For a New Libertarian - Jeff Deist @ Mises U 2017

[Brian4Liberty]

For a New Libertarian
Jeff Deist - 07/28/2017

...
What I'd like to talk about today is libertarians, more than libertarianism itself. And I’ll ask you to consider whether libertarians have lost their way.

The title “For a New Libertarian” is I hope an obvious play on the title of Murray Rothbard’s famous book For a New Liberty. It’s an underrated book, less well-known perhaps than The Ethics of Liberty. Lots of authors have the ego to call their books “a manifesto,” but few books actually live up to such an bold subtitle. This book does.

I love Murray’s line: “libertarianism, then, is a philosophy seeking a policy.” I wonder if he’d change that line today, if he could see where the “public policy” branch of libertarianism has become. Or maybe he should have written “libertarianism is a philosophy seeking better libertarians.”

I also chose the title to make the important point that we don’t need a “new libertarianism” or anything so grand. Thanks to the great thinkers who came before us, and still among us, we don’t have to do the hard work — which is good news, because not many of us are smart enough to come up with new theory! We can all very happily serve as second-hand dealers in ideas.

Sometimes libertarians do fall into a trap of needing something new, what we might call a modernity trap. It has become trendy to imagine that technology creates a new paradigm, a new “third way” that will make government obsolete without the need for an intellectual shift. The digital age is so flat, so democratic, and so decentralized that it will prove impossible for inherently hierarchical states to control us. The free flow of information will make inevitable the free flow of goods and services, while unmasking tyrannies that can no longer keep the truth from their citizens.

While I certainly hope this is true, I’m not so sure. It seems to me that states are shifting from national to supra-national, that globalism in effect means more centralized control by an emerging cartel of allied states like the EU and NGOs — not to mention calls for a convergence of central banks under a global organization like the IMF. We should be suspicious of the determinist notion that there is an inevitable arc to human history.

And while we all benefit from the marvels of technological progress, and we especially welcome technology that makes it harder for the state to govern us — for example bitcoin or Uber or encryption — we should remember that advances in technology also make it easier for governments to spy on, control, and even kill the people under their control.

So I suspect that while humans continue to exist, their stubborn tendency to form governments will remain a problem. The choice between organizing human affairs by economic means or political means was not undone by the printing press, or the industrial revolution, or electricity, or any number of enormous technological advancements. So we can’t assume liberation via the digital revolution.

No, Rothbard’s conception of liberty has held up quite well over nearly half a century. Humans are sovereign over their mind and body, meaning you own yourself. From this flows the necessary corollary of property rights, meaning individuals have a valid claim to the byproducts of their minds and bodies--axiomatically we know that humans have to act to survive. And from self-ownership and property rights we arrive at a theory of when force is permissible, namely in self-defense. And these ideas of self-ownership, property rights, and non-aggression ought to apply to everyone, even when a group bands together and call themselves “government.” Since governments by definition use force (or threaten force) in many ways that are not definable as self-defense, they are invalid under the Rothbardian paradigm.

It’s a beautiful, simple, and logical theory. And of course at least a degree of all three elements — individual liberty, property rights, and some conception of law protecting both — are necessary and present for real human progress. I know, I know, slaves built the pyramids, although Egyptologists tell us otherwise, and Soviet scientists weren’t free and they still built nuclear bombs — probably to avoid a trip to Siberia. But the larger point we know is true: liberty and human progress are inextricably linked.

So we have this fantastic, airtight Rothbardian theory of liberty. But it’s not enough. And Murray was adamant about this. He was the first to stress the importance of people and activism, not just ideas and education. But what kind of people, and what kind of activism? That was the question in Murray’s time, and it’s still the question today.

I. Recognize that Liberty Comports with Human Nature.

If there is one overriding point we should remember it is that liberty is natural and organic and comports with human action. It doesn’t require a “new man.” Yet libertarians have a bad tendency to fall into utopianism, into portraying liberty as something new age and evolved. In this sense they can sound a lot like progressives: liberty will work when human finally shed their stubborn old ideas about family and tribe, become purely rational freethinkers (always the opposite), reject the mythology of religion and faith, and give up their outdated ethnic or nationalist or cultural alliances for the new hyper-individualist creed. We need people to drop their old-fashioned sexual hangups and bourgeois values, except for materialism. Because above all the archetypical libertarian is presented as an almost soulless economic actor, someone who will drop everything and move to Singapore tomorrow to make $20,000 more in the gig economy.

