Renewing a Discussion of this Site’s Purpose: Liberals and Libertarians Together
(posted by Mona)
With some new readers here, it seems timely to quote from AoTP’s About page, and ask what folks think about the possibilities therein entertained:
The Bush administration has been extreme enough in its authoritarianism, flagrant law breaking, and flouting of basic human rights norms to cause fractures in the old GOP coalition. There is now the possibility of new political alliances forming. Speaking broadly, it may be that many of the factions in the Democratic Party, and some of the factions that call themselves “libertarian,” collectively represent a kind of loose anti-authoritarian coalition, or rather, the possibility of one. This site aims to facilitate conversation among those factions.
We bring together liberal and libertarian writers who agree on certain politically and morally enlightened essentials. Their discussions here serve to delineate the reasons why basic human rights must always be defended. Their disagreements, by contrast, will illustrate why forming new alliances is hard, and perhaps serve as a reminder as to why new alliances are so rare.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I wrote about this yesterday at my site, but it occurs to me that the extreme bitterness caused by the ongoing Dem primary further assists the possibilities of an anti-authoritarian liberal/libertarian coalition.
I say this because of the huge number of Hillary Clinton voters who have expressed their willingness to oppose Obama in the general election, perhaps abandoning the Dem party in the short-term at least. It so happens, I suspect, that these voters also happen to be the most pro-authority voters on the Left, as they are the voters most likely to be profoundly anti-trade and anti-free market. I have no evidence for this other than my knowledge that Sen. Clinton seems to do best in the areas of the country that are most virulently anti-trade…but I strongly think this is the case. Indeed, you could argue that many in this group of voters are Democrats almost entirely because of the Dem Party’s historic positions on trade; they care little or not at all for the Dem Party positions on social issues.
Anyways, the point is that to the extent this group of populists abandons the Dem Party, a huge chunk of the remaining Dems/liberals will have social liberties and non-interventionist foreign policy as their top issues. These remaining Dems, while hardly devotees of free market principles, tend to be far more understanding of the concept of free markets; moreover, even to the extent they are purely opposed to free market principles, these remaining liberals/Dems tend to be less concerned with economic issues than they are with social liberties and foreign policy. This isn’t to say that libertarian economic views will ever become a major factor in liberal/Dem policy; but it is to say that the hardline populist views on trade are likely to become much less influential within the Dem Party should the pro-Hillary voters follow through on their threats.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I don’t know if it’s that alliances are hard or rare as much as they evolve. Libertarians have been completely marginalized by the right and liberals have been out of power for quite a while. A liberal/libertarian alliance might not make any more sense than the libertarian/religious conservative alliance that spent the last generation together in the Republican party, but in our current circumstances it’s come to make a lot of sense.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
The libertarian-liberal divide may be crossable. But lumping in the anarchists with the libertarians may prove to be too much to bridge.
To me, here are the prerequisites for such an alliance:
1. Belief on the part of libertarians that liberals will actually act not just to reform the state’s actions, but to weaken the state’s authority.
2. Belief on the part of liberals that libertarians are (a) worth having on their side, and (b) are not reactionaries by another name.
Without both of these, any alliance formed isn’t really actionable. That makes it *perfect* for the blogosphere.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I have my doubts about the viability of any alliance. Specifically, how long do we think that the GOP’s authoritarianism will be relevant? Let’s say a Dem trifecta closes Gitmo and ends (or at least scales back) the Iraq War. Will we still be debating torture in 2012? I doubt it. Maybe we could capture those libertarian segments that are most concerned with foreign policy, but I don’t think they’d be any larger in proportion than the non-libertarian parts of the population most concerned with foreign policy. In short, without the ongoing disaster of the Bush years, there’s nothing keeping this marriage together.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I actually think it will get worse for the foreseeable future. If the Democrats protect civil liberties and reign in our foreign policy (even if only a little bit), the screams from the right will just get louder and louder.
This will tend to reinforce an alliance between liberals and libertarians rather than break it. The authoritarian right will continue to get lots of airtime and bitch to high heaven about all those “weak” lefties even as their influence on policy plummets.
Also, voters have long memories. Regardless of the details of future policy debates, if people remember the Democrats as the party that restored the Bill of Rights and the GOP as the party of Gitmo and Iraq, then they’re not going to vote GOP because of tax policy.
