Why Libertarians Don't Win

[Chulanowa]

I wasn't quite sure where to put this, being my first time launching a topic post and all :) This is something I cooked up far over yonder on a Libertarian board I visit on occasion. I thought perhaps I might share it with DU.

----------------------------------------------------

Julia's post in "The Transformation of John Mackey" spurred me to finally put some work into jamming down the thoughts and conclusions I've been gathering on the subject of Libertarianism. For those who haven't read it, here's what she said:

"...an idealism that addresses the direct correlation between economic freedom and societal progress.

For the past few decades the Democrats have captured the idealism of the youth - many of whom are now middle aged true-blue devoted members of the Party. They're now the power brokers of the party, in fact. They've cornered the market on idealism through the years because young people have no fear of failure - most of them have nothing to lose starting out, and are drawn by their need for the ideals of peace, world stability, self purpose, and the Democrats feed that need. They want to change the world and think they can build a better society through government and regulation even though it's been a proven failure at virtually every attempt. They see no idealism being offered by the libertarians, their attention isn't held by the vice issues, and the only way the ideal of freedom will be fostered among these people is through a marketing campaign focused on educating them.

So why aren't Libertarians espousing freedom through economic means? Why aren't they out there touting the freedom obtained through free market enterprise, minimal government, freedom that comes by not engaging in nation building which sucks hundreds of billions of dollars from their collective pocketbook? I don't know, but the marketing strategy definitely needs to change. These are great core values to be touting and I don't get why they aren't being touted. Dammit."

Now first off, an introduction, so you all may have some idea of where I'm coming from. I'm The Cat Came Back (Or Chulanowa, or The Walking Fox, or Rusty, or any of those other screen names someone may have seen somewhere). I'm an Irish-Choctaw fella from the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama, currently residing in Cordova, AK, pending a move to Hebo, OR. For much of my life I've been hovering on the edge of poverty - My parents never had a penny to spare after bills, and certainly couldn't afford college tuition - And I had the misfortune of falling short of meeting the requirements for scholarships, being a rather intellectually average and athletically unimpressive child.

Politically I've been interested since I had a really, really good social studies teacher in the 7th grade. I had no ideological affiliation at the time - I just found the intrigues and social movements of people and government through the years to be amazingly interesting. As I aged I started picking and choosing what struck me as "correct". Naturally like a lot of teenagers, I was drawn to the ideals of anarchism. No, not the detached and scholarly anarchism of so many of your favorite writers, but actual in your face "Motherfucker change the system NOW!" kid of anarchism. Though not violent, I was "hardcore" in my belief in individual autonomous rule, militant of phrase and stance. I didn't ascribe to any of the modifiers of anarchism - "socialist anarchism" or "libertarian anarchism" or whatever the fuck kind of anarchism. Nah, no me anarchism was entirely what an individual chose to mold it into. That was the damn point, right? All these side groups were just posers trying to suck away "Real" anarchists into one political herd or another. If I could have fit in any particular camp of anarchy, it would have been primitivism. And that would have been a stretch, too.

As I progressed, I, like a lot of other people, hung out on the internet, sucking up information like a sponge. And I stumbled across what may have been the biggest monkey wrench ever to be thrown into my political clockwork - that stupid "political placement graph test". Being the trusting soul that I am, I took the test, and a few variations of it. The results were always the same... "libertarian, libertarian, libertarian"

I did some light diving into the subject of libertarianism. I've always been more interested in the cultural aspects of politics than with the economic portion of it, and so I tended to sort of gloss over the economic philosophies to get to the "good stuff" - the Libertarian positions on social issues. Well, I began considering myself a Libertarian, with a dash of anarchism. Being in a tiny Alaska town sort of chilled the activist fires in me (literally and metaphorically), and I again returned to a more scholarly pursuit and contemplation of politics.

I don't know how, I don't even exactly know when, but my belief in anarchism dried up rather suddenly. I do know why, though - I realized that Anarchy would never work. It would never work because it is an idealist belief in a world of realism. Communism and anarchy run counter to human nature - Both of them picture the human as a perfect being, full of compassion and charity. Communism ignores mankind's desire to have the most of the best that is available - our acquisitiveness. Anarchy ignores our species need to be on control of our surroundings - we all have the instinct to dominate those around us, the question is whether we have the ability to do so.