Well it turns out that’s not how humans really are. They’re fragile and fallible and hierarchical and irrational and suspicious and herd-like least as much as they are a bunch of heroic Hank Reardens. In fact Rothbard talks about just this in his section on libertarian strategy at the end of For a New Liberty. He reminds us that it’s progressive utopians who think man has no nature and is “infinitely malleable.” They think man can be perfected, made into the ideal servant of the New Order.

But libertarians believe in free will, he points out. People mold themselves. And therefore it’s folly to expect some drastic change to fit our preferred structure. We hope people will act morally, we believe liberty provides the right incentives for moral improvement. But we don’t rely on this to make liberty work. In fact only libertarianism accepts humans as they are, right here right now. It is in this sense that Rothbard sees liberty as “eminently realistic,” the “only theory that is really consistent with the nature of man and the world.”

So let’s understand — and sell — liberty as a deeply pragmatic approach to organizing society, one that solves problems and conflicts by muddling through with the best available private, voluntary solutions. Let’s reject the grand visions and utopias for what will always be a messy and imperfect world. Better, not perfect, ought to be our motto.

II. Embrace Rather than Reject the Institutions of Civil Society

My second point relates to civil society itself. Because while libertarians enthusiastically embrace markets, they have for decades made the disastrous mistake of appearing hostile to family, to religion, to tradition, to culture, and to civic or social institution — in other words, hostile to civil society itself.

Which is bizarre if we think about it. Civil society provides the very mechanisms we need to organize society without the state. And in keeping with Rothbard’s point about liberty and human nature, civil society organizes itself organically, without force. Human beings want to be part of something larger than themselves. Why do libertarians fail to grasp this?

It scarcely needs to be said that family has always been the first line of defense against the state, and the most important source of primary loyalty — or divided loyalty, from the perspective of politicians. Our connection with ancestors, and our concern for progeny, forms a story in which the state is not the main character. Family forms our earliest and hence most formative environment — and at least as an ideal, family provides both material and emotional support. Happy families actually exist.

But government wants us atomized, lonely, broke, vulnerable, dependent, and disconnected. So of course it attempts to break down families by taking kids away from them as early as possible, indoctrinating them in state schools, using welfare as a wedge, using the tax code as a wedge, discouraging marriage and large families, in fact discouraging any kind of intimacy that is not subject to public scrutiny, encouraging divorce, etc. etc.

This may all sound like right-wing talking points, but it doesn’t make it untrue.

We want strong families, we want elite families, we want wealthy families that are not afraid of government. We want large extended families that people can turn to in time of trouble. And one practical side note: assuming roughly 10% of the US population is reasonably liberty-minded, we’re talking about 32M people. Imagine if each of them had 3 kids, we’d create an army of 100M people!

Religion forms another important line of defense against the state. In fact the whole history of man cannot be understood without understanding the role of religion. Even today healthy percentages of people in the West believe in God, regardless of their actual religious observance. And believing in a deity by itself challenges the state’s omniscience and status. Again, religion stands as a potential rival for the individual’s allegiance — And it has a pesky tendency to resurface no matter how much authoritarian governments try to suppress it.

Beyond family and faith, there are an infinite number of non-state institutions that offer communities for almost any conceivable interests. All of them, from business to social to civic organizations serve the civilizing function of organizing people without state power.

Let me also make an important point: it is reasonable to believe that a more libertarian society would be less libertine and more culturally conservative — for the simple reason that as the state shrinks in importance and power, the long-suppressed institutions of civil society grow in importance and power. And in a more libertarian society, it’s harder to impose the costs of one’s lifestyle choices on others. If you rely on the family or church or charity to help you, they may well impose some conditions on that help.

I assure you I’m neither interested in nor judgmental toward your personal beliefs or lifestyle preferences — and neither was Murray Rothbard. And of course libertarianism per se has nothing to say about how one lives. But it remains true that civil society should be celebrated by libertarians at every turn. To believe otherwise is to ignore what humans actually want and actually do, which is create communities. There is a word for people who believe in nothing: not government, family, God, society, morality, or civilization. And that word is nihilist, not libertarian.