This is especially true because the GOP’s tendency to promote “market” economics will also likely disappear. In order to recapture the center, the GOP will eventually ditch its pro-market rhetoric and go populist. This will also make them more nativist which will further reinforce a liberal/libertarian alliance.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Kurt Horner well-states my own view:
Dan: Libertarians (and I am one, lower-case “L”), are not corporatists. There is a difference in desiring a free market on the one hand, and the state in a cozy bed with big business on the other. A lot of us will find some common ground with true liberals on that score. (And not all libertarians — including one of our Wise Dead Gurus, Hayek — opposed every and all safety net programs. The devil is in the details as to how much they empower the state.)
May 7th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Are you sure Gitmo isn’t popular? I haven’t seen any polls, but I wouldn’t be quick to assume people are clamoring for it to end. The Bill of Rights has been used as waste-paper ever since John Adams’ Sedition Act, it isn’t coming back.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I am glad to have found this website. For the last 30 years I have supported the Republican party until 2004 and then in 2006 when I voted for Democrats. I have always been inclined to vote Libertarian but I want my vote to count and on the issue of restoring our democracy I have no disagreement with the left. Until Libertarians moderate their platform they will continue to be a minority party although if Ron Paul was a viable canididate I would not hesitate to vote for him. Libertarians continually torpedo themselves by supporting policies which make a lot of sense, like withdrawing our troops from our overseas bases, and then in the same breath advocating a return to the gold stardard or privatizing K-12 education.
During the early 1970s I worked hard for the Libertarian party and even considered running for office as a Libertarian canididate. By the mid-70s I had become discouraged because I understood that Libertarians were unwilling to moderate their platform to attract the majority of voters who expect the government to manage things that the business sector clearly cannot. And I am not suprised that that 35 years later Libertarians are still running on basically the same platform.
As to whether or not I can support the Democratic party in the long term, it is doubtful. They do not spend our tax dollars any more wisely than Republicans. Most Democrats agree with the concept of preemptive use of US military power and their performance in congress these past 2 years has been profoundly weak-kneed. I suspect that there are many former Republicans like me; witness the special elections in Louisiana and Illinois. Those districts have not been flooded by liberals these past two years.
It is possible that Republicans will go the way of the Whigs. Presently, even the word Republican make me nauseous and I feel it is my civic duty to see that they are deposed. However, new ideas for reforming our government are not going to come from the Beltway elite from which both parties are drafting their canididates. They share a number of “agreed upon” positions such as heavy investment in our military-industrial complex, campaign finance and government transparency that once the current political crisis is over, I can never support.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Joh Brown : While I never was a LP member or voter, I did briefly flirt w/ the Republican Liberty Caucus in the early 90s. But they have ended up nearly as neocon as the rest of the GOP.
The only point in your comment I don’t understand (and really disagree with) is your objection to “government transparency.” What does that mean to you, and why would you oppose it?
May 7th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
My bad Mona - In re-reading my post I can see why you would come to that conclusion but that is not what I meant to say. Democrats and Republicans both are clearly not in favor of campaign finance reform and government transparency which is logical considering their dependence upon the military-industrial complex to gain and hold power. The Beltway class from which both major parties select their canididates share a great deal in common and I was using their opposition to campaign finance reform and government transparency as two examples. I could have just as easily mentioned their opposition to tax code reform or their support of the War On Drugs as examples.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Ok Joh, got it. And welcome to the site!
May 7th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I like what you’re doing here. I’m just a guy, did a little bit of campaigning for Ron Paul here in Austin, TX, but otherwise an unaffiliated libertarian leaner.
Re: government transparency, the thing that really has me considering actively supporting for Obama is his proposal to make all government spending available in a searchable public database. I assume that would not apply to classified projects, and it seems to me that would be the single most effective tool to cut government waste that’s been proposed in my lifetime (I’m 31). What do y’all think of that proposal? Is it serious?
May 7th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
At the risk of picking a fight with some people whom I do indeed find interesting, it’s not just the liberals who will find things easier if the anarchists are not in the alliance. I think the libertarians need some distance from the anarchists too.
It’s not that I don’t love some of the anarchists or think that they have important ideas to keep in mind. But, well, you’ve gotta understand that a big portion of the libertarian movement spent a long time in bed with the right in part because they wedded themselves to a particular vision of a utopian future: A world with a completely unrestrained business sector. They persuaded themselves that this was an ethical imperative, and they invented hacktacular economic arguments for why it would work out beautifully for everyone in society.
