The Questionable Label of 'Libertarian'

The Questionable Label of 'Libertarian'

Part 2 of 22, from Exiting the Wizard's Circle of Economics
Previewed at CORRESPONDENCE THEORY (updated here)

Now sure, I can see how a couple of my tweets could lead someone to think I sound "Libertarian", as with noting that von Mises & Hayek were correct in what they had to say about many technical aspects of an economy - especially as regards inflation. But as I'd quickly replied to not only deny that I was, but also followed it up by noting that where those two strayed from the narrower technicalities of their economic fields - as with Mises philosophical trainwreck of 'On Human Action' - their ideas become muddled and even harmful to liberty, and that their fellow traveler, Murray Rothbard, was, IMHO, an absolute crank and an overt threat to liberty (what any criticism rests upon is what 'liberty' is defined as, which should involve a lot of questions, which, IMHO, libertarians too often assume, rather than ask, and are usually inadequately answered. We'll touch on those questions down below).

xTwitter'rs tell me:
"...You advocate for a limited government that refrains, entirely, from intervening in the economy. The state is primarily concerned with "protecting individual rights", limited to ensuring personal and property security etc. This aligns with libertarianism..."

At that point, if they were looking to identify what I was thinking, rather than trying to contain it, you'd think they might question the appropriateness of their labels, but nope.

Their intentions became doubly questionable for anyone who looks just a bit further into the reasons for my positions - which my xTweeter's claimed to have done - which will reveal numerous passages from posts that I've blogged over the last 15 years (such as this series of posts), to the effect that:

• the futility of treating liberty as utility,
• that treating 'choice' as a principled decision is juvenile,
• that voting libertarian in a general election is generally unprincipled,
• that Intellectual Property is the root of all Property and Copyright Law strengthens individual rights and property rights and results in a boon to inventor and society alike (in principle, if not always in practice),

Those are just some of many problems I have with 'Libertarianism', and trying to label me as a Libertarian is not only something that just won't stick, but any libertarian who bothered looking past their label's positions, and into the reasons for them that've led me to not trust our Liberty with 'Libertarians', would leave most of them looking my way and saying 'Nope, he's not with us!'.

It doesn't take many questions to find that the answers given are too shallow to support what they claim to explain. Take the aggressively casual truism that libertarian's state as an unquestionably self-evident presumption, that 'taxation is theft!' (what's your reaction to that statement? Hold that thought), and if you do question it, you're typically labeled as a statist. And as that sounds a lot like an answer that's intended to kill off our questions... let's ask a few:

• Q: What is Theft? A: Taking what you have no permission or right to.
• Q: What is Taxation? A: The usual means of funding govt.
• Q: What defines theft, protects against it, and provides the means of punishing those who steal? A: Govt is the public's means of defining the laws that apply to all, the means of enforcing and adjudicating them, as well as the means of defending the nation's borders, etc.,

And so given the very real values that good government (with 'good' being a rare and essential qualifier) provides - without which a Free Market could not exist - it would seem that there's at least a case to be made against the statement that taxation as such, is theft. And isn't there a question about what label best fits those who'd seek to partake of the benefits that good govt enables, while evading or refusing to fund the means of sustaining them?

I'm not arguing for either an answer or against 'Libertarianism' here, but only to point out that there are questions that should be considered before asserting that the 'science is settled!' on what has been labeled as the answer.

Yes, there are unjust forms of taxation (income tax comes to mind, property tax too), and yes you could easily have a govt staffed with thieves - but that problem has more to do with the form of govt, the people who formed it, and those they staffed it with, than with the means of funding what it cannot exist without. Taxes aren't the problem, what they're used for, is. Taxation is a means (what other means there may or may not be, is a question worth pursuing) to an end, but it's the nature of that end, that warrants more of your attention, than does the standard means of getting there.

Those questions, and what becomes understood through pursuing them, is what will be developed as we go in this post, but what I want to point out at this point, is that whether muttered in stompy-footed exasperation, or stated as an actual position, the least important aspect of the libertarian truism that 'taxation is theft!', is whether or not the statement itself is true or false. Not only does focusing on such positions minimize the very real evil that is likely to have prompted the sentiment in the first place, but by diverting our attention from the greater issues facing us, such answers effectively abort a number of questions that libertarians, and other political and economic labels and labelers, are exceedingly uncomfortable with raising.

I think that's worth noticing.

