I started out cataloging all the misconceptions in this piece, but there are just too many. I limit myself to the author’s encomium to statism, disguised as the “liberal” state. Its presumed laudable traits he lists as follows:
• Government monopoly. Since the author cribs from Rand, who cribbed from Max Weber, let’s cut out the middlemen and give Weber: The state is “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”. Luigi Marco Bassani, Chaining Down Leviathan, page 20, deflates this: It is the state’s very monopoly of violence that establishes its “legitimacy.”
• Democracy. Although undefined by the author, “democracy,” which appears nowhere in either the Declaration or the Constitution, supposedly “constrains the legitimate use of force to a body answerable to the people.” Ralph Raico, Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal, page 38, deflates this: “In fact, ‘democracy’ [means] the right of a government legitimized by formal majoritarian processes to dispose at will of the lives, liberty, and property of its subjects.”
• Rule of law. According to the author “for the law to be fair and just, it must be written down”. Written down? As in the U.S. Code of 60,000 pages, as in the United States Statutes at Large of over 132 volumes, as in the Federal Register of over 70,000 pages, as in the Tax Code of another 70,000 pages? Harvey Silverglate and Alan M. Dershowitz, Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, deflate this: The current blizzard of law has become the instrument of Lavrentiy Beria, who said, “Show me the man, and I will give you the crime.”
• Checks and balances. According to the author, “various branches of government provid[e] checks against each other and balanc[e] each other’s power.ֺ” Has the author been living in a cave? The supposedly sacred “three branches of government” is nothing more than different faces of a single monolithic power: The current eruption of lawfare demonstrates that for the judiciary; the weaponization of the FBI, the CBP, etc. demonstrates that for the executive; the passage of unread “omnibus” bills dictated by the administration demonstrates that for the legislature.
• Property rights. The author praises and damns this right; in damnation he says, “This reduction of all freedom to property rights gives the libertarian an overestimated confidence in his individual ability to know what policies maximize freedom.” So the state knows much, much better “what policies maximize freedom,” eh? John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 11, Section 138, deflates this: “[T]he preservation of property [is] the end of government, and that for which men enter into society.”
According to the author, “The cardinal sin of libertarianism, from which most of its other errors follow, is in the reduction of human freedom to mere property rights.” This is just false. Property is foundational, not self-sufficient, for all other rights, since a “right” without the propertied instrument to realize it is a fiction.
The author’s damnation of anarcho-capitalism confounds it with 19th century romantic anarchism, which was consistently hostile to property rights – much like the author himself, who, if consistent, must give the monopolistic state the power to infringe upon property rights. The author’s state is anarchic in another sense: As the monopolistic final arbiter of all disputes, the state must be extralegal, or anarchic. Since this final arbiter must be in some sense outside, or above, the law in order to be final, the inescapable true state of social affairs is not _whether_ there should be anarchy, but _who_ is to enjoy it in his status as final arbiter. The author clearly has not read the classic of Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?”
• The author does have some purchase in this statement: “The other problem caused by libertarian deontology is that it leaves one with a political philosophy without any grounding in deeper values.” But I can’t sit here all day typing; he should see the full clarification of that here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853
Well done, Shawn. Although I left the LP 25 years ago and continue to be disappointed with their politics, I still consider myself libertarian. The Libertarian Party I joined in the '90s treated social and economic issues equally, and it was clear that we were not aligned with either of the major parties. Since then, we've seen Republicans embrace big government just as enthusiastically as Democrats. If the LP is in bed with the far right, it's because they have deliberately moved in that direction. I've never been an anarchist - just an advocate of smaller government. But since it does not look like we will see that in my lifetime, I have decided we need a basic income guarantee to offset upward redistribution by easy money and regressive taxation policies that have led to dangerous levels of income inequality.
I started out cataloging all the misconceptions in this piece, but there are just too many. I limit myself to the author’s encomium to statism, disguised as the “liberal” state. Its presumed laudable traits he lists as follows:
• Government monopoly. Since the author cribs from Rand, who cribbed from Max Weber, let’s cut out the middlemen and give Weber: The state is “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”. Luigi Marco Bassani, Chaining Down Leviathan, page 20, deflates this: It is the state’s very monopoly of violence that establishes its “legitimacy.”
• Democracy. Although undefined by the author, “democracy,” which appears nowhere in either the Declaration or the Constitution, supposedly “constrains the legitimate use of force to a body answerable to the people.” Ralph Raico, Great Wars and Great Leaders: A Libertarian Rebuttal, page 38, deflates this: “In fact, ‘democracy’ [means] the right of a government legitimized by formal majoritarian processes to dispose at will of the lives, liberty, and property of its subjects.”
• Rule of law. According to the author “for the law to be fair and just, it must be written down”. Written down? As in the U.S. Code of 60,000 pages, as in the United States Statutes at Large of over 132 volumes, as in the Federal Register of over 70,000 pages, as in the Tax Code of another 70,000 pages? Harvey Silverglate and Alan M. Dershowitz, Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, deflate this: The current blizzard of law has become the instrument of Lavrentiy Beria, who said, “Show me the man, and I will give you the crime.”
• Checks and balances. According to the author, “various branches of government provid[e] checks against each other and balanc[e] each other’s power.ֺ” Has the author been living in a cave? The supposedly sacred “three branches of government” is nothing more than different faces of a single monolithic power: The current eruption of lawfare demonstrates that for the judiciary; the weaponization of the FBI, the CBP, etc. demonstrates that for the executive; the passage of unread “omnibus” bills dictated by the administration demonstrates that for the legislature.
• Property rights. The author praises and damns this right; in damnation he says, “This reduction of all freedom to property rights gives the libertarian an overestimated confidence in his individual ability to know what policies maximize freedom.” So the state knows much, much better “what policies maximize freedom,” eh? John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 11, Section 138, deflates this: “[T]he preservation of property [is] the end of government, and that for which men enter into society.”
According to the author, “The cardinal sin of libertarianism, from which most of its other errors follow, is in the reduction of human freedom to mere property rights.” This is just false. Property is foundational, not self-sufficient, for all other rights, since a “right” without the propertied instrument to realize it is a fiction.
The author’s damnation of anarcho-capitalism confounds it with 19th century romantic anarchism, which was consistently hostile to property rights – much like the author himself, who, if consistent, must give the monopolistic state the power to infringe upon property rights. The author’s state is anarchic in another sense: As the monopolistic final arbiter of all disputes, the state must be extralegal, or anarchic. Since this final arbiter must be in some sense outside, or above, the law in order to be final, the inescapable true state of social affairs is not _whether_ there should be anarchy, but _who_ is to enjoy it in his status as final arbiter. The author clearly has not read the classic of Alfred G. Cuzán, “Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?”
• The author does have some purchase in this statement: “The other problem caused by libertarian deontology is that it leaves one with a political philosophy without any grounding in deeper values.” But I can’t sit here all day typing; he should see the full clarification of that here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853
Well done, Shawn. Although I left the LP 25 years ago and continue to be disappointed with their politics, I still consider myself libertarian. The Libertarian Party I joined in the '90s treated social and economic issues equally, and it was clear that we were not aligned with either of the major parties. Since then, we've seen Republicans embrace big government just as enthusiastically as Democrats. If the LP is in bed with the far right, it's because they have deliberately moved in that direction. I've never been an anarchist - just an advocate of smaller government. But since it does not look like we will see that in my lifetime, I have decided we need a basic income guarantee to offset upward redistribution by easy money and regressive taxation policies that have led to dangerous levels of income inequality.