Now I happen to like some of the left-anarchists who come to this site, and I think that they have important points to make about car culture, large businesses, and related issues. And for all I know, they may be right in arguing that it would work out great to live in a world with far fewer cars and roads, unlimited liability, far less long-distance shipping of goods, and few large enterprises.
At the same time, that’s a big leap. Societies are complicated things. I don’t really know what we might encounter on that path, so I’m reluctant to embrace a vision of something far off when I have no clue what we’ll encounter along the way. Plus, I know that embracing visions of utopias has already led libertarians into at least one ill-advised alliance. Now, you can argue (rather persuasively) that an alliance with the local organic co-op is far less dangerous than an alliance with Big Business. And you’re probably right. It’s not the local organic co-op that scares me. What scares me is the sorts of blind spots one can develop in pursuit of a utopian vision.
Anyway, if the only concern I had was fear of blind spots, that would be an argument for self-reflection as I consider political goals, not an argument against any particular goal. However, there’s also the word “possible” in “Art of the Possible”. To me, “possible” means focusing on changes that can happen now. Visions of bigger things can help focus one’s mind and guide decisions, but pursuit of a far-off vision cannot be the only criterion used to evaluate alternatives on the margin. Otherwise, any action sold as a step toward utopia becomes an ethical imperative, and we all know what happened to libertarians when they persuaded themselves that any and all tax cuts (irrespective of, say, spending levels) were ethical imperatives.
My idea of left-libertarianism is similar to something that Jim blogged a few months ago (can’t find it right now): The state is inherently a problematic tool for solving problems, so avoid its use when possible, and when you give thought to trimming the state, first and foremost look to relieve the burdens that it imposes on those least able to bear the burdens. It’s a prescription for action on the margins, but it focuses attention on the ways that the state harms those that liberals are most likely to be concerned about.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
What Thoreau said.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
[...] Mona: What Thoreau said…. [...]
May 7th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
To add on to what Thoreau said above: to me, libertarianism as a philosophy works best when it recognizes that utopia is neither possible nor desirable; or, put another way, when it recognizes that humans neither are perfectable nor should be perfectable.
In this point of view, there is, quite literally, no limit to human progress because humans can never achieve some standard of “perfection.”
On the other hand, when you take the view that perfection of humans is possible, you are taking the first steps down the dark path towards totalitarianism. Attempts to make humans “better” by restricting their freedoms implicitly assume that there is a human ideal that cannot be bested, which in turn implicitly assumes a limit to human progress.
In this sense, I view libertarianism as being at its most coherent when it not only falls short of utopianism, but is in fact anti-utopian (not to be confused with distopian). This anti-utopian streak is perfectly consistent with a general anti-authoritarianism, and is on the whole a valuable component to libertarians of the more Hayekian variety. But I suspect it may be a significant obstacle to any long-term alliance with either the American Left or Right; at the moment, however, there is no one trying quite so hard to bring about utopia on Earth than the modern conservative movement.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I don’t think the libertarian anarchists (be they left-anarchists or anarcho-capitalists or whoever) want to make people perfect by any means necessary. Rather, my concern is that a libertarian movement wedded to a vision of an ideal state will be unable to deal with reality, and will respond with denial if things don’t always work.
We all know the sort of libertarian who, when presented with a problematic situation (especially an economic situation), will point to some tax or regulation related to the situation and insist that the tax or regulation is the REAL cause of the problem (no matter how minor the role of that tax or regulation). We’ve all encountered a corporate libertarian shill insisting that the REAL problem is that the company that made the defective product was forced to pay taxes instead of investing in more R&D for safety. Well, if we wed ourselves to a left-anarchist vision of an ideal society, and we convince ourselves that this is the solution to all of our problems, will some left-libertarian anarchist insist that the REAL problem is that the product was purchased from a distant company instead of a small local producer that would be more responsive?
I’m not accusing anybody here of that. But I think that if libertarianism reorients itself to a different vision of utopia, the same sort of movement people will eventually manifest. What we need is a libertarian vision of progress, not a libertarian vision of the ideal society. If we have a vision of utopia, even of a left variety, then we’ll be unable to cope when it turns out that biodiesel from locally grown soybeans poses a safety hazard, or whatever.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Jeremy and thoreau,
I really don’t speak for any other anarchists, but I believe a good many anarchists who comment here are pretty realistic about what can be achieved in the near term. Speaking for myself, at least, I recognize the principle of doing things one step at a time and picking the low-hanging fruit first. If my vision of an end-state seems utopian, I understand that it’s a long, long way off. In the meantime, I’d be overjoyed with agreement on some intermediate steps like cutting corporate welfare before welfare to the poor, cutting taxes on the lower brackets first, and changing urban zoning and tax policy to reduce sprawl. Oh, yeah–and closing Gitmo and repealing USA PATRIOT.