This realization - that anarchy ignored the "human" component of its theories, and would never work -sent my politics into a tailspin. Since anarchism had led me to libertarianism, I began to suspect that philosophy as well - it didn't help when my naïveté was broken when I discovered that that stupid test was pretty damn rigged to either list you as libertarian, or as a far-corner wacko, if you tried hard enough to get that result.

So that brings us to Julia's lament above, and the question, why don't libertarians win? I want you all to bear in mind that I've got nothing against libertarians, aside from that I think they've got a lot of stuff wrong. Besides, it's not like you guys are important - why bother holding anything against you? ;)

Why Libertarians don't win, part one: The libertarians themselves

Libertarians tend to come in two main flavors. First there's people who are like me. They see the ideas of self autonomy, removal of vice law, and all that stuff and decide to hop in the boat. Most don't stay that long. Those that do are something of a PR nightmare - Some of the loudest libbers are either bleary-eyed hippies with the eternal munchies, or people like me, loud aggressive guys with weird hair and a nose ring. Doesn't look good to the average voter to see that touting your party, sadly.

But they're not the big problem - the hippies forget to vote, the punks often find voting to be counterproductive in "the system", and the remainder tend to not stick with it long anyway. No the Libertarians hurting the libertarian movement the most are the sorts who, like some of you, are basically just GOP expatriates. It's not that you're for libertarianism, so much as you're against Republican spending, and against every Democrat in the country. Like I said - you're just annoyed republicans. This is displayed in your voting patterns - You're upset with the path Republicans have taken. You could cast your votes to the Democrats. This would send a strong message for the Reps you know and love to get back on track - and it'll certainly make both parties take note of Libertarianism and try to court your vote with policy in the future.

But do you do this? Nah. You either vote Libertarian, or you hold your nose and vote Republican anyway. Either way you're telling the GOP, "I don't like your new spending policies, but you can count on me to give you my vote anyway". It's very self-injurious behavior. No matter how much you disagree with the Republican party from whence you came, you're still never going to go to the competition. It's like being allergic to shellfish and putting a job application in at Red Lobster every month.

And then the aftershocks of the elections. I've asked libertarian friends of mine, "So if you guys' ideals are so good for everyone, why haven't you ever made big wins"? The answers tend to follow this pattern:
"Americans are trained to vote against their best interest"
"The people of this country just don't understand economics"
"The two major parties have brainwashed the citizens into servile submission"

I'm sure you've all heard these sort of statements, probably made a few like them. Well, it may be news, but Americans tend to not vote for elitist assholes who consider Americans to be stupid bovines. Really that's what these statements say to people "You're too stupid to know what's good for you, only I and my enlightened brethren know the true way." it's annoying, it's condescending, and it makes people turn you off faster than a Margaret Thatcher nudie picture.

Why Libertarians don't win, part two: the policies

When you check out libertarian literature, websites, and the such, what's usually out front and loud? Civil liberties issues, right? Personal freedoms as regarding to social issues - prostitution, abortion, drug use, sexuality, other such "controversial" topics get first ticket in Libertarian advertising. But as you and I know, this is only the portion of the iceberg that is above the water. Below the eye-catching draw of "live free!" is a morass of economic and governmental policies that, I'm sorry to say, suck. While PR and voting habits hurt libertarians, it's the underlying philosophies themselves that hurt libertarianism.

• Idealism
  

At its core, Libertarianism is an idealistic philosophy. Like Communism and Anarchy, it unerringly fails to consider the human quotient of its philosophies. This is the first and foremost cause for the failure of Libertarianism in America. Libertarianism assumes that if it's policies are enacted, it will flow flawlessly for the hereon after, no technical difficulties, no glitches or hangups, just libertarianism as far as the eye can see.

In short, Libertarianism works a lot like basic math. You take two of these, and two more of those, and now you have four of them. However, politics is a lot like genetic biology "Take two of these, mix in two of those, and lord only fucking knows what you might get - here's a list of what we think may result, but we may be wrong". Libertarian philosophy presumes that employers will always treat employees fairly, that the employees will always be appreciative of their employers because of this. it assumes that the government will move swiftly, smoothly, and transparently with no hangups.

