Genuine Libertarians - Neither Left nor Right
Sunny on Alex Massie:
I say Alex Massie is a left-libertarian. He’s just giving the right an undue good name by aligning himself with them.
Now, that's a phrase I'm hearing being used more and more - "left-libertarian". I suppose on one level it represents a step forward for the Libertarian cause: the left are starting to realise that libertarianism has something to offer. But the undertone is less positive - it represents the left trying to co-opt Libertarians of which they approve, and make them part of their crude and out-dated vision of political discourse. The identification of "left-libertarian" comfortably places anyone branded with that tag on the left side of the political spectrum, and as a result almost immediately negates the radical alternative offered by libertarianism.
That's not to say that I like the concept of a right-wing libertarian anymore than I do the idea of a left-libertarian. Right-wing libertarians are ultimately not libertarian at all. They tend to talk a good game on economic freedom, but end up being social conservatives or at the very least apologists for social conservatives. And it is amazing how many right-wing Libertarians end up becoming Republicans in the US or Conservatives in the UK - and in doing so miss the point that neither of those political movements is actually libertarian in any meaningful way or ever will be.
Put simply, a true Libertarian will simultaneously be right-wing and left-wing. I'm a libertarian, and I hold extremely left-wing views on immigration, LGBT issues, drug legalisation and in a number of other areas. But when it comes to economics, I'm right-wing - I believe in the free market, in lower taxes, and that nationalisation is, in the vast majority of cases, a bad idea. As a result, I automatically reject the terms "left" and "right" when someone tries to apply them to me.
This isn't a case of political schizophrenia - that libertarians like myself cannot make up our minds between the two sides of the political spectrum. Because there is a theme running through my beliefs - the theme of freedom. I take the left-wing views that say that the state should not tell me how to live socially, and I take the right-wing views that say that the state should not tell me how live economically (or, to put it another way, the state should not tell me how to spend my money). Fundamentally, I cannot be left-wing or right-wing since they both advocate intensive control of the lives of citizens, albeit in different ways.
Indeed, the concept of the difference between left and right is actually all smoke and mirrors - there is remarkably little difference actually there. Those on the left and the right vie for control of the state and argue over the best way to run that state. Yet they seldom, if ever, challenge the fundamental assumption underpinning both of their beliefs - that the state, run in the correct way, is a good thing. Genuine libertarians understand that the state is a human construct, and therefore must always be subordinate to its people rather than becoming more important than its creators. Genuine libertarians also understand that the state, as a human construct, reflects many of the flaws of its creators. By definition, it cannot be neutral and it cannot be without flaws. As such, libertarians realise that the state is not automatically benign in its dealings with its people, and history is littered with examples of where states have become actively malign.
I honestly believe that the radical alternative to the bloated, ineffectual political status quo is being offered by Libertarians. As such, I believe it is important for libertarians to reject those tags that would make them part of the current status quo. Genuine libertarians are neither right-wing or left-wing; their fundamental belief should be in rescuing the concept of liberty from an ever-expanding and increasingly controlling state. The fundamental political question of our time isn't whether you're left or right. It is whether you favour state control or freedom.
Labels: Conservatism, Free Market, Freedom, left-wing, Libertarians, Radical Reform, Republicans, right-wing
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 11:28 am
15 Comments
15 Comments:
I consider myself a right wing libertarian because I believe in property rights.
In my opinion, the idea of a "left" (in the traditional sense) libertarian is anathema, because it means "I'll fight for these social liberties, but still support taxing you to death for 'progressive' causes."
As an aside, did you notice how he snidely associated Mel Phillips and Rod Liddle with right wing libertarians?
See, I'd class you as a Libertarian but I wouldn't put you on the right. I don't think a belief in property rights necessarily makes someone right-wing.
And I did lock the snide association in the article (and your comment on it). I'd imagine both of those people would be as surprised to find they are Libertarians (in Sunny's world) as Libertarians would be to find they can count on Mel and Rod as their fellow supporters.
Id be interested to know to what extent you believe the state should exist? In order for markets to exist there needs to be some form of state to lay out the ground rules and offer a degree of regulation to ensure fairness and a level playing field. The absence of state involvments leads to powerful monopolies and to bubbles. The market left to its own devices has an inherent tendency to self destruct. That said an overly involved state can thwart economic growth. There needs to be a balance.
