Fiscally conservative and socially liberal. That says it well and largely describes my personal
position. I add in the necessity of
directed government spending in order to produce taxation just in case the
reader has it backwards. Such spending provides
a social income base and then leverages multiplier investments that naturally
expand the economy.
We have arrived at where we are at mostly by shifting with the political
winds and momentary enthusiasms, rather than part of a thought out plan of action
or any grasp of a foundational economic theory.
Conservative finance aimed at improving the social contract is surely
attractive.
Rise of the Libertarians
10 reasons why Slate,
Salon and the progressive media are afraid
A lot of people are
messing with libertarianism. We get it. If you see an alternative worldview
gaining currency as your own is starting to lose out: attack, attack, attack.
Strategically, it’s probably smart.
When Jane Mayer wrote
that sloppy
hit piece for The
New Yorker against the Brothers Koch a few years back, it was way
more strategic than personal: These are the folks who give money to
organizations that don’t agree with you about lots of things. If you want to
weaken those groups, villainize the funders by any means necessary to make
their donations toxic.
Well played. The bigger
problem for progressives, however, is that libertarianism has grown far larger
than any billionaire's money. So you have to do still more to kill the
movement. At the very least that means using heaping helpings of intellectual
dishonesty. Can you swiftboat a movement?
In a recent New York Times piece
profiling Rand Paul, Sam Tanenhaus and Jim Rutenberg write that libertarians
are a bunch of “antitax activists and war protestors, John Birch Society
members, and a smatter of truthers who suspect the government’s hand in the
2001 terrorist attacks.” Why would the Times not
instead describe folks like Times columnist
Tyler Cowen, Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, or
investor Peter Thiel? That’s not part of the narrative.
Let’s get to the heart
of the matter: Progressives are afraid. Just when they seized the ring, their
power is ebbing. Outlets have to make libertarian voodoo dolls so they act as
pricks. But why is libertarianism gaining so much traction? What is the true
source of the prog media’s fear?
1. Libertarianism is the new “center.” At the risk of
raising the hackles of the hyperanalytical, consider this: Most people think of
Ds as being on the left and Rs as being on the right. Remember: It’s about
popular perceptions. And when we think in terms of those perceptions, most
people think of Rs as being fiscally and socially conservative and Ds as being
fiscally and socially liberal. The old center was once about being either
squishy in both departments, or about being fiscally liberal and socially
conservative. But a new “center” is emerging. As people become disaffected
with all the bad economic policies of the Obama administration and all of the
preachy moralisms of the Republican status quo, most are gravitating to
a position that looks decidedly more libertarian—that is, fiscally
conservative and socially liberal.
2. Progressivism is the status quo. Stranger still,
leftish progressivism has been part of the status quo for so long, what at one
time seemed forward-thinking now seems positively quaint. I can see Rachel
Maddow standing out by the Hoover Dam begging us to go back to the ineffectual
make-work programs of the 1930s. The world isn’t really about “things” anymore.
In other words, in the peer-to-peer age, you really want to try to solve the
world’s problems with the blunt instrument of government power? Dirigisme?
How gauche. Government has been flogging that old mule for centuries now:
Taxes, subsidies, and mandates. Lather, rinse, repeat. Is that all you got? It
sort of inverts the terms “liberal” and “conservative” when you think about it.
Progressives don’t want change; they want the same old things that don’t work.
And when people listen to libertarians, they learn why. (Hint: libertarians
actually understand economics.)
3. Libertarianism is a powerful vision. If the
technocrat’s dream was a man standing on the moon, the libertarian’s dream
is of a peaceful, prosperous city-state (perhaps
on the sea) built after bright, creative, and
conscientious people. That’s because ours is a philosophy of peaceful
cooperation, real community, and lateral relationships. Indeed, it is only
through cooperation, community, and lateral relationships that free people get
things done. Technocrats look around at the world and feel that society—and
especially the economy—is like a rocket they have to launch and keep fixing in
flight. But you have to have the right people
at mission control, they believe. You have to have the right technicians
designing this thing. But society is not like a rocket at all. It’s
like a coral reef, which rises up from the ocean floor thanks to billions of
interactions none of which anyone planned. Ordinary people are starting to
grok that.
4. Partisan politics is dying. The kids today are
growing up (a) in an era of high-tech decentralization, and (b) in an era where
electoral politics is being exposed as one big charade. They’re becoming
increasingly disaffected with the back-biting, name-calling, cronyism, and
bureaucratic bungling that is the nature of this particular beast we call
politics. And politics is the primary means for both conservatives and
progressives. While partisans sit around and pontificate, young people are
exercising their freedom and making the world a better place through massive
open-source networks. This is the essence of opt-out culture. Millennials,
having grown up on the Web, are not really into centralization, and thus not
into politics. It’s much easier for them to imagine a world in which you choose
from thousands of “apps” (emergent communities) than a world in which every
couple of years you wait in line for ages to send your prayers up to get one of
two crummy apps—only to have them both suck. Libertarianism is the antidote to this failed
democratic operating system (DOS).