Libertarianism works with vagaries: Instead of politicians A through Z, there is "government". Rather than Moe's Tavern and Sanders' Salvage, there's "business". There's not the McLean family, consisting of Albert McLean, age 45, professional electrician, Leslie McLean, age 40, advertising consultant, and their fraternal twins, Mark McLean and Robert McLean, aged 15 each, full-time students; there's just "the market". Libertarianism excises the human facet from its theories as a self-protection mechanism. Faceless and impersonal group entities fit neatly into libertarian models - human beings are chaotic and messy and screw things up.

Much like anarchy and communism, Libertarianism ignores the nature of the people it would preside over. And again, it ignores human nature, because of this. Much like its cousin, anarchy, libertarianism ignores the human thirst for dominance. So long as there are enough people to form a tribe, someone will always be the big chief. This leads us to:

• The fallacy of "small government"
  

A mainstay of conservative beliefs - among which Libertarianism is included - is the idea that a smaller government is the best government - the smaller the better. This belief holds that a smaller government is less intrusive, more efficient, less corrupt, more approachable, and less expensive. It's that last one that really catches the Libertarian eye - The libertarians are the premier proponents of the "Starve your government" idea. The idea is if you reduce flow of money, you reduce overall reach of government.

This thought has already been wounded by recent developments with the Republican party; they just borrow rather than tax, which is in many ways worse than taxing was in the first place! However the idea of "starving your government" remains popular. And I'm here to tell you that it won't work. At least, it won't work like you imagine it might.

If the government acquiesces to your requests and starts cutting spending, what's first to go are the social programs, as well we all know. Charity support, welfare, medicare, that sort of thing would be the first thing to get hacked off. Next would be domestic care-taking things - the national parks and monuments would go, the highway program, stuff like that.

Do you know what would never be touched, though? "Defense". Some peripherals may be cut - NASA is sure to go, experimental weapons projects will slow down, and it's doubtful that taxpayer-funded "President pretending the be a veteran" photo ops would be quite so commonplace... But in the end, when you cut down the budget far enough... All that's left is military spending.

In the process of removing the capacity for rulership through threat of force by the government, you have turned the military into all that's left of the government. It's happened time and time again in human history - a population pulls down a bloated, casually tyrannical government, and receives a far more intently tyrannical and violent government in return. The French revolution gave is Napoleon. Red October gave us Lenin and Stalin. The iranian rebellion against the Shah gave them Mullahs in his place. Libertarians rail against the Clintons, and may just end up with a Rumsfeld instead.

Speaking of which...

• Politicians
  

As I said, every tribe will have a chieftain. "Lead or follow" is part of the human hardwiring. So what does Libertarianism expect of its leadership?

Well, it's odd, really. As a combined result of the fact the Libertarians are mostly runaway Republicans, they favor small government, and they believe that people will naturally be on their best behavior at all times if they're Libertarian, political leaders are few and far between. It would seem that the libertarians expect anyone they elect to cut their own salary, then fire themselves. Presumably to run again in the next election cycle. Not surprisingly, finding a person (much less a politician, if one considers them people) who will do this is unlikely at best.

While this is a problem with the theorems of libertarianism, another arises from the demand for "small government". Rule one of small government is that the military will never be cut noticeably. Rule number two is that the corrupt assholes will simply consolidate. Think of government as business - a real business, not a dream business. If there's a shakeup in a company, who gets the boot? The new people, the squeaky wheels, the interns - ALL of the interns - But never, ever, under any circumstance, does any of the establishment ever get cut. The same goes for cutting government. You can pare down federal sprawl all you want, but the people - the people, remember that - who are causing the problems will still remain. The Ted Kennedys and the Dennis Hasterts and the other fat felonious fucks aren't going to go anywhere, no matter how much government you cut.

...And if they do, Ollie North and Donald Rumsfeld will be more than happy to hop in a tank to avenge them.