I'd like to know on what basis WinstonSmith33 makes the assertion that the market, left on its own, has an inherent tendency to self destruct. If we had ever seen the market left on its own we might find out of that's the case, but it has never been the case, governments have always meddled.
WinstonSmith,
As a libertarian rather than an anarchist, I can see a role for the state in society as a whole. Indeed, in issues of justice and public order, the state has an essential role to play. However, when it comes to the economy, I think the state has a minimal - at best - role to play. The management of natural monopolies might be one area.
However, the balance is clearly wrong at the moment, and there is far too much state intervention in the economy. Even the slightest amount of state control stifles the economy and - as we have seen - does nothing to stop the economic downturns. It also often fails to do anything about fairness: the last government was very good at privileging particular partners (for example, Crapita) who ended up getting a lot of money in return for very little for the taxpayer.
You state that left alone the market has a natural tendency to self-destruct - something that, like The Cowboy Online - I would question. What I would say is that the market, left alone, does become self-regulating. A free market would have let Northern Rock go under, and other businesses would have learned from that company's mistake. No-one would be offering 125% mortgages. The government's intervention simply shows that you can fuck up your business but it will all be ok - since the government will bail you out. And let's put to bed the idea that the financial crisis was down to a lack of regulation - the financial services industry was (and is) heavily regulated. Basically, state bodies sanctioned what those banks who nearly went out of business were doing. Regulation - state intervention - did not stop what happened.
That's what I want us to all get away from - the idea that is there is a problem then state intervention can automatically solve it. Frankly, that isn't true. Unfortunately, assertions of left and right are based on this assumption, albeit in different ways. A radical alternative to the status quo has to challenge that assumption. Hence libertarianism.
TNL
I'm a pragmatic Libertarian - left & right wing seemingly at random because I try to apply the liberty acid test to events, rather than my old and dissapointingly all-too-slowly receding leftist views.
It would be most promising if we could dispense with all the old style political judgements.
It would be most promising if we could dispense with all the old style political judgements.
Abso-fucking-lutely. The old style political compass has become an excuse for not thinking and a constraint on modern political debate.
Yeah, I've been called left-libertarian and right-libertarian depending on who is throwing around the pejoratives. It means I'm both and neither, depending on the issue. Like you, I'm left when it comes to things like immigration, LBGT issues etc., and right when it comes to markets and property rights. All of which goes to demonstrate your point - the left/right axis is a nonsense.
Hehe you guys.. Russia had the libertarian dream state during the 90's. Its certainly true what you enthusiasts say: a market free of government intervention regulates itself. In other words, where a power vacuum exists, it will be filled. By other organizations in this case. And they certainly are not objective and neutral :D
Anonymous,
So given your (biased and unsubstantiated) view of Russia after the end of the USSR we should meekly accept the growth of a increasingly domineering and controlling state? Bollocks.
TNL
Libertarians are just anarchists who haven't yet grasped that the "state" is merely a bunch of guys with a bunch of guns with a self-appointed monopoly on violence.
I honestly think that most of the libertarian movement is caught in a quandry of wanting freedom but not yet having identified that you cannot have freedom without a state, because a state by its definition negates it's citizens freedom to live without arbitrarily being murdered. Why then would it respect the freedoms extrapolated from the right of self-ownership?
Libertarians: The state is bad and doesn't work, except for X Y and Z where I don't understand how a free market would do it better.
@gregDeAddio
Pavlov's Cat,
'Fraid I don't agree with what you're written.
Libertarians are just anarchists
No, Libertarians aren't anarchists. I'm not an anarchist. In fact, I'd say that anarchism is just as utopian and deluded as Marxism. It is predicated on the idea that if you get rid of the state, then everyone will get along with each other. Unfortunately, that's bollocks. The arbitrary murder that you mention would be the end result of a anarchist society - a realisation that has underpinned most political theory and concepts of sovereignty since the English Civil War. And you're not free if you have to spend all of your time worrying about violence.
I see the state as a necessary evil because human beings are basically fallible and capable of evil as much as they are of good. I want a much, much smaller and less powerful state, but in the end we need to have some sort of body in common to uphold some sort of order - for as long as these seemingly inherent and inherited flaws within humanity continue to exist.