III. Political Universalism is Not the Goal

My final point is about the stubborn tendency of libertarians to advocate some of sort of universal political arrangement.To the extent there is political end for libertarians, it is allowing individuals to live as they see fit. The political goal is self-determination, by seeking to reduce the size, scope, and power of the state. But the idea of universal libertarian principles became mixed up with the idea of universal libertarian politics. Live and let live was replaced with the notion of universal libertarian doctrine, often coupled with a cultural element.

And because of this, libertarians often fall into the trap of sounding like conservatives and progressives who imagine themselves qualified to dictate political arrangements everywhere on earth. But what’s libertarian about telling other countries what to do? Shouldn’t our political goal should be radical self-determination, not universal values?

It’s bad enough to hear neoconservatives on TV talking about what’s best for Syria or Iraq or North Korea or Russia from their comfortable western perches. But it’s even worse hearing this from libertarians at Reason. This is both a political and tactical mistake.

The universalist doctrine goes something like this: democratic voting is the sacred political right in a post-monarchical world. It results in social democracies with robust safety nets, regulated capitalism, legal protections for women and minorities, and widely agreed-upon norms regarding social issues. Western conceptions of civil rights now apply everywhere, and with technology we can bridge the old boundaries of nation states.

The flavors are slightly different: left-liberals emphasize a supra-national administrative state working with (“one world government”), while conservatives focus on globally managed trade schemes and “exporting democracy.” But both sides spent the 20th century insisting their preferred political arrangements are applicable everywhere, and inevitable everywhere.

This narrative does libertarians no favors. Universalism provides the philosophical underpinnings for globalism, but globalism is not liberty: instead it threatens to create whole new levels of government. And universalism is not natural law; in fact it is often directly at odds with human nature and (true) human diversity.

What’s more, it turns out that very few things are actually universally agreed upon. Not governance, not rights, not the role of religion, not immigration, not capitalism, not neoliberalism. We have a hard enough time winning respect for individual liberty and property rights in the West, where we have a strong common law tradition.

Yet libertarians are busy promoting universalism even as the world moves in the other direction. Trump and Brexit rocked the globalist narrative. Nationalism is on the rise throughout Europe, forcing the EU to defend itself, secession and breakaway movements exist in Scotland, in Catalonia, in Belgium, in Andalusia, even in California. Federalism and states’ rights are suddenly popular with progressives in the US. The world desperately wants to turn its back on Washington and Brussels and the UN and the IMF and all of the globalist institutions. Average people smell a rat.

We should seize on this.

Mecca is not Paris, an Irishman is not an Aboriginal, a Buddhist is not a Rastafarian, a soccer mom is not a Russian. Is it our goal to convince them all to become thorough Rothbardians? Should libertarians care about gay marriage in Saudi Arabia, or insist on the same border arrangements for Brownsville, Texas and Monaco? Should we agitate for Texas-style open carry laws in France, to prevent the next Bataclan?

Or would our time be better spent making the case for political decentralization, secession, and subsidiarity? In other words, should we let Malta be Maltese?

Ludwig von Mises rejected universalism, and saw self-determination as the highest political end. Murray Rothbard made the case for organic nations breaking away from political nations in one of the last things he wrote — an article titled Nations by Consent.

In other words, self-determination is the ultimate political goal. It is the path to iberty, however imperfect. A world of seven billion self-governing individuals is the ideal, but short of that we should prefer the Liechtensteins to the Germanys and the Luxembourgs to the Englands. We should prefer states’ rights to federalization in the US, and cheer for the breakup of EU. We should support breakaway movements in places like Catalonia and Scotland and California. We should favor local control over faraway legislatures and administrative bodies, and thus reject multilateral trade deals. We should, in sum, prefer small to large when it comes to government.

Political decentralization, secession, subsidiarity, and nullification are all mechanisms that move us closer to our political goal of self-determination. that value. Insisting on universal political arrangements is a huge tactical mistake for libertarians. It is precisely because we don’t know what’s best for 7.5 billion people in the world that we are libertarians.
What Would You Fight For?

In closing, I’ll mention an email exchange I had recently with the blogger Bionic Mosquito. If you’re not reading Bionic Mosquito, you should be!

I asked him the same hypothetical question I have for you: what would you fight for? The answer to this question tells us a lot about what libertarians ought to care about.

By this I mean what would you physically fight for, where doing so could mean serious injury or death. Or arrest and imprisonment, or the loss of your home, your money, and your possessions.