And what of those few who ARE, in fact, libertarian politicians? These, like their constituents, come in two varieties - Tommy Chong and Ayn Rand. Neither is exactly electable - even by libertarians! Both strains are generally single-issue types who are bound to cave towards the majority on whatever their "weak spot" is. I've watched Libertarian Candidates, and i've got to be honest, even with all the money in the world for a campaign, Bob Dole would stand more chance of getting elected than anything the Libbers have fielded so far.

And again, there's that conundrum of what, exactly, Libertarians expect from their politicians. It's very odd for a bunch of people who, as a rule, don't trust their government, to believe a politician that runs on a platform that would cut his own wages and put him out of a job. This may be why a lot of libertarians just say "fuck it" and go with the Republican candidate, anyway - better the devil you know, perhaps.

Why Libertarians Don't Win, part three: the economy, stupid!

Nobody can doubt that capitalism is a good thing in many ways. It's the best economic system yet devised. I myself am a capitalist, and a hungry one at that. I want my Stuff™. In order to have my Stuff™ I need my money. Money gets me Stuff™. Money = Stuff™. Simplistic, but it doesn't have to be complicated, I don't suppose.

However, the question is how good is capitalism? it may be the best we have, but it's not perfect. THis is my main burr with libertarians - they, to a one, regard capitalism as a perfect and flawless system.

Now, the way I see it, Capitalism is sort of like caffeine. I like caffeine. in fact I'm something of an addict. I recommend caffeine use to all my friends - and enemies, too. it's great stuff. Cheap, easy to find, effective but still rather mild. However, one builds up a resistance to it, just like any other drug, requiring larger or stronger doses to have comparable effects. Caffeine essentially wears down the system that uses it, degrading its own effectiveness - you require more of it to get you going, but as you put more caffeine in, it increase your tolerance. Nonstop use will eventually lead you to a point where caffeine consumption poses a real danger to your heart.

So it is with capitalism. Much like caffeine, I think capitalism is great stuff and i recommend its hearty use - but I advise against overindulgence. I believe that capitalism works best as a "booster shot" for a slowing economy. You throw in some capitalism, which spurs the economy, causing an upsurge in productiveness and overall wealth.

This has been done in countries all over the world - Soviet Glasnost and China's increasing capitalist flirtations, for example. And these "booster shots" have been a success - they send the economy humming, without fail. The question I have though, is what if it ceases to be a booster shot, and instead becomes the full system? This is what Libertarians want, or at least what they say they want, but the fact is we've never seen a society that operates on pure capitalism. The closest that exist today are all third-world shitholes, the conditions of which muddy the waters on capitalism - are they third world shitholes because of or in spite of unmitigated capitalism? We'll likely never know for sure.

However, like any additive, I believe that capitalism is untenable on its own and is dangerous in overuse. You don't want a caffeine IV drip for instance, nor do you want to pop a fistful of wake-up pills every few hours. Your car won't run on ether alone, and adding it regularly will degrade your engine, even as it temporarily improves performance. Libertarians are willing to throw it all to the wind and give it a shot anyway. A majority of Americans, even if they don't share my beliefs, recognize that our current system of socio-capitalism is far from perfect... But they also realize that radical tinkering with it would probably be bad - especially when we're talking about turning it into a purely experimental and untested system! Thus, libertarians lose the public on this issue.

• "The Market"
  

A common phrase from Libber lips is "let the market decide!". What they generally mean by this is "let supply and demand set prices and wages". Well, it's basic economics, sure. The problem arises, again, in the difference between mathematics and biology, and libertarians ignoring the human element of their philosophies. Economics is math, pure and simple math. Percentages, probabilities, addition, subtraction, and multiplication. It talks of "the market", "producers", "consumers" and of course, "the economy". These are, again, faceless, nonspecific group labellings. Millions starve in the streets of our country, but things are perfect and the economy is great because hundreds are buying property from each other in an escalating circle jerk of investment.

Doesn't make a lot of sense when you add the biology, does it? People like their politicians to at least PRETEND to interact with them on a personal level - shake some hands, kiss some babies, sodomize some iraqis, whatever floats a given voter's boat. Libertarians, being enlightened superiors to the kulak majority, are above such things, and speak over American's heads, calling them such impersonal and dehumanizing things as "the market" and "consumers".