The interventionist state has come about through an endless Rube Goldberg series of interventions. Each new layer of intervention is added to correct the bad side-effects of previous intervention, and in turn creates new side-effects that spur calls for further intervention.
The most fundamental forms of state intervention (artificial property rights, subsidies, restraints on competition, etc.) exist to shift wealth to privileged classes and prop up big business. The secondary forms of intervention (e.g. the welfare state) were introduced to correct the evil side effects of privilege.
I’d like to reverse the process. Start by eliminating the forms of intervention we all agree are causing bad effects, like benefitting the rich and big business at everybody else’s expense. Then if we see that this reduces income inequality, and hence demand for welfare, the debate over some secondary forms of intervention will become moot. Eliminate the statism we agree on, see what happens, and with luck the area of agreement will increase over time. So long as we’re all on the same track right now, it doesn’t matter what our ultimate destinations are. We can fight over that when we’ve acted on all our areas of agreement.
If some traditional liberals are corporatists in sheep’s clothing, libertarians don’t have to cooperate with them in areas we disagree on. In any case, traditional liberalism is a large category, and is as fractured in its own way as the GOP coalition. If we’re skeptical about the “economic populism” of somebody with Robert Rubin on her team, well, there are plenty of more left-leaning liberals like Dean Baker and RFK Jr. out there who see eye to eye with us on corporate welfare.
And finally, a coalition with liberals doesn’t necessarily mean primarily the liberal political establishment. When the liberal establishment goes all corporate on us, like Hillary, we can appeal to the liberal grass roots in terms of the professed values of liberalism. One of the most potent weapons we have against the corporatist Republican establishment is to demonize it in terms of its own “free market” values. Likewise, one of our most potent weapons against the corporate liberal establishment is to contrast its practice with its “Democrats care” preaching.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
“Will we still be debating torture in 2012?”
Dan Miller, the Republican party eventually came to accept the mixed economy that all Western democracies now have, but they opposed it in 1936 and 1940 and 1944. They were out of power for 16 years. Some issues are so core to people’s belief systems, only the passing of a generation allows change.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:04 am
I have to say…thoreau put it beautifully:
However, there’s also the word “possible” in “Art of the Possible”. To me, “possible” means focusing on changes that can happen now. Visions of bigger things can help focus one’s mind and guide decisions, but pursuit of a far-off vision cannot be the only criterion used to evaluate alternatives on the margin.
In the tug of war of two party politics, it’s not really possible to affect how things are going without choosing a side, even if the direction of that side does not align perfectly with one’s values. That’s a bummer.
But the good thing about two party politics is, the parties are always in flux. Even if, as Jackson said, it takes a generation for changes to happen. If a libertarian-liberal alliance makes sense right now, it will probably happen. Doesn’t mean that the libs won’t go back to a reinvigorated, changed Republican party a decade down the line.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:00 am
If there’s going to be any meaningful political re-alignment that actually has a chance of rolling back the corporate state, warfare state, police state, etc., I suspect it would have to be a tri-partite alliance of the radical middle (the kinds of folks who used to back the various Ross Perot related parties, for instance), the antiwar right-wing (libertarians, paleos and right-populists in all their forms) and the antiwar left-wing (left-libertarians, antiwar liberals, left-populists).
If one of the major parties is going to be the vehicle, my guess is that it would have to be a Democratic Party that reinvented itself along more populist and antiwar lines. The Republicans committment to the cause of War and Fascism seems pretty deeply entrenched.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Careful there. Populism cuts both ways. Nationalist demagogues can be populists too.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Thoreau is on point.
I’m constantly amazed at the implicit (and often even explicit) nationalism of the left. This is rather anecdotal, I know, but a group of student Obama supporters in my classes have repeatedly made anti-free trade arguments based on some of the most elementary economic fallacies. And before Carson chimes in, these are not arguments against “fake trade”, implying they want the real thing. Or at least I’ve seen no evidence of such, and won’t presume that’s what they mean.
