Libertarianism - a limited ideology

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by James R, Jul 1, 2014.

  1. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    I've never been a big fan of libertarianism. I'm particularly wary of people who bubble with enthusiasm about Ayn Rand's writings and the idea of "ethical egoism".

    Here's an article from a guy who was formerly a libertarian, but who now considers himself an anarchist. I find his discussion of the ethics of libertarianism interesting.

    The original article (by Will Moyer, 14 June 2014) is here:

    http://www.salon.com/2014/06/14/why_i_left_libertarianism_an_ethical_critique_of_a_limited_ideology/

    Here are some extracts:

    ....I’m going to make broad generalizations. It’s hard to criticize a body of thought like libertarianism. There is no one set definition of what a libertarian is or what they believe, so for any criticisms there will be countless exceptions. You can easily play the “no true Scotsman” game with everything that follows. Yes, many libertarians do think X, but they’re not really libertarians. Therefore, I ask that you view my points as criticisms of general themes and attributes I’ve found in libertarian thought, rather than an indictment of everyone who self-identifies as libertarian. ....

    The limits of libertarianism begin with ethics.

    Libertarians confine their moral reasoning to something called a “legal” or “political” ethic. This ethic, based on property rights and the non-aggression principle, is the cornerstone of libertarian morality. But it is an intentionally limited moral framework.

    ....

    Libertarians typically push matters outside of property rights and violence into the realm of aesthetics, which Rothbard described as “personal” morality. On these issues of personal morality, libertarian theory is silent.

    If you accept the premises of self-ownership and property rights, it is a logically consistent and powerful framework. But if you allow yourself to have wider moral sensibilities, the framework is woefully inadequate  —  if not outright grotesque  —  in certain cases.

    Take Rothbard on parental obligations to children:

    "The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die. The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.)"​

    At least Rothbard recognizes that children are subject to the non-aggression principle, but outside of direct aggression (or maybe just aggression that results in death or mutilation) he reinforces that libertarian theory has nothing to say. A parent can starve their child to death. We might find this morally reprehensible, as Rothbard surely did, but it’s outside the purview of the political ethic.

    Walter Block, another prominent libertarian theorist, has attempted to narrow the case where abandonment is permissible (no one is willing to “homestead” the abandoned baby), but rejects that the non-aggression principle applies to children. Why? Because children aren’t full humans with all the same rights as adults. They exist in a superposition between animals and humans. Which means it’s permissible to aggress against children.

    Both Rothbard and Block accept that some degree of child abuse either violates the NAP (in Rothbard’s case) or delegitimizes parental ownership (in Block’s case), but what constitutes abuse represents a “continuum problem” for libertarians. Some attacks on children are okay but not too much. It’s a big gray area.

    It’s embarrassing that many libertarians have so little moral clarity on this issue. Especially when compared to a website like Jezebel, which has no problem taking a hard stance on aggression against children. These quotes from a piece criticizing a Kansas pro-spanking bill could just as easily be directed at libertarians and their continuum problem:

    "It wrongly reinforces the idea that there is such a thing as a good kind of spanking. It suggests there is a bad, abusive kind that should be illegal, but also a good, loving kind that only causes bruises and welts but must be tolerated because it helps nurture more effective, obedient citizens. It’s just a different “style” of parenting, no better, no worse!"​

    Yeah, a “different” style that just happens to be legalized assault. Even worse, it indefensibly suggests that there’s some kind of logic to hitting that can be measured in actual strikes  —  10 you’re fine, 11 you’re a child abuser? Should we let the domestic abuse shelters in on the secret?

    Make no mistake: There is no such thing as “good hitting” versus “bad hitting.” There is no positive outcome from violence toward children.

    This is a human rights issue  —  again, this is legalized assault against those we are bound to protect.

    Treatment of animals is also outside of the political ethic. There are no animal rights  —  unless the animals request them  —  so humans are free to treat animals however they want. The same is true of the planet in general. In order for the Earth itself to be considered under libertarian philosophy, it must be private property.