The overall impression is that Libertarians perceive the citizenry as little more than wallet-warmers made of mobile meat. There's the definite impression that libertarians, both politicians and rank and file, perceive everyone - even themselves - as little more than grist for the mill of business and "The economy". For some, it's almost a religious fervor.

• Business
  

So, what of that business, then? As I mentioned earlier, this is another depersonalizing term used by libertarians - there's not McDonald's, Sears, and Bob and Betty's Neighborhood Florist - there's just one big faceless blob called "business". Libertarians believe that what's good for Wal-Mart will also be good for Sal's Funeral Home... after all, business is business, and everyone's just a cog in that machine, right?

Well, no. Gains in one area of the market don't automatically translate into gains throughout the market - that's a trick of the numbers, my friends. Growth in one small area makes the average rise, creating the illusion of overall growth. Wealth is only in constant flux at the upper tiers of the economy - the high rollers and investors, if you will. Down among the kulaks and serfs, people tend to sit on their money for a while, borrow it, hell, even steal it... The human element of wealth exchange fails to really register with economists and their spreadsheets.

There's also the problem that a lot of the leading economists out there, including most teachers, are strongly partisan Reaganites who educate their successors in "trickle-down" economics and hem and haw about the idea of class stratification - they call such notions "class warfare" - with the obvious implication that it's the poor seeking to wage war on the wealthy. Unsurprisingly this view goes unchallenged, because we don't often see a guy from the ghetto who's second-generation welfare meet the tuition requirements to become an economist... Which is, all things considered, rather ironic. The fact is though, there is class stratification - Donald Trump is not a wal-mart shopper. Sally the bag lady tends to hang out around the salvation army when she can afford to go shopping. There's not a lot of voluntary wealth exchange between the tiers, and involuntary change - tax hikes, tax cuts, debts, loans, and the sort, tend to break even when all is said and told, leaving the strata intact.

• Class Warfare
  

While we're in the neighborhood, it needs to be noted that Libertarians are very often if not always, quite enamored of the concept of Class Warfare. They sure seem to use the term often - usually when deriding attempts by those of a lower tier than themselves trying to get a pay raise or improved working conditions. While one doesn't have to be anti-labor to be pro-business, libertarians very often are. They adhere to the idea that a worker is only worth what a employer wants to pay them - that the employer should hold all the power in what even libertarians admit is a contractual agreement. Any attempt for the worker to determine their own value is derided as "class warfare"

It should be noted that I have yet to meet a committed libertarian (that is, one who buys the full philosophy, not just the abolishment of vice laws) who has ever struggled to make ends meet. Almost to a one they've been the children of upper-middle class families, rather privileged, could afford a college education, etc. Most have only ever seen poverty through a television screen, and certainly never lived it. As I noted, I've been staring the threat of poverty in the face most of my life - It's only through a lot of sacrifices and practically forcing myself through things that I've even managed lower middle-class.

• Deregulation and free trade
  

Part and parcel with their belief of capitalism as a flawless and free-standing economic system is the belief that such a system should be totally unregulated by any sort of "government" entity, and it should be a global connective system. Once again, I believe that this is because Libertarians see only "the economy" and not the people who make it up - Sort of the reverse of missing the forest for the trees, I suppose. They hold that Businesses are inherently "good" because they make up The Economy. The notion of corrupt business practices is filtered out through the rosy lenses of that idealism that Libertarians adhere to.

A global economy is a horrid thing. The world is a big place, and most of us will never see even a fraction of it's makeup. While I expect that the price of tea in china may cause some fluctuation in the markets of my own country, my country's economy remains my country's economy - It's protected somewhat from global fluctuations. Removing economic borders removes that buffer - fluctuations in one country's production ripple, unhindered and full-sized, into my country as well. I don't especially care to be slapped in the face when I go to the store because Tajikistan's Dictator-in-Chief is pigfucking his nation's businesses today.