I’m sure all of us would fight for our physical persons if we were attacked, or for our families if they were attacked. We might fight for close friends too. And perhaps even our neighbors. In fact we might like to think we would physically defend a total stranger in some circumstances, for example an old woman being attacked and robbed.

And we probably would fight for our towns and communities if they were physically invaded by an outside force, even though we don’t personally know all of the people in our towns and communities.

We might fight for property too, maybe not as fiercely. We certainly would protect our homes, but that’s because of the people inside. How about cars? Would you physically tangle with an armed robber who was driving away in your car? Or would you let him go, and not risk death or injury, just to save your car? How about your wallet? How about someone stealing 40% of your income, as many governments do? Would you take up arms to prevent this?

We probably wouldn’t fight for bitcoin, or net neutrality, or a capital gains tax hike, by the way.

How about an abstraction, like fighting for “your country” or freedom or your religion? This is where thing get more tenuous. Many people have and will fight for such abstractions. But if you ask soldiers they’ll tell you that in the heat of battle they’re really fighting for their mates, to protect the men in their units--and to fulfill a personal sense of duty.

In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people. Libertarians ignore this at the risk of irrelevance.

Thank you very much.
...
More: https://mises.org/blog/new-libertarian

[Origanalist]

My second point relates to civil society itself. Because while libertarians enthusiastically embrace markets, they have for decades made the disastrous mistake of appearing hostile to family, to religion, to tradition, to culture, and to civic or social institution — in other words, hostile to civil society itself.

Spot_on.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Brian4Liberty again.

[r3volution 3.0]

So let’s understand — and sell — liberty as a deeply pragmatic approach to organizing society, one that solves problems and conflicts by muddling through with the best available private, voluntary solutions. Let’s reject the grand visions and utopias for what will always be a messy and imperfect world. Better, not perfect, ought to be our motto.

So, now, after a century or two, you finally understand?

...astounding.

But, you don't actually understand do you?

You actually have abandoned libertarianism altogether and now have another agenda, no?

My second point relates to civil society itself. Because while libertarians enthusiastically embrace markets, they have for decades made the disastrous mistake of appearing hostile to family, to religion, to tradition, to culture, and to civic or social institution — in other words, hostile to civil society itself.

Which is bizarre if we think about it. Civil society provides the very mechanisms we need to organize society without the state. And in keeping with Rothbard’s point about liberty and human nature, civil society organizes itself organically, without force. Human beings want to be part of something larger than themselves. Why do libertarians fail to grasp this?

It scarcely needs to be said that family has always been the first line of defense against the state, and the most important source of primary loyalty — or divided loyalty, from the perspective of politicians. Our connection with ancestors, and our concern for progeny, forms a story in which the state is not the main character. Family forms our earliest and hence most formative environment — and at least as an ideal, family provides both material and emotional support. Happy families actually exist.

But government wants us atomized, lonely, broke, vulnerable, dependent, and disconnected. So of course it attempts to break down families by taking kids away from them as early as possible, indoctrinating them in state schools, using welfare as a wedge, using the tax code as a wedge, discouraging marriage and large families, in fact discouraging any kind of intimacy that is not subject to public scrutiny, encouraging divorce, etc. etc.

This may all sound like right-wing talking points, but it doesn’t make it untrue.

Well, Sir, it depends...

Who is paying you?

My final point is about the stubborn tendency of libertarians to advocate some of sort of universal political arrangement.To the extent there is political end for libertarians, it is allowing individuals to live as they see fit. The political goal is self-determination, by seeking to reduce the size, scope, and power of the state. But the idea of universal libertarian principles became mixed up with the idea of universal libertarian politics. Live and let live was replaced with the notion of universal libertarian doctrine, often coupled with a cultural element.

No, "universalism" is another word for coherence.

Libertarianism doesn't only prohibit aggression when the "tribe" or whatever dislikes it; it prohibits it in all cases whatsoever.

What’s more, it turns out that very few things are actually universally agreed upon. Not governance, not rights, not the role of religion, not immigration, not capitalism, not neoliberalism. We have a hard enough time winning respect for individual liberty and property rights in the West, where we have a strong common law tradition.

Yet libertarians are busy promoting universalism even as the world moves in the other direction. Trump and Brexit rocked the globalist narrative. Nationalism is on the rise throughout Europe, forcing the EU to defend itself, secession and breakaway movements exist in Scotland, in Catalonia, in Belgium, in Andalusia, even in California. Federalism and states’ rights are suddenly popular with progressives in the US. The world desperately wants to turn its back on Washington and Brussels and the UN and the IMF and all of the globalist institutions. Average people smell a rat.