Here’s an example: “If we can make everything in our own country, why do we need to trade with others?”
Well, a completely literal primer on Econ 101, devoid of any econometric analysis will tell you why: Comparative Advantage.
And you know what else? A plain ol’ liberal (in the broad sense) attitude toward foreigners.
Of course my hunch is that given Obama’s relatively more educated fan base (plus Goolsbee), and his overheard remarks about the masses on trade, this isn’t widespread among his supporters and advisors. I hope my hunch is right.
Will Wilkinson has some faults, but he is spot on pointing out the barely concealed nationalism of much of mainstream liberalism. (I’m hardly picking on liberals, it’s just that the Republicans are rather obvious nationalists.)
Admittedly I’m a half hearted fan of populism. I like it’s American variation when it’s critical of “bigness”, or even globalism - corporate or government led - as a general disposition, but when I hear the details fleshed out I sometimes grimace.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:38 am
In response to thoreau:
“Now, you can argue (rather persuasively) that an alliance with the local organic co-op is far less dangerous than an alliance with Big Business. And you’re probably right. It’s not the local organic co-op that scares me. What scares me is the sorts of blind spots one can develop in pursuit of a utopian vision.”
Libertarianism has some appeal based on its “means.” Freedom, liberty, choice, individualism, etc. But, historically, I think that libertarianism also had some appeal because the movement made certain predictive assumptions about what a more libertarian world/nation/society would be like. A lot of hard core anti-communists on the right were drawn to libertarianism as a movement that would build the most capitalist society imaginable. With the assumption that it would be dominated by large corporations and the like. Some people genuinely wanted a society like this, either because they thought it was good overall or at least good for them specifically.
Today, there is rightly a backlash against the belief that libertarianism when put into practice means a corporatist society. But I understand the concern of getting back into the position of making predictive assumptions and now proclaiming that libertarianism in practice would be a decentralized agrarian paradise of co-ops and the like.
But there is still fertile ground for discussions about what libertarianism in practice would look like and the related discussion of what institutions need to be developed to help transition into a more libertarian/classically liberal world. The former to find allies and the latter to figure out what areas need the most attention.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I probably should have made my previous post a little clearer. What I meant to say was that if the Dems want to get to the point where they can dominate US politics again, the best route would probably be through an economic-populist/economic-nationalist/military non-interventionist program a la Perot, Buchanan, Nader, etc. , as opposed to their present paradigm of left-neconservatism (neoliberalism), liberal internationalism and cultural leftism. The nationalism of the Republicans is more like fascism than ordinary nationalism. I apologize for not making the distinction clearer.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
From my perspective, the Anarchism vs. Statism debate boils down simply to whether you think such things like justice, law, security are “public goods” or “market goods.”
If you come to the conclusion that justice is not a “public good,” but a “market good” like anything else, then you’re ideological framework shifts toward the anarchist side.
No one would trust a Statist monopoly to efficiently provide something as simple as Milton Friedman’s pencil, why, then, would anyone think that something as complicated as “justice” can be efficiently provided by a monopoly enforcement mechanism?
The fact is that I’ve become increasingly convinced that Libertarianism is incompatible with any notion of a monopoly enforcement agent.
I don’t view this as being “utopian.” Quite the contrary, I view it very much in hard pragmatic terms. Anarchist forms of government will not come about via some mass intellectual epiphany to NAP or mass conversion to true libertarian class consciousness but rather because technological singularities will likely generate “Hayekian-like” spontaneous orders that can only be governed by emerging market providers.
I don’t view the “market” in utopian terms, i just view it as the most optimal way to extract true price information.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
LOL…need an edit capability. “shits” should read “shifts,” sorry….
May 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
No, no, it doesn’t. I am an anarchist. I don’t think that justice or security are private goods. I simply think that there are non-state means, including free-market means, anarchocommunist means, and others, of providing public goods.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Again, language as a barrier. I’m with Marja but I also don’t disagree with Kaligula.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
ka1igu1a writes: No one would trust a Statist monopoly to efficiently provide something as simple as Milton Friedman’s pencil, why, then, would anyone think that something as complicated as “justice” can be efficiently provided by a monopoly enforcement mechanism?
So then, do you (and the anarchists among us) propose to privatize the courts and law enforcement?
May 8th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Let merciless satire of idiotic authoritarians be one of the ways in which libertarians and liberals may unite!