The idea of a global market also opens up the problem off depressed wages. While the idea delights libertarians (remember, "you'll be paid what I think you're worth, serf"?) it's pretty abhorrent to most other people in the world - even those who would, in theory, benefit. The people of India hate our country's outsourcing to their country. Why? Not because they hate making money from American businesses, but because they'd rather be making their money from Indian businesses. Transplanted businesses give India some money, but they don't really kick start India's market - the money flows right back into foreign hands, because foreign businesses have filled so much market space. Entrepreneurs can't really compete with established business in "developing" countries. Meanwhile, workers in developed countries are being laid of right and left ads their employers move overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor and markets with less competition.

The fact is business is made of people (noticing a theme so far?). People can be, and often are, real assholes to each other. Every tribe has a chieftain - and the more concentrated that chieftain's authority is on him, invariably the more he will rely on force to get things done. At the root, a business is just a tribe, as any other grouping of human beings. The boss is the chieftain. The more authority and control this chieftain has, the more likely he is to abuse it - How's it go? "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"?

Libertarians are in favor of giving business owners such power. I honestly don't think they do so consciously - They seem to not realize that cutting government size would result in a military-based government, and I don't think they realize the abuses that would result from deregulation of business. Honestly, those of you who favor governmental intervention for fraud... What is your tiny, toothless government going to do? Scold the CEO with a nasty letter? Such a government as you favor would not have the ability - and certainly not the authority! - to penalize corrupt or abusive business practices. Unless of course you expect your General Commander in Chief of the Federal Armed Union to charge into the corporate headquarters with a couple Federal Marine units or something... :?:

A tiny, toothless government combined with an unrestrained capitalist system would have one very clear effect, one that even libbers acknowledge - the threat of monopoly. Now imagine globalized monopolies. Scared yet?

Why Libertarians Don't Win, part four: how free is "free"?

Monopolies. One business totally dominating its market - no competition allowed or capable. Men and women so wealthy that they can afford to pay outrageous sums to buy out competitors. We all know monopolies are bad - bad for people, bad for the economy, just all around bad. They stifle innovation and kill entrepreneurship, in fact they actively punish such ideas. They consolidate power and wield it aggressively, even in unrelated and peripheral markets. Generally monopolies arise around necessities - In the modern world, those necessities are nutrition, energy, and information. Energy and information have been struggling against monopoly for decades now - ExxonMobils, General Electrics, Ma Bell, Clear Channel, Microsoft... Nutrition is just starting to become monopolized - Tyson Foods is doing their part, and it's damn hard to find seafood that doesn't have Sun Myung Moon's stench around it these days.

Monopolization is the endgame of unregulated capitalism. Once you have so much money, all that's left to buy are things that will make you more money - other businesses. The end result of ever-increasing monopolization is, of course, the end of capitalism. Capitalism thrives on competition and innovation. If there's no competition, there is no innovation - and without innovation, there's no competitors to arise.

Each time monopolies have arisen in America, it's been the government that strikes them down - More in the interest of protecting its own business interests than helping its people, but whatever it takes to work, I guess. Libertarians are in favor of removing that power from the government, along with every other power.

"Let the market decide!" they cry, believing that people, even though they're all too stupid to know how to vote libertarian, will somehow break up monopolies all by themselves - if they don't like them. That little clause is important because if the monopolies aren't broken, then the people like them and no harm is done. It's another self-defending mechanism. Much like libertarianism deals with its inability to address human nature by eliminating humans from its equations, it assumes that inability to engender change equals acquiescence with the status quo.

Once again, every tribe will have its chieftain. With the economic model of the Libertarians, that chieftain will be the top handful of business owners. Unelected, unimpeachable, unanswerable, and unrelenting. The government will be unable to halt this, without use of military... Assuming it even WANTED to, given that it's the same fat corrupt fucks as are always in control of the government.

• Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll
  

With all this mess, what about the other portion of Libertarian's take on freedoms, the freedom from vice laws? Well, my first theory is that it's simply an outgrowth of "economic freedom" rather than a belief on its own. You can't very well be saying "Totally free market, unless you're selling marijuana!". While most libertarians i've met are somewhat short-sighted and list a little deluded, they tend to be rather intelligent and know when something is being hypocritical.