We should seize on this.

The thing speaking is not capable of "seizing" upon this for at least two reasons:

1) It isn't a libertarian

2) It is an idiot

ALTOGETHER, this is real, real $#@!ing sad. Ludwig von Mises would want nothing to do with this chimpery.

[thoughtomator]

If there is one overriding point we should remember it is that liberty is natural and organic and comports with human action.

That statement could not be more false.

Barbarity is what is natural and organic. That why it crops up everywhere when nothing else is strong enough to keep it out.

Liberty is actually the endpoint of the evolution of theory of government during the Enlightenment and it absolutely depends on the existence of institutions to defend it from barbarity.

Any "libertarian" who doesn't understand this is no libertarian. They're just someone who wants to be self-sovereign which is a rump, retarded and lobotomized version of what liberty actually is.

Guess that explains why this movement ultimately died. Its own key people didn't understand the concepts they were trying to teach others, and when the movement ultimately relied on making sense this was a death blow.

[A Son of Liberty]

I don't have much time to post these days, and to be perfectly frank I'm a bit tired of it all anymore... but I did catch this posting @ LRC this morning and thought it was interesting from a philosophical perspective but much more so from a practical one, and thought I'd drop by to share, if someone hasn't already.

I haven't read much by Mr. Deist, but I thought this was a rather interesting piece. Enjoy. Or not.

Also, I hope you all are well!

Snip; full text @ the link:

Sometimes libertarians do fall into a trap of needing something new, what we might call a modernity trap. It has become trendy to imagine that technology creates a new paradigm, a new “third way” that will make government obsolete without the need for an intellectual shift. The digital age is so flat, so democratic, and so decentralized that it will prove impossible for inherently hierarchical states to control us. The free flow of information will make inevitable the free flow of goods and services, while unmasking tyrannies that can no longer keep the truth from their citizens.

While I certainly hope this is true, I’m not so sure. It seems to me that states are shifting from national to supra-national, that globalism in effect means more centralized control by an emerging cartel of allied states like the EU and NGOs — not to mention calls for a convergence of central banks under a global organization like the IMF. We should be suspicious of the determinist notion that there is an inevitable arc to human history.

And while we all benefit from the marvels of technological progress, and we especially welcome technology that makes it harder for the state to govern us — for example bitcoin or Uber or encryption — we should remember that advances in technology also make it easier for governments to spy on, control, and even kill the people under their control.

So I suspect that while humans continue to exist, their stubborn tendency to form governments will remain a problem. The choice between organizing human affairs by economic means or political means was not undone by the printing press, or the industrial revolution, or electricity, or any number of enormous technological advancements. So we can’t assume liberation via the digital revolution.

No, Rothbard’s conception of liberty has held up quite well over nearly half a century. Humans are sovereign over their mind and body, meaning you own yourself. From this flows the necessary corollary of property rights, meaning individuals have a valid claim to the byproducts of their minds and bodies–axiomatically we know that humans have to act to survive. And from self-ownership and property rights we arrive at a theory of when force is permissible, namely in self-defense. And these ideas of self-ownership, property rights, and non-aggression ought to apply to everyone, even when a group bands together and call themselves “government.” Since governments by definition use force (or threaten force) in many ways that are not definable as self-defense, they are invalid under the Rothbardian paradigm.

It’s a beautiful, simple, and logical theory. And of course at least a degree of all three elements — individual liberty, property rights, and some conception of law protecting both — are necessary and present for real human progress. I know, I know, slaves built the pyramids, although Egyptologists tell us otherwise, and Soviet scientists weren’t free and they still built nuclear bombs — probably to avoid a trip to Siberia. But the larger point we know is true: liberty and human progress are inextricably linked.

So we have this fantastic, airtight Rothbardian theory of liberty. But it’s not enough. And Murray was adamant about this. He was the first to stress the importance of people and activism, not just ideas and education. But what kind of people, and what kind of activism? That was the question in Murray’s time, and it’s still the question today.