Almost the last person of consequence to take notice and identify what those greater issues facing us are, was Calvin Coolidge, who did so up through the early 1920s. By beginning from the perspective of what the purpose of Government is - to preserve and defend the liberty of its people - he wasn't diverted by the less consequential aspects of how government obtains its funding, and so was focused instead upon what government was doing with its citizen's money, and why. And with that perspective in mind, it follows that the only actions that government can legitimately use its citizens tax dollars for, is to serve its central purpose, and that any other actions it takes, would necessarily be working against that purpose, and its citizens.

What that perspective also readily reveals, is that when the citizenry feel that taxation has become a burden to them, it's most likely because their government has betrayed its purpose by doing what it should not do, which means that, as Coolidge clarified in his speech back in 1924, your government is transforming itself into an instrument of tyranny:

"...A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude. One of the first signs of the breaking down of free government is a disregard by the taxing power of the right of the people to their own property. It makes little difference whether such a condition is brought about through the will of a dictator, through the power of a military force, or through the pressure of an organized minority. The result is the same. Unless the people can enjoy that reasonable security in the possession of their property, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, against unreasonable taxation, freedom is at an end. The common man is restrained and hampered in his ability to secure food and clothing and shelter. His wages are decreased; his hours of labor are lengthened...."

, which is a far more consequential issue than theft.

Now you tell me, when I asked you to check your reaction to the 'taxation is theft!' statement above, was that the kind of issue that entered your mind... or was your attention focused on the lesser issue of theft?

See what I mean?

There are similar issues with most other political/economic labels as well, such as the other Big Two Political labels, Liberal and Conservative, beginning with the labels themselves:

• If what was actually meant by 'Liberal' still meant those who value individual rights/property rights, the Rule of Law, and upholding liberty for the individual within society, I'd label myself as that myself. But as those are no longer thought of or practiced as being anything fundamental to the positions that a modern 'Liberal' holds (advocating for 'hate speech' laws as our current leftists do, torpedo's that notion), their label doesn't even begin to identify with what I understand my positions to be. At. All. SoOooo... nope there as well.


• Similarly with 'Conservative' - while I very much value conserving those principles that the West in general, and America in particular, are founded upon, as the 'Conservative' label today embraces other positions that are antithetical to those foundational principles (*saving* Social Security, *reforming* education, *improving* the economy), leaves me as a big nope on that label too.

Yes, politics often requires us to agree on positions while differing on each other's reasons for them. Fact. But behaving as if those various positions are in meaningful agreement, is the practice of tossing a Ptolemaic epicycle onto the discussion, which inevitably serves to produce a slew of question killing answers.

Whether or not anyone agrees with my thinking is not the issue here, the point is to notice that when a person's thinking does not agree with the labels being applied to them - we should ask ourselves why those labels are being applied. And if the labeler shifts into affixing another label, based upon another position that's been taken, while pointedly looking no further into the reasons given for those positions... that's a case of using an 'answer' to abort your questions. And that problem goes far deeper than any particular label itself, and reveals much about us that most people today would rather leave unexamined.

Although I picked on Libertarians here, each of our popular political & economic labels today have their own easy and often trite answers that are on a par with 'taxation is theft', all of which serve to abort the far more important questions that we should all be asking, asking often, and pursuing deeply - which is what we'll be getting into in this post.

On the bright side, if you can manage to not let their answers kill your questions, their misapplied labels will fall away of their own dead weight. The most effective way to get to that point, the Western way of getting to that point, is by reviving the underlying questions that the labeler's easy answers most want to kill:

• What is meant by the label (Metaphysics)?
• How well does it apply (an epistemology of Causality and Logic)?
• Is it appropriate (Ethics)?

, and turn them back on the label, the labeler, and the systemic thinking that both serve.

Two Liberties and the Futility of Utility - Economic Politics vs Political Economy pt3

To hear the proponents of 'Free Trade!' tell it, America's national policy should be guided by economic interests, and government should never interfere with international trade. Odd then, that the power to "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations" is one of the enumerated powers in the constitution, while 'Free Trade!' isn't even mentioned - and not just because the 19th century term 'Economics' wasn't yet a thing (though Adam Smith assuredly was). The then well known issues which Economics now claims to speak for, and which 'Free Trade!''rs claim the sole right to speak for, weren't even hinted at in the Preamble of our Constitution, because other concerns were understood to take precedence in its 'mission statement':

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

To be sure, a robust and prosperous economy was expected to follow from securing the 'Blessings of Liberty', and it did follow, once a Rule of Law had been established to govern upon the framework of our constitution, but that followed as an effect of our form of government and not as either a cause of it, or as a purpose for it.

"... liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty,
as well as by the abuses of power..."
James Madison, Federalist, no. 63

Am I trying to make a case for Govt intervention into business? Absolutely not. The case that I am trying to make, is that a sound Rule of Law is a necessary precondition for liberty and that is the government's primary concern, and from which secondary issues such as a Free Market can and will then follow upon and within that system, because those primary issues were attended to first. Once a government has established the framework for liberty, which includes providing adjudication of contracts and legal consequences for negligence, fraud, injury to persons & property, then that Govt has no further business involving itself in the operations of businesses within that or compatible external frameworks - but neither do businesses, or those 'economic experts' who claim to speak for them, have any business dictating how such secondary concerns should govern how government ought to handle its primary concerns.

The tendency to promote economic matters as a primary driver of national policy (whether that be pro 'Free Trade!' or pro 'Regulatory State' matters little, both are flip sides of the same counterfeit coin), is to adopt, at best, a Utilitarian view of the purpose of a nation's govt (and of its people), a view which is very much contrary to the understanding that our nation was derived from and founded upon. You'll often see this sentiment cheerfully expressed by Libertarians and Conservatives alike, through misleading lines such as this:

"There cannot be political freedom without economic freedom. This argument is not controversial, even on the left"

Each time I hear such statements, I want to grab someone by the lapels and ask: Why in the world would such a statement be controversial on the Left? If taken seriously, or simply accepted on the face of it, it induces you to put the effect (Economics) before its cause (Political Philosophy), in reverse of the requirements of liberty - hello, guess what Karl Marx himself proposed? In making or going along with such statements as that, you've agreed to play their game by their rules, at which point which 'team' you play for in their league is really of very little consequence or controversy for the Pro-Regressives of the Left (or Right). There are no 'economic rights' that aren't but features of the Individual Rights which give rise to them. To produce or purchase or contract to do either, are but a sliver of the actions which derive from the individual right to speak, associate and act, as well as the right to property which serves to anchor them into the laws of that society. To disregard that and fixate upon such abbreviated 'economic rights', severs them from their roots and props up a fragile and superficial facade in their place, which are then easily buffeted about by the winds of policies and popularity, while the roots that gave rise to them wither and become forgotten. Why in the world would that be controversial on the 'Left' - is that not their constant aim and pursuit?!

Secondary economic issues should not be advanced as if they were the highest priority, and especially not in our relations with foreign governments such as Communist China, which engage in widespread fraud & theft in their dealings with us, not to mention subjecting their own people to the rampant and oppressive denial and abuse of individual rights, enslavement and murder. Such issues are and should be the primary concerns of our government and its policies should be driven by them, while secondary concerns such as trade should come in at a distant second place. To prattle on about unrestricted and even unilateral 'Free Trade!' with such nations as Communist China, to demand the 'liberty' to aid & abet and enrich such nations as that in order to 'make a buck', displays such an appallingly disordered set of priorities that it is necessary to ask: What is it that they mean by 'Liberty'?

Taking liberties with Liberty
When people proclaim that they are 'for Liberty!', it is important to ask them what it is that they mean by that word. Case in point, you've probably heard of the book that is much admired by Libertarians and many Conservatives alike, "On Liberty", written in 1859 by John Stuart Mill - have you read it? If not, you should, if only to discover that there are a great many reasons to not be a fan of either the

'There's a spectre haunting America, the spectre of Constitutionalism' - The Road Not Taken to Making Americans American Again

I shared a post last week that I found hopeful, concerning a small but successful program at a sizable Ivy League University that's pursuing 'Wisdom First, Job Skills Second' (which is both surprising and new for today), through studying key works in the development of Western Civilization, and the foundations of a free society. At about the same time, a friend of mine shared a post about a 'name' Republican considering a move to the Libertarian party to run for President in 2020, which seems neither new, surprising, nor hopeful to me. The paths that these two posts propose, diverge into a future which we all hope will be better and brighter, and while they aren't mutually exclusive roads, I suspect that once we take one path, we won't get a chance for a do-over. So my question is, which road do you think is better suited to make all the difference for us, and why? Which road do you think we will have to make excuses for somewhere in the future, when we tell our grandchildren about the one we traveled by?