So, following the path of THIS branch of libertarianism, what do we find? On its own, not much. Callous though it is, the users who are dangerous to themselves and others will be weeded out, leaving only reasonable users, much as has happened in other nations with drug deregulation. If you want to screw your mother up the ass, well, it's gross to me, but I suppose that I have no say in what the two of you do - After all, making a law against it won't stop you, laws have never halted vice. American society would become more Dutch, but it certainly wouldn't become a mass orgy and drug party - at least, after a year or two passed and everyone who partied is bored with it and goes back to daily drudgery.

No, decriminalization of vice, in the long run, isn't anything damaging - it's something to mask damage, a band-aid on a bullet wound. When the nation is collapsing into a showdown between corporate and military tyranny, when drought in Sudan is making the Eastern Seaboard make flour out of dollar bills, When you have to lower your own wages to forty-five cents to compete with a guy in Bangladesh... you're going to want to get stoned, fuck a prostitute, and then blow your brains out without all those messy legal entanglements.

Why Libertarians Don't Win: in conclusion

All these are reasons why libertarians don't win. They come across as being half-baked (often while being totally baked. Sort of like the Greens, on both counts...) and it only takes a few moments to notice the cracks in a philosophy founded almost entirely on a downright fanatical anti-communist Russian ex-pat. This isn't a flaw inherent to the Libertarians - almost all "third parties" are relegated to an inconsequential position in American politics due to having a very narrow focus (The Greens), a very demented focus (the Constitution Party) or something between narrow and Demented (that would be you guys). Voters don't like what you have to sell. No amount of advertising will change that.

It needs to sink into some Libertarian heads that libertarians aren't winning, not because americans are too stupid to know what's good for them, but because they're smart enough to know libertarian ideas are bad for them. While there are some good ideas in there - America can always use more self-autonomous people and less "nanny" in the nanny state - the philosophy as a whole is untenable in the long run - and possibly even in the short run. There's too many flaws overall. Libertarians come across as being little more than the party that says "Whatever Democrats are for, we're against! / Whatever Republicans are against, we're for!"

Any political position that relies on an ideal over reality is doomed to failure. This holds true for all parties and philosophies, which can often become disconnected over time. But libertarianism is one of the small handful of political philosophies that seems to have been disconnected from the start, an oft-rabid philosophy cooked up amid the scent of cigars and brandy in exclusive debate meetings between select "think tank" scholars, a schizophrenic philosophy that actively denies the concept of "the individual" in favor of faceless collective groupings, while at the same time touting personal freedom and responsibility.

It is, in its most stringent form, a utopian fantasy - the libertarian thought process maintains that the world would be perfect - oh if only everyone lived like libertarians say they should live. It is a position that denies humans as humans, rather than cogs and sprockets in a deity called "The Economy" which ultimately serves no purpose other than to be a deity called "The Economy" in this philosophy.

In closing, I would like to say I apologize for any hurt feelings I may have caused - though not any outrage I may have engendered. These are all reasons I can see why Libertarians aren't going to make it in America - at least not in their current form. I have expounded on why I no longer consider myself among their number, and, hopefully, have gotten some of you to at least do a little reassessment on your own beliefs. I do maintain that there is some good in libertarianism, but that it seems to be the tiny diamond amid a bunch of coal. To have a chance, Libertarianism is going to need to find a way to become human. This is one area the two dominant parties have succeeded in, and is the key to their success.

And now, it's late, I've worked hard, typed for two hours, and i'm going to bed. Enjoy your evenings.

[unschooler]

1. OMG! What a tome! I will have to save that one for later.

Thanks for ALL your hard work, Chulanowa!

[anewdeal]

2. That was really good!!

I read most of it ...

I would love to see the Libertarian Party run the country, but until the Libertarians are a viable option, I'll have to support the Democrats just to keep the neoCons out of office.

One day we'll be truly free.

[rman]

3. excellent post

Just one thing: anarchy has gotten the same bad rap as socialism, which has caused it to be misunderstood.


Most people think anarchy is essentially lawlessness; that the idea of it is that things will work out because people are good. But that's not anarchism.