I. Recognize that Liberty Comports with Human Nature.

If there is one overriding point we should remember it is that liberty is natural and organic and comports with human action. It doesn’t require a “new man.” Yet libertarians have a bad tendency to fall into utopianism, into portraying liberty as something new age and evolved. In this sense they can sound a lot like progressives: liberty will work when human finally shed their stubborn old ideas about family and tribe, become purely rational freethinkers (always the opposite), reject the mythology of religion and faith, and give up their outdated ethnic or nationalist or cultural alliances for the new hyper-individualist creed. We need people to drop their old-fashioned sexual hangups and bourgeois values, except for materialism. Because above all the archetypical libertarian is presented as an almost soulless economic actor, someone who will drop everything and move to Singapore tomorrow to make $20,000 more in the gig economy.

Well it turns out that’s not how humans really are. They’re fragile and fallible and hierarchical and irrational and suspicious and herd-like least as much as they are a bunch of heroic Hank Reardens. In fact Rothbard talks about just this in his section on libertarian strategy at the end of For a New Liberty. He reminds us that it’s progressive utopians who think man has no nature and is “infinitely malleable.” They think man can be perfected, made into the ideal servant of the New Order.

But libertarians believe in free will, he points out. People mold themselves. And therefore it’s folly to expect some drastic change to fit our preferred structure. We hope people will act morally, we believe liberty provides the right incentives for moral improvement. But we don’t rely on this to make liberty work. In fact only libertarianism accepts humans as they are, right here right now. It is in this sense that Rothbard sees liberty as “eminently realistic,” the “only theory that is really consistent with the nature of man and the world.”

So let’s understand — and sell — liberty as a deeply pragmatic approach to organizing society, one that solves problems and conflicts by muddling through with the best available private, voluntary solutions. Let’s reject the grand visions and utopias for what will always be a messy and imperfect world. Better, not perfect, ought to be our motto.

II. Embrace Rather than Reject the Institutions of Civil Society

My second point relates to civil society itself. Because while libertarians enthusiastically embrace markets, they have for decades made the disastrous mistake of appearing hostile to family, to religion, to tradition, to culture, and to civic or social institution — in other words, hostile to civil society itself.

Which is bizarre if we think about it. Civil society provides the very mechanisms we need to organize society without the state. And in keeping with Rothbard’s point about liberty and human nature, civil society organizes itself organically, without force. Human beings want to be part of something larger than themselves. Why do libertarians fail to grasp this?

It scarcely needs to be said that family has always been the first line of defense against the state, and the most important source of primary loyalty — or divided loyalty, from the perspective of politicians. Our connection with ancestors, and our concern for progeny, forms a story in which the state is not the main character. Family forms our earliest and hence most formative environment — and at least as an ideal, family provides both material and emotional support. Happy families actually exist.

But government wants us atomized, lonely, broke, vulnerable, dependent, and disconnected. So of course it attempts to break down families by taking kids away from them as early as possible, indoctrinating them in state schools, using welfare as a wedge, using the tax code as a wedge, discouraging marriage and large families, in fact discouraging any kind of intimacy that is not subject to public scrutiny, encouraging divorce, etc. etc.

This may all sound like right-wing talking points, but it doesn’t make it untrue.

We want strong families, we want elite families, we want wealthy families that are not afraid of government. We want large extended families that people can turn to in time of trouble. And one practical side note: assuming roughly 10% of the US population is reasonably liberty-minded, we’re talking about 32M people. Imagine if each of them had 3 kids, we’d create an army of 100M people!

Religion forms another important line of defense against the state. In fact the whole history of man cannot be understood without understanding the role of religion. Even today healthy percentages of people in the West believe in God, regardless of their actual religious observance. And believing in a deity by itself challenges the state’s omniscience and status. Again, religion stands as a potential rival for the individual’s allegiance — And it has a pesky tendency to resurface no matter how much authoritarian governments try to suppress it.

Beyond family and faith, there are an infinite number of non-state institutions that offer communities for almost any conceivable interests. All of them, from business to social to civic organizations serve the civilizing function of organizing people without state power.

Let me also make an important point: it is reasonable to believe that a more libertarian society would be less libertine and more culturally conservative — for the simple reason that as the state shrinks in importance and power, the long-suppressed institutions of civil society grow in importance and power. And in a more libertarian society, it’s harder to impose the costs of one’s lifestyle choices on others. If you rely on the family or church or charity to help you, they may well impose some conditions on that help.