TNL
TNL, you've just gone and confirmed what I meant.
I meant that libertarianism is the precursor to anarchism - It's the logical endpoint of pro-freedom philosophy. I was a libertarian before I started to listen to the anti-statists on arguments of anarchist law, police and justice, and my opinions on the subject changed quite precipitously.
However, I am afraid you are mistaken that anarchy is "utopian and deluded." this is just flat out nonsense - The very word means no-delusion.
An-archy; Archy is authority derived from belief in false narratives (ie, without a monarch society would fall apart, blah blah blah). Anarchy is a negative. Anarchists who correctly identify themselves as anarchists are merely people who seek to live without illusions. Anti-statism is the political offshoot.
Much as I hate to point out the basic kindergarten logic of it -
But if people are so bloodthirsty and tyrannical, why would a government of people (possibly elected by people) be any better?
Your argument: Humans are barbaric and tyrannical so we need a state to provide a common ground of coexistence and physical security, if I get that correctly.
However, in the absence of Douglas Adamsian Lizards to rule over us in benevolent dictatorship, the only state that can exist is one of.. barbaric and tyrannical humans. The physical security then provided by the state is one of the shared illusion that "Killing is wrong because it's against state law" and the police service that is a coercive monopoly.
Any argument must be subject to its own logic, the ideal that human violence can be solved through human action isn't; QED the state cannot solve violent social problems.
Also physical security in the form of the police is a coercive monopoly that provides shitty service up to the point of revolution, and free markets would provide a much better service, blah de blah.
In closing, the state is utopian; States cannot be maintained by force alone, only the shared belief that the state is good/inevitable, its existence relies on the continued belief in the Archy. By applying logic, we can see that the idea of the state (That violence can solve problems) is utopian and irrational.
I *extremely* recommend you watch Ryan Faulk's youtube channel, fringeelements, for more understanding of how a stateless society would function.
Keep on truckin'
Pav'sCat.
Pavlov’s Cat,
You raise some interesting points and make it clear that I need to clarify my position on why I can’t envisage a stateless society (if that phrase isn’t oxymoronic) and why I still think we need some sort of state.
If we remove the state, we go back to the state of nature. And while the political theory of Thomas Hobbes is flawed in many ways, I do think his description of life in the state of nature (“nasty, brutish and short”) remains valid. Yes, I am cynical about human nature in many ways; I do believe that humans need some sort of state to stop them from committing violence against each other. I’ll take a look at the YouTube channel you mention when I get the chance to see if that changes this perception.
However, you are spot on in your identification of the inherent contradiction in arguing against a stateless society because of human nature and then giving humans with the same flawed nature power over others through the state. And this is really what I want to clarify.
What I am opposed to is the utopian notion that the state is automatically benign (which then leads to the notion that there is nothing wrong with solving problems through state control). That is nonsense – nonsense on stilts, if you will. The state, as I mention in the post, reflects the flaws of its creators – human beings. We need to be realistic about the state, and it’s here when I’ll invoke the old cliché that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. And I’ll also look at what I think are the limits of backing the state are.
I believe we give state sovereignty over us in order to maintain a basic level of public order – for reasons of security and safety. Obviously the state cannot guarantee our safety – to think otherwise is again utopian and naïve. However, there have to be limits to the delegation of sovereignty to the state, and I’d argue that it comes when the state becomes a direct threat to the safety and security of its citizens. At that point, we need to dismantle the state and start again. Or to put it another way, the moment policemen emptied their handguns into Jean-Charles de Menezes’ face, we should have had a revolution in this country.
The relationship I have with the state is based on a certain pragmatism; as a result, it is fraught, ambivalent and constantly changing. And I see Libertarianism as pragmatic, rather than teleological. There is no perfect political system or perfect political reality. The nature of politics requires constant debate and renegotiation. I believe we need a state but that doesn’t mean that this position is without flaws or that the state itself is fundamentally benign or beyond reproach or even fundamental rebuilding.
TNL
A lot of us at http://all-left.net came to left-libertarianism from regular libertarianism rather than from the regular left, so I don't think we can really be a leftist conspiracy to co-opt libertarianism. We're actually trying to return libertarianism to its radical roots before it got conservatised in the 20th century.
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