5. Libertarianism is not
conservatism. It’s easier to pick on conservatism. It appears
quaint, less cosmopolitan. It’s a worldview that seems headed over a
demographic cliff. Zealous concern for so-called “family values” falls flat for
younger people who have become far more tolerant of different sorts of family
arrangements, lifestyles, and social norms. While libertarians tend to be far
more socially tolerant, libertarianism is adaptable because it’s primarily
a political doctrine—which is
to say it makes room for all sorts of personal moralities. You can be a
family-values conservative and still be libertarian. You might not choose
alternative lifestyles for yourself, but you’re unwilling to have others thrown
into jail for choosing those lifestyles. And this libertarian tolerance is a
welcome shelter from the false dichotomy propped up by the puritans of
political correctness and by Fox News viewers looking to flare up the culture
wars.
6. Progressivism’s cracks have
finally been exposed. Progressives will urge that Obama is not
the change they hoped for. But the Affordable Care Act should have been
progressivism’s shining moment. Of course, it was anything but. First
the president lies to the population, then joins his party in forcing Americans
to swallow the bitter pill of Obamacare. He then unleashes the technocrats and
gives contracts to his crony buddies to create a $500 million non-functioning
Web site (and that’s just the start of the crony bonanza). The president then
assures everyone that the wasted resources, high premiums, and diminished
options are for the greater good. People start to get wise to it.
Progressivism's cracks are exposed. Add the failure of Cash for Clunkers, the
failure of Solyndra, all the bailouts of banking cartels, and the “rescue” of
the auto manufacturers and unions. The list goes on and on. The more
progressive technocrats try to do, the more they botch it. Of course, something
similar can be said about all the faith-based initiatives of the Republican
years: you know, like the creation of the TSA, the War in Iraq, “stimulus” packages,
and all manner of pork barrel projects. Progressive purists will try to argue
that all of this has been a series of pragmatic patches to a failing system.
For America to truly be great, they say, Republicans must not be so
“obstructionist.” But President Obama, with his pen and his phone, has seized
dictatorial power. Apparently, the ends justify the means. This is the
foundation of progressive ideology. And it’s failing.
7. Libertarianism is real communitarianism.
Libertarianism actually provides a superstructure for community. The problem
with communitarianism is that it never shed its dependence on centralization
and state power. Real community is built from the bottom up by people with
overlapping interests, concerns, and needs. It is not the product of the
imaginings of communitarian philosophers like Michael Sandel, nor of the grand
designs of urban planners. Community comes from the unobstructed encounters of
neighbors on street corners, of hipsters peacocking at coffee shops, of
bitcoiners gathering in Satoshi Square, and of people drawn together out of
common cause or mutual aid. Community bubbles up from a free people. And you
can’t get any more libertarian than that.
8. Libertarians really don’t like
crony capitalism. For all the lip service progressives pay to
the “problem” of income inequality, they consistently back the most illiberal
and inegalitarian policies. Is there anything fair about showering taxpayer
resources upon this energy company or that—and making their CEOs’ wealth more secure
in the process? Is there anything equitable about shoring up the U.S. banking
cartel with permanent legislation like Dodd-Frank? And what chosen “one-percenters”
are benefitting from the crony-infested Obamacare legislation, which rains
goodies down on drug-makers, healthcare providers, and insurance companies in
equal measure? On the other hand, while libertarians don’t mind the sort of
inequality that comes from people successfully creating happy customers,
wealth, and jobs, we really—no really—don’t
like collusion between business interests and government power.
9. Libertarianism is pluralism. Between
the theocrats and the technocrats lies a group of people who want to have—and
want you to have—elbow room. While there are certainly judgmental libertarians
out there, they’re usually being judgmental about “jokers to the left of me,
clowns to the right” (theocrats and technocrats). Otherwise, we’re pretty tolerant people.
And it’s in that toleration that real diversity can flourish.
10. Libertarianism is inevitable. In “50
Ways to Leave Leviathan,” Jeffrey Tucker and I showed that the old
rules are becoming obsolete. People are connecting and cooperating across
national boundaries. They’re practicing what James C. Scott calls “Irish
Democracy,” which is another term for people simply turning their backs, on a
massive scale, on an imposed order. Together, whatever our moralistic stripes,
we are simultaneously creating a new order while rendering the old order obsolete.
And now we’re aided by technology. This is not a libertarian ideology, but a
libertarian reality carved out by people who simply refuse to be controlled by
peers who purport to be superiors.
No comments:
Post a Comment