May 8th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Mona,
Sure. But I’m of the opinion that privat-ism, rather than privatization is in order with state institutions. Another name for this is syndicalism. Rather than “factories to the workers” it’d be “courthouses to the clerks, judges” etc. As for police, it’d be nice for them to put their money where their mouth is with regard to protecting and serving.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Hiya Chris in DC! Chris (as DCLaw1) is one of the super-smartest commenters at Greenwald’s site, and recently started his own blog which is on my blogroll here at AoTP. (Click his sig to check it out.)
May 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Dain, ok. But I believe adjudicating criminal and civil matters of law is a proper function of government — there is that third branch thing in the Constitution, after all. I’m not sure I disapprove of those states that have elected judges, but then I think they should be elected for life or until voluntary retirement, unless impeached.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
“And before Carson chimes in, these are not arguments against ‘fake trade’, implying they want the real thing. Or at least I’ve seen no evidence of such, and won’t presume that’s what they mean.”
I don’t think they want the real thing, because they probably have no idea there IS a “real thing” different from what they hear called “free trade” by by mainstream politicians and journalists on TV every day. And again: if I thought that was what “free trade” meant, I’d hate it too. There are no good guys on the trade issue in mainstream politics. The ones who publicly oppose “free trade,” like Lou Dobbs, have no idea there’s a difference between the present corporatist system and real free trade. And the ones who promote “free trade” think corporatism is just hunky dory.
Libertarians ought to be publicly condemning corporate globalization, with all the evil aspects that ordinary working people find so objectionable, in the name of genuine free market principles.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Mona,
If I’m utopian, it’s the same kind of “utopianism” that traditionalist conservatives have been guilty of for centuries. I believe people are a lot less prone to violence and nastiness in the right social environment. Specifically, that means that social pathologies are much more manageable in organic communities with stable extended families and long-term demographic stability. If most people lived in the communities they were born in, were self-employed, and maintained contact with their extended families, the social pathologies associated with atomization and geographic mobility would be drastically reduced.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Mona,
“Privatization” means a lot of different things to a lot of different market anarchists.
To me, the best way of doing it is to organize police services as consumer cooperatives. But it’s one of those things that can be done a step at a time, as society is ready for it.
The first steps in that direction are to decentralize control of police forces to progressively smaller areas like neighborhoods, and increase the direct control of the citizenry over police forces.
The last steps in the process, probably a long way down the road, would be to allow individuals to opt out and hire competing security firms, join neighborhood watch programs, etc., and fund operations entirely with voluntary membership fees.
Even when (or if) this is finally accomplished, there will likely be a great deal of organizational continuity between the old local government and the new mutual defense association. While the anarcho-capitalist model of competing security firms is conceivable, I suspect police protection is a natural monopoly to a large extent. It’s easier to subject the existing dominant agency to a “hostile takeover” by replacing the board of selectment than to meet the entry costs of setting up a competing firm. So a majority of the local population are likely to continue hiring the services of whatever cooperative arrangement succeeds the government, and to think of it as a community institution. Competing security firms are likely to serve mainly niche markets.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
That’s my concern, too. It’s a gamble on whether people will accept freedom in lieu of the comfort of regimentation from on high. There is a sense in which libertarians are asking people to be something they haven’t been in a while: interested in liberty for its own sake, instead of only when its convenient. Because I can guarantee you that things will never always “work”.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Yes. We need flexibility - a network, not an organization. I think what bothers anarchists, what bothers me, about such an alliance is that capture involved - the identity merging that happens in formal organizations. I need to be able to maintain my beliefs while working with those of different beliefs. It’s hard to do that (I’m working on it, though) if there’s some leader of the organization who keeps telling me that my participation is another vote for a broad agenda that I don’t share. It strikes at the very core of my self image; it’s not just snobbery.
The implies that issue-based coalitions are the way forward, where our identity as a productive group is based on a narrow outcome rather than a complete menu of positions, values, and policies. That’s something I’m 100% on board with.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Mona -
Thanks so much, Mona, and right back at ya. I’ll be keeping tabs on this new venture of yours too.
Cheers, and happy Friday!
May 9th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Dain writes:
“Will Wilkinson has some faults, but he is spot on pointing out the barely concealed nationalism of much of mainstream liberalism.”
Arthur Silber gets this exactly right:
I think that what was true then is still somewhat true today.