I assure you I’m neither interested in nor judgmental toward your personal beliefs or lifestyle preferences — and neither was Murray Rothbard. And of course libertarianism per se has nothing to say about how one lives. But it remains true that civil society should be celebrated by libertarians at every turn. To believe otherwise is to ignore what humans actually want and actually do, which is create communities. There is a word for people who believe in nothing: not government, family, God, society, morality, or civilization. And that word is nihilist, not libertarian.

III. Political Universalism is Not the Goal

My final point is about the stubborn tendency of libertarians to advocate some of sort of universal political arrangement.To the extent there is political end for libertarians, it is allowing individuals to live as they see fit. The political goal is self-determination, by seeking to reduce the size, scope, and power of the state. But the idea of universal libertarian principles became mixed up with the idea of universal libertarian politics. Live and let live was replaced with the notion of universal libertarian doctrine, often coupled with a cultural element.

And because of this, libertarians often fall into the trap of sounding like conservatives and progressives who imagine themselves qualified to dictate political arrangements everywhere on earth. But what’s libertarian about telling other countries what to do? Shouldn’t our political goal should be radical self-determination, not universal values?

It’s bad enough to hear neoconservatives on TV talking about what’s best for Syria or Iraq or North Korea or Russia from their comfortable western perches. But it’s even worse hearing this from libertarians at Reason. This is both a political and tactical mistake.

The universalist doctrine goes something like this: democratic voting is the sacred political right in a post-monarchical world. It results in social democracies with robust safety nets, regulated capitalism, legal protections for women and minorities, and widely agreed-upon norms regarding social issues. Western conceptions of civil rights now apply everywhere, and with technology we can bridge the old boundaries of nation states.

The flavors are slightly different: left-liberals emphasize a supra-national administrative state working with (“one world government”), while conservatives focus on globally managed trade schemes and “exporting democracy.” But both sides spent the 20th century insisting their preferred political arrangements are applicable everywhere, and inevitable everywhere.

This narrative does libertarians no favors. Universalism provides the philosophical underpinnings for globalism, but globalism is not liberty: instead it threatens to create whole new levels of government. And universalism is not natural law; in fact it is often directly at odds with human nature and (true) human diversity.

What’s more, it turns out that very few things are actually universally agreed upon. Not governance, not rights, not the role of religion, not immigration, not capitalism, not neoliberalism. We have a hard enough time winning respect for individual liberty and property rights in the West, where we have a strong common law tradition.

Yet libertarians are busy promoting universalism even as the world moves in the other direction. Trump and Brexit rocked the globalist narrative. Nationalism is on the rise throughout Europe, forcing the EU to defend itself, secession and breakaway movements exist in Scotland, in Catalonia, in Belgium, in Andalusia, even in California. Federalism and states’ rights are suddenly popular with progressives in the US. The world desperately wants to turn its back on Washington and Brussels and the UN and the IMF and all of the globalist institutions. Average people smell a rat.

We should seize on this.

Mecca is not Paris, an Irishman is not an Aboriginal, a Buddhist is not a Rastafarian, a soccer mom is not a Russian. Is it our goal to convince them all to become thorough Rothbardians? Should libertarians care about gay marriage in Saudi Arabia, or insist on the same border arrangements for Brownsville, Texas and Monaco? Should we agitate for Texas-style open carry laws in France, to prevent the next Bataclan?

Or would our time be better spent making the case for political decentralization, secession, and subsidiarity? In other words, should we let Malta be Maltese?

Ludwig von Mises rejected universalism, and saw self-determination as the highest political end. Murray Rothbard made the case for organic nations breaking away from political nations in one of the last things he wrote — an article titled Nations by Consent.

In other words, self-determination is the ultimate political goal. It is the path to iberty, however imperfect. A world of seven billion self-governing individuals is the ideal, but short of that we should prefer the Liechtensteins to the Germanys and the Luxembourgs to the Englands. We should prefer states’ rights to federalization in the US, and cheer for the breakup of EU. We should support breakaway movements in places like Catalonia and Scotland and California. We should favor local control over faraway legislatures and administrative bodies, and thus reject multilateral trade deals. We should, in sum, prefer small to large when it comes to government.

Political decentralization, secession, subsidiarity, and nullification are all mechanisms that move us closer to our political goal of self-determination. Insisting on universal political arrangements is a huge tactical mistake for libertarians. It is precisely because we don’t know what’s best for 7.5 billion people in the world that we are libertarians.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/08/...-flipping-out/

[r3volution 3.0]

The Ludwig von Mises Institute™ now has nothing to do with Ludwig von Mises, the greatest economist and liberal of the last century.

