL). Why do some libertarians think that the Republican party represents their ideology.
The Passerby
They both suck. Democrats are worse, though. It’s like someone coming up to you and asking if you’d rather have dinner with Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden.
The Instigator
I personally know some libertarians who think Republican party represents their ideology.
The Liberal Prof
I also know some libertarians who don’t think the Republican party represents (a consequence of?) their ideology, and who are wrong.
The Libertarian
”And who are wrong.” Please explain.
The Liberal Prof
Just because libertarians would like to think that the current brand of stupidity characteristic of the American right does not emanate from the same ideological underpinnings they call their own does not make it so.
The Libertarian
That’s an interesting view you have of classical liberalism. Just how has the progressive vision, new deal and great society programs worked out for us?
The Liberal Prof
It is, indeed, my view of classical liberalism. The rest is a discussion for another time, though, and any criticism I might have of classical liberalism does not in the least depend on it.
The Libertarian
Then just admit the stupidity characteristic of the American left and we’ll be on our way.
The Instigator
I wish there were more libertarian Republicans.
The Liberal Prof
Not sure why this wishy-washy pseudo-nihilism of “Both sides are equally as bad” has come into vogue. I think actually bothering to take a stance on pretty much anything involves recognizing that some particular approaches to that thing are going to be more in line with your stance than others, and I find it very weird and even worrisome that people are so willing to undercut real dialogue by throwing up their hands and declaring everything “equally” “stupid” (but they never turn out to truly have no opinions on the matter, do they?).
Which is to say: There are a variety of ways in which I think the current Democratic party in the U.S. is stupid. I’m not sure what it is you’re referring to as “the American left,” since there is no such thing in mainstream public view at the moment (except relative to the very present far right). I think the ways in which current Democrats are stupid mostly involve them being terrible at rhetoric, and not feeling especially compelled to take definitive stands on issues they should feel so compelled about. I think the stupidity characteristic of the GOP is much, much worse, insofar as it involves positively enacting broken policies based off of a highly problematic, confused, and perhaps even immoral ideological underpinning about what human beings actually are and what the government’s role and obligations to them actually are. I also think that a much more literal stupidity from the right is visible, insofar as certain of its members seem unable to string together coherent (let alone defensible) statements about what they’re even doing, and yet these same people (and their campaign teams) are so effective at deploying propaganda-level symbolism and preying on specifically a-rational ways to convince people that they’re actually damaging the public’s conception of what even counts as legitimate political debate.
Also, libertarians are typically pretty incapable of talking about any broad social justice issues, since that generally requires a conceptual model of the social dynamics at hand larger than either just an individual person or an individual event. So you get people like Rand Paul (and subsequently Ron Paul) saying crazy things about the CRA, or envisioning a world in which somehow magically any businesses with unjust business practices are untenable because people — who on this view must somehow have absolutely no practical limitations on their resources, or limitations on available alternatives — just don’t buy their product. But anyone who’s ever paid attention to what options they really have available — anyone who’s ever actually tried to enact such policies by never, ever purchasing a product from a company whose business practices they find objectionable, and who tries to refuse to work for any company whose labor practices they’re dissatisfied with, and so on — finds pretty quickly that we are not actually completely autonomous, isolated, radically independent free agents in the way libertarianism needs to get off the ground. (It should be obvious, too, that the privileged — those with money, those with power, who don’t have to worry about going hungry or getting sick or being assaulted — have a lot more of an ability to build for themselves the false impression of this radical independence). Libertarianism is an ideology for a world that does not exist, and trying to enact it in this one only opens the door for injustice to flourish.
The Instigator
Beautifully said. I agree that one of the major premises for libertarianism is false because the economic models that libertarians rely on assume that every agent will have full information on the product that he or she is buying. But in the real world, it is near impossible for every agent to have full information. With that said, I do wish there more Libertarian Republicans because they would support bills such as the one that I linked. They would vote “no” on unnecessary subsidies for huge corporations that already make billions of dollars. The Republican platform usually has something to do with fiscal conservatism. So, the Republican party usually attracts fiscal conservatives. However, it is just false that Republicans are more fiscally conservative than Democrats because they support subsidies to big corporations. It’s like welfare for the rich, which I deem is worse than straight forward libertarian ideology.
The Libertarian
I’ll try to respond in kind. (1) I’ve opinions, yes, but at that time you were initially dismissive. I find leftist liberalism to be a wholly self-contradictory, platonic, illusory, disconnected abstraction that could be..in fact dangerous. So there are opinions and yes, the left is worse. That said, the initial post was in re libertarians and Republicans, to which i repeat, the closest libertarians get (great variation among them, too) is something like the Republicans’ views of limited government & ‘liberal’ social views, which i don’t entirely hold. (2) Of course there is an American left, it is ridiculous to deny. Democrats’ rhetoric is their only strength; the appeals to emotion and humanity as maneuvers for gross government interjections over the mechanics of having bankrupt the country, (yes, they more than bush if you like that typical line) or the proper role of government, the current linking of subsidies & tax breaks to cutting social welfare programs are as tiresome & ineffectual as the Keynesian Economic response of the Democrats dating to 2007, or of the 1930s. Classical liberals are far more accurate in their initial account of man than the false abstractions fabricated by the left to justify their own power-taking (or ‘politicizing’ i.e. The entitlements under the new-found, boundless, unconstitutional purview of government). So it is the ideas, indeed the history that we mustn’t ignore; for propaganda we need only look at the left entrenched in our educational system, grade school to college, and news media i.e. Forming and informing minds – that’s sick. (3) Yes, the market. Choice. Economic freedom is political freedom. CRA is unconstitutional, DOJ voting reviews have – like most social re-engineering interjections – produced opposite, perverse results. So dovetailing into The Instigator’s glowing affection, Hayek and Friedman start with individuals’ inability to know everything, it is superior at comporting to the world as we find it, to leftist liberalism at a minimum – which the Wilsonian technocrats continue to fail at asserting for the bureaucracy. equal protection – political or economic – as special protections is out. libertarians offer the best chance for you or i to succeed in all endeavors. leftist liberalism has rotted this society from its moral sense to its inhibited economic freedoms, over 50 years as in the last two. Hence the social conservatism that occasionally appeals to this proletariat. Cheers!