This is the post my friend Lloyd, a small 'L' libertarian [see my update to this, from Lloyd, below] who identifies as a Whig (you'd have to ask him), shared on the continuing struggle between Republicans & Libertarians over those who self-identify as fans of "Liberty!",

"...Libertarian Party leadership is now urging Justin Amash to run for President and make a third party challenge to the sitting President, Trump. According to Roll Call, the Michigan Republican told h…"

To which he commented with a mixture of sense and something else:

"Republicans will NEVER shrink this government AND they CANNOT be reformed from within. (Trump was the party's last chance.)
It does NOT prove the LP is the answer. It DOES prove it's gonna take a different party than donkeys or elephants, or the nation is lost.
A word to the wise-- however few of us remain."

As long as I've known him, one of Lloyd's fondest ambitions has seemed to be to see our current two party system upended or ended - particularly in regards to the GOP - and with each passing year I see even less wisdom in the prospect of such 'News!' as that. Not, as my friend persistently presumes, because I somehow 'support' the GOP (I have not been a supporter since George 'Read my lips: No new taxes" Bush 41), but for at least two other reasons:

First, because I think that it is truly hopeless to look to political parties or politicians for meaningful solutions, which presume (and require) ideas and positions which the majority of the electorate are neither knowledgeable about, nor have they shown any signs of interest in, or of even being open to considering - politics is the natural end result of that process, where an idea has bubbled up from the grass roots into a political hot-button, but politics is not the starting point of that process, and behaving as if it is, is getting it all wrong.
Second, given our current situation where We The People as an electorate are facing an unprecedented threat to liberty under limited government, by a Democrat Party which is now largely and openly identifying as being 'Democratic Socialists', it seems self-evidently foolish to pursue a path that must mean dividing the ability of 'The Right' to provide political resistance to the opposing party's efforts to gain power over our lives.

No matter how enthusiastic the libertarians are, there is no evidence of massive popular support for some alternative set of political ideas that have people champing at the bit to rush into the voting booth in support of them. Instead of popular bottom up demands for a new party, these are the top down calls of the soph-infatuated who want to shove their political influence down into the power of popular opinion, and I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way.

And although the second of those reasons is the more urgent, the first is the more important. As bad as I fear the electoral repercussions of a 3rd or 4th party would be, I think the inevitable failure that would result from the success of such a political agenda, would be even worse. The citizenry have to, at the very least, be already inclined towards, and open to, the new ideas and solutions being peddled to them, before they can be led in supporting them - but to succeed at doing the reverse of that, would require the mass use of force animating mass action through emotional zeal, rather than sober resolve, and that must end in disaster. That's not just my oh so humble opinion, but that of History's as well, which you can get a fair grasp of by looking at two contrasting sets of such revolutions: England's 'Glorious Revolution' and the American Revolution, both of which were successfully carried forward upon the strength of the people's support for their ideas; as against the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, which sloganeered a largely ignorant and riled up people, into embracing tyranny and genocide. This snippet from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's short address on the subject gives a hint at the issue, and the full address is well worth reading,

"...It is now better and better understood that the social improvements which we all so passionately desire can be achieved through normal evolutionary development--with immeasurably fewer losses and without all-encompassing decay. We must be able to improve, patiently, that which we have in any given "today."
It would be vain to hope that revolution can improve human nature, yet your revolution, and especially our Russian Revolution, hoped for this very effect. The French Revolution unfolded under the banner of a self-contradictory and unrealizable slogan, "liberty, equality, fraternity." But in the life of society, liberty, and equality are mutually exclusive, even hostile concepts. Liberty, by its very nature, undermines social equality, and equality suppresses liberty--for how else could it be attained? Fraternity, meanwhile, is of entirely different stock; in this instance it is merely a catchy addition to the slogan. True fraternity is achieved by means not social but spiritual. Furthermore, the ominous words "or death!" were added to the threefold slogan, effectively destroying its meaning...."[bold in original]

Now, am I saying that if Libertarians succeeded in unseating the GOP, without the public wanting and understanding their positions, that they'd devolve into a bloody revolution? Well of course not! How ridiculous to suggest that freedom loving people could do such things. In fact, like Jefferson, I'd say the prospects of that were an outrageous suggestion, as obviously such a liberty oriented movement would never cost a single life! Of course... Thomas Jefferson said that very same thing... just a month before the riots began that kicked off the French Revolution's downward spiral, eventually devolving into tyrannical bloodshed and genocide (the Vendee is what Alexander Solzhenitsyn was referring to