by Matt Barr

The flaw in libertarianism

Does libertarianism rely on the better angels of human nature? That's an interesting way to look at it. A.C. Kleinheider quotes an Aunt B. approvingly:

One thing that strikes me about libertarianism is that it seems premised on the belief (and I may be misunderstanding, so jump in if I am) that individuals, when left to their own devices, and given a free market to operate in, will naturally act in their own self-interest...

I'm more and more convinced that libertarianism is a really important strain of political thought. And I believe that they're right about many of the ways that the government oversteps its bounds and barges into our lives.

But I'm nervous about their unabashed faith in human nature -- this belief that we'd all act in our own best interest if we could -- and I can't believe that I'm not a part of groups to which I owe my loyalty and it to me. I just can't overcome that.

I'm not a libertarian, of course, I'm an LWOP, but I think that among libertarianism's deficiencies is not a naive faith in human nature. I'm not saying that it has a responsible approach to loyalty, to use the example, rather than just a habit of mocking it, but it doesn't depend on detachment from everything but objective self-interest to work.

I think it does, sensibly, proceed from the assumption that economic (and baser) self-interest will overcome loyalty, catechism, ethics, mores and so on most of the time, especially when something's at stake, like political power, but is that some pie-in-the-sky notion?

Often the favored solution to unwelcome intersections of self-interest and political power is reducing political power, and yes, this maneuver proceeds from a certain naivete about the nature of government and the ability of people to get along better without it. You're not the boss of me is the libertarian slogan more than free minds and free markets or whatever really is, and virtually any misstep by government can be portrayed as proof that we'd be better off with less of it.

I'd like to think a more "nuanced" approach would be to allow that we need stop signs, air forces and things we can't ask people to opt in to or out of, plus where free people and free markets or whatever would get people killed before a market correction was forced -- airplanes flying without adequate maintenance, say, or where the cost of making an informed decision about a business would be so prohibitive as to impact everyday commerce -- I'm thinking of how we audit gas pumps to ensure they're dispensing as much as they say -- there's a role, not just a grudging role, but an important, vital role for government.

(There are private alternatives to the FAA and the county auditor, yes, and probably even stop signs, but discussing them is both beyond the present scope and mostly irredeemably boring.)

The "limited" in "limited government" is too often defined as we need 30 percent of the government we have now, while considerations about which parts we should keep are at best secondary. Now, that there is "a" vital role for government doesn't mean government is a force for good in any fool idea we can come up with, such as bridges to sparsely populated Alaskan islands, or prescription drug benefits. We absolutely want (or should want) elected representatives to be concerned about getting re-elected, but if the primary purpose of a government program is to bribe people into voting a certain way it's probably not the best use of everybody's resources.

Add to that the intuitive relationship between the remoteness of the government and its proper reach. Should every state and political subdivision in the country be prohibited by the supreme law of the land from in any way regulating abortion? It's absurd. But you won't get modern American libertarian buy-in to that very libertarian concept, because government by the governed has the "g" word in it, so they're all for "limiting" it.

The reason for that has little to do with a naive belief in human nature; the opposite is true. Any opportunity to keep others from passing laws about things is leapt at. This is indeed unworkable, but not because libertarians aren't skeptical enough about human motivation.

There is a more direct and less destructive way to deal with legislative bribery and busybodihood, and it involves persuasion and other forms of electoral activism as well as running legitimate candidates for office against the offenders. Here's where libertarians. if they haven't already, give up.

I wonder if there's ever been a serious examination of the role being a conspicuous minority has in libertarianism's reflexive disdain for lawmaking. On the surface, any faction with beliefs not shared by a majority should be against majoritarian democracy. But it's when you rationally consider the alternatives -- and, setting aside his not very novel conclusion that the sensible middle ground happens to already be occupied by him, Kleinheider adequately describes why what passes for "limited government" isn't a good one -- that you realize majoritarianism's benefits.

Dilution of fervent passions, for one thing. The "religious right," for example, may seem big, but it's really not, and it may seem like it has inordinate power, but consider what life would be like if it really did. Consider it with your computer off, because I doubt we'd have an Internet.

Dilution of ideas, too. The fellow with the brightest idea can't do anything about it unless a great many people agree with him. That stinks when it's your idea, but most ideas aren't yours, and in fact most ideas are colossally bad ones, so in the main we compromise not being able to flip a switch and run things the way we want to so no one else can, either.

In this respect, Kleinheider's right: libertarians aren't interested in the dilution of anything, they want purity. When confronted with the reality they'll never get it, they tend to bitch and sulk rather than compromise. If nothing else, the fact that most other factions, for instance the one that wants commerce-choking environmental regulation and universal health care, are patient enough to chip away should rouse libertarians to engagement in the arena, but no go so far.

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