    Other major social issues such as religion, race, gender, sexuality and class dynamics are either analyzed only from within the property rights framework or not at all.


    ....

    I find it hard to accept that religion and the origins of mankind are irrelevant to social philosophy. Perhaps only to an intentionally limited philosophy, with a large socially conservative bloc.

    Granted, libertarianism  —  as a body of thought  —  doesn’t have to comment on every social issue. It can say nothing of race and gender and class. It can be silent on nonviolent forms of hierarchy and inequality. But then it stands incomplete as a social philosophy. That’s fine, especially if that is a conscious and intentional choice on the part of libertarians. We will focus our ideological work on this area and let other systems of thought cover everything else. But it certainly wasn’t something I was aware of when I considered myself a libertarian. On the contrary, I thought libertarianism offered a robust and complete analysis of society. I suspect others do, too.

    ....

    Libertarianism addresses one thing, and one thing only. Force. Libertarianism claims to do nothing other than answer the question of when violence is permissible. … If your philosophy includes something other than this, you’re more than welcome to that philosophy; just call it something else. Please stop trying to further undermine our efforts by inserting nonsense interpretations into our philosophy, because they have no place here.

    Jeffrey Tucker describes these libertarians as brutalists. They reject larger humanistic social perspectives in favor of the strict and narrow adherence to the libertarian core.

    I can understand the desire to keep libertarianism laser focused, but it is rarely presented as a highly specified and limited body of thought. Libertarianism is not understood as a specialized field like chemistry or biology. It is supposed to be an ideology that describes and prescribes human social behavior. But to that end, its core framework is inadequate.

    ....

    Besides all it leaves out, the framework also includes a facile conception of consent.

    Within the libertarian ethical framework, choice is binary. Either something was consented to voluntarily or it was not. This conception of consent marks the line between good and evil. On one side of the line are socially acceptable behaviors and on the other side are impermissible behaviors.

    Theft, rape, murder and fraud all lie on the nonconsensual side and are therefore not good. The other side includes all forms of voluntary human interaction which, again because we’re limited to a political ethic, we can’t really say much about. It’s all fine.

    But there is some gray on the good side. Is a rich CEO really in the same ethical position as a poor Chinese factory worker? In the libertarian view, yes. There are plenty of differences, but if that Chinese worker voluntarily chose to work for that factory, they’re not ethical differences.

    Like the starving-your-child issue, any moral objections you might have are outside the scope of the libertarian ethic. They reflect your personal morality, which has no business being used to dictate social behaviors.

    But choice isn’t binary. It’s a spectrum. There’s a gradient that we can use to measure how constrained a choice really is. On one end is outright force and on the other is pure, unconstrained freedom. But in between is a fuzzy gray area where economic, psychological, cultural, biological and social forces are leaning on human decision making.

    Most libertarians would admit that this spectrum exists, but there is still strong sentiment within libertarianism that any non-coercive relationship is good. And  —  within the political ethic  —  even if it isn’t “good,” it’s still permissible. That’s why you see libertarians defending sweatshops.

    A poor Chinese factory worker is far more constrained than a rich white businessman. His range of possible options is tiny in comparison. He is less free. The same may be true depending on your race, gender, class or sexual orientation. The way you were treated growing up  —  by your parents, teachers and peers  —  may contribute. The way people like you are represented in media and entertainment may contribute. Social prejudices and cultural norms may contribute. These factors don’t mean people are being outright forced to do anything, but simply that they’re constrained by their environment. We all are, in different ways.

    ....

    All of these deficiencies of libertarianism result in one thing: a limited vision for the future.

    Libertarians want a world without a state. Beyond that, the philosophy says little about the shape of human culture. It should be based on property rights and non-aggression. How can we combat racism? Property rights and non-aggression. How should humans approach sexuality and gender? Property rights and non-aggression. What is the place of hierarchies in society, whether it’s families or workplaces or financial classes? Property rights and non-aggression. What role  —  if any  —  should religion and superstition play in society? Property rights and non-aggression.