Anarchism is the name for both a political philosophy and manner of organizing society, derived from the Greek αναρχία ("without archons" or "without rulers"). Thus "anarchism," in its most general meaning, is the belief that all forms of rulership are undesirable and should be abolished. For many anarchists, this includes not only the state but also the institution of capitalism. The word "anarchy", as most anarchists use it, does not imply chaos, nihilism, or anomie, but rather a harmonious anti-authoritarian society that is based on voluntary association of free individuals in autonomous communities, mutual aid, and self-governance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

The term "ruler" is perhaps a bit ambiguous, it might be taken to mean "no rules". But if you think about it, the president or prime-minister in a modern democracy is not usually thought of as a "ruler". It's is usually kings and despotes who "rule", while presidents and prime-ministers are rather the figureheads of "government" - they themselves don't even "govern", that's what congress or parliament are for.
But the essence of rulership is power - a lot of it, and most current systems of democracy do put a lot of power at the top of the hierarchy of government. Just look at Bush - most of what he does wrt power is illegal, but the system facilitates it nonetheless. That is what is meant by "ruler".

"No rulers" does not mean "no governance", and "self-governance" does not mean that everyone makes their own rules. Democracy as we know it is based on the principal of self-governance - it is simply the idea that contrary to prevailing thought during the Middle Ages, "the people" do in fact know what is good for them, as opposed to an elitist minority knowing what's good for everyone (who then proceed to rig the system in their own favor, rob the rest of us blind, etc, etc...).

It is the concept of self-governance that lifted civilization out of the Dark Ages and brought about the Renaissance - it is this very idea that is the basis for the constitution of the United States of America - it is what makes the US constitution unique, since all other governments find their roots in the time before the Renaissance, in the Middle Ages.

The essence of anarchism is the solution to the fundamental problem that every other system has: concentration of power. The problem with concentration of power is that the more concentrated it gets, the easier it becomes to abuse it and that harder it is to stop it when it is abused. It is a fundamental problem with human nature and there is only one way to avoid it.

Anarchism does not solve the problem by doing away with government, laws and regulations altogether. It solves it by doing away with concentration of power. Anarchism literally means "not a single ruler" - not a king, not an emperor, not a dictator - and not a president.

If you take the current US system and remove the President, the Secretaries and the Parties - but keep Congress (and possibly the Senate) and the various branches of government - then you have anarchism. Government would then consist of a Council of elected representatives; several hundred elected individuals all with equal power, and no person or small group of individuals who have more power than the council. The power to govern is only in the collective power of a majority of the council when voting on a bill.
The same would apply to state level, and there would be more power at state level.
Anarchism is a less hierarchical, less authoritarian version of what we know as "democracy" today. And it's arguably more democratic than when we have now.

[sendero]

6. My attention span..

... was saved when I read They want to change the world and think they can build a better society through government and regulation even though it's been a proven failure at virtually every attempt.

That statement is utter bullshit and typical of Libertarian spin. That's why I can't stand Libertarians, they are every bit as full of it as Republicans are.

My favorite comparison is to Communists. Communists think the government can control everything and that never works, and Libertarians think the government can't control anything, an equally untenable position.

Everyone runs from the center, because that is where you have to actually think instead of trying to allow some overarching principle to do all your thinking for you.

[sendero]

7. dupe..

... deleted

[alvarezadams]

4. This fits---

--- with the parochial rw American form of libertarianism.

Yet outside the US the term "libertarian" is more often associated with the left. And from my experience, the immense majority of progressives fall into the lower-left quadrant of the political compass (www.politicalcompass.org).

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Welcome to DU!

I find your post especially interesting in that I do sweats with folks who are libertarians. They help out at the Choctaw Nation in OK, as they are affiliated with that group.

[RangerSmith]

8. Bravo

In many ways, I think there is something there in that mix that can win selectively... eventually, but not as you noted so well, the way it is now.

The theocracy bunch will IMHO fracture the Republican party. There are also some Dems who are aware that Gore and Kerry had at least as many votes against them as they did for them and they aren't going to be very happy if the party throws out anything that resembles those disasters again in '08.

The lengths the parties are willing to go to to try to keep all the faithful inline I think is also fracturing their selective bases. I do think the duopoly has a chance of falling apart if the choices in 08 are more of the same... choices boiling down again to voting for the lesser of two evils.