    I recognize that a consistently applied libertarian ethic would make the world a much better place than it currently is. And I recognize that I’m essentially criticizing libertarians for only wanting to take down the greatest threat to human flourishing on the planet. In a world full of people who defend the status quo and apologize for power, those with radical ideas deserve the least criticism.

    But for libertarians who see the dismantling of the state as the ultimate goal, I have to disagree. It is not enough.

    ....

    My goal isn’t a society based on property rights. My goal is human flourishing. I want an ethical, free and humane planet. A world where humans take care of each other and other living creatures. I want a world of flattened hierarchies, including the nonviolent ones. A world with human dignity. That may be a future where property rights  — as we think of them today  —  don’t exist. It may be a post-scarcity world full of abundance. It may be a world where our familiar social structures  —  both macro and micro  —  are vastly different. It’s up to us to build it.​

    Are there any libertarians out there who have a response to this?

    And how about all of you self-styled liberals and conservatives?
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Geeze, every time one of you Aussies starts talking about current events, it sounds like a time warp to Frontier Days. It reinforces our suspicion that Australia is the America of 100 years ago.

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    Obviously those are quotes from American libertarians, but they're what we call "paleolibertarians." Their philosophy would only work on a desert island. Note that Ayn Rand's seminal book was set in a small rural community where everybody knew each other. Hell, even communism works in a place like that!

    Today, the sound-bite definition of libertarianism is simply: fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Balance the budget, reduce taxes, get the government out of the insurance business, but at the same time don't let people fall over dead on the sidewalk, leave the wackos alone so long as they don't hurt anybody, and stop participating in other people's wars.

    I was a registered Libertarian for several decades and voted for their candidates. (Before that it was the Peace and Freedom Party. I only voted for a major party candidate in the first election I was old enough to participate in, Lyndon Johnson, and I was so sorry that I never did it again.) But I've had it with the LP, now that Reason, their magazine of record, is seriously defending people who refuse to vaccinate their children. There is such a thing as The Tragedy Of The Commons and this is why we need government in the first place.

    Next time I'm voting for the Green Party. Their platform makes sense and their candidate is a Jewish mother who will kick some serious butt.

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  5. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Fraggle:

    I wasn't talking about current events per se, but about the limited ethical philosophy of libertarianism. I don't know if your Libertarian Party adheres to the strict Randian precepts of Libertarianism, as described in the article I quoted. From that article, it sure sounds to me like there's a virtual community out on the interwebs right now that believes that everything important can be reduced to property rights and non-violence, with the rest of human existence reduced to "do what you like, as long as you aren't physically violent to other people and you don't take what's theirs".
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    For many years, the U.S. Libertarian Party was comprised primarily of former Republicans: conservatives who were disillusioned by their party's willingness to raise taxes, to urge them to live in harmony with people of other races, and to let the prominence of religion wane. That indeed resonated with the issues in Ayn Rand's novels, which I found to be almost entirely about economics.

    But toward the end of the millennium, liberals (now largely old hippies) began noticing the government's intrusions on their principles: draconian punishment for recreational drugs, deadly force used against people who didn't want to live like the rest of us, Central America used as a surrogate battleground for the Cold War, now that the Middle East--our former chessboard--had been just about destroyed.

    So the party began to grow a more balanced platform, with emphasis on both economic freedom and personal freedom.

    Unfortunately it still failed to attract many voters.

    The idea that "everything important can be reduced to property rights and non-violence, with the rest of human existence reduced to 'do what you like, as long as you aren't physically violent to other people and you don't take what's theirs'," is ludicrous. A huge segment of the human population has no property, and an even larger segment believes that the only truly important things in life are belief in an imaginary deity, and the expression of that belief in violent confrontation.

    To expect the paleolibertarian philosophy to be accepted by warring religious factions is preposterous, since it doesn't even make sense to them.
     

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