They were anarchists for thirty years: fine, excessive exuberance, sympathetic enough.

But now..?

Now they've joined the burgeoning nationalist movements in the US and Europe (yay Trump, yay Brexit...gee, socialism ain't so bad becuz PC...).

Shame to everyone who is currently associated with the now, perversely misnamed organization.

I hope the handful of useful intellectuals still over there depart for less Vichy-esque pastures.

[Brian4Liberty]

The Ludwig von Mises Institute™ now has nothing to do with Ludwig von Mises, the greatest economist and liberal of the last century.

They were anarchists for thirty years: fine, excessive exuberance, sympathetic enough.

But now..?

Now they've joined the burgeoning nationalist movements in the US and Europe (yay Trump, yay Brexit...gee, socialism ain't so bad becuz PC...).

Shame to everyone who is currently associated with the now, perversely misnamed organization.

I hope the handful of useful intellectuals still over there depart for less Vichy-esque pastures.

Perhaps you can enlighten us on which people at Mises are no longer worthy. Is Ron Paul no longer useful?

Here's a list of the staff. Quite a few people involved:
https://mises.org/faculty-staff

[r3volution 3.0]

Perhaps you can enlighten us on which people at Mises are no longer worthy. Is Ron Paul no longer useful?

Here's a list of the staff. Quite a few people involved:
https://mises.org/faculty-staff

Any and all that have been making nationalist/pro-Trump noises.

Off the top of my head, that would include at least Rockwell, Deist, and Woods.

The organization as a whole (along with LRC) is being led in that direction, though there are no doubt some associates who object.

[A Son of Liberty]

What? Woods? Get out... I don't believe it...

[Suzanimal]

The Ludwig von Mises Institute™ now has nothing to do with Ludwig von Mises, the greatest economist and liberal of the last century.

They were anarchists for thirty years: fine, excessive exuberance, sympathetic enough.

But now..?

Now they've joined the burgeoning nationalist movements in the US and Europe (yay Trump, yay Brexit...gee, socialism ain't so bad becuz PC...).

Shame to everyone who is currently associated with the now, perversely misnamed organization.

I hope the handful of useful intellectuals still over there depart for less Vichy-esque pastures.

What do you have against Brexit? And where are you getting the socialism ain't so bad from?

Any and all that have been making nationalist/pro-Trump noises.

Off the top of my head, that would include at least Rockwell, Deist, and Woods.

The organization as a whole (along with LRC) is being led in that direction, though there are no doubt some associates who object.

I'm not thrilled with some of the Trump love but the Mises Institute is a wealth of information on Austrian Economics and it sounds to me that you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[r3volution 3.0]

What do you have against Brexit?

It means more immigration and trade restrictions.

As elsewhere in Europe, anti-EU activism there has nothing to do with liberty.

And where are you getting the socialism ain't so bad from?

The "libertarians" apologizing for Trump are saying that we should overlook Trump's socialism because he's "fighting PC/globalism/unicorns."

I'm not thrilled with some of the Trump love but the Mises Institute is a wealth of information on Austrian Economics and it sounds to me that you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Their library (consisting of things written by non-Trump-slurpers) is great and I cite it often.

Their current activities? Not so much.

[Brian4Liberty]

Any and all that have been making nationalist/pro-Trump noises.

Off the top of my head, that would include at least Rockwell, Deist, and Woods.

The organization as a whole (along with LRC) is being led in that direction, though there are no doubt some associates who object.

It's a big organization, and that's only a few people. They have a long history and have made many contributions to the liberty movement. There is no reason to discard them for a single, perceived disagreement. I doubt any of them would describe themselves as Trump supporters. More like people who have talked about a deep state for a long time, and because of current politics, the deep state is being exposed.

Ron Paul was criticized as a "nationalist" and "isolationist". Just because he wants to focus on the US, does not make him some kind of evil person.

I'm not thrilled with some of the Trump love but the Mises Institute is a wealth of information on Austrian Economics and it sounds to me that you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Agree. No reason to dismiss the Mises Institute because of a fringe disagreement on a single issue.

[Suzanimal]

It means more immigration and trade restrictions.

As elsewhere in Europe, anti-EU activism there has nothing to do with liberty.

And staying in the EU does have something to do with liberty? Give me a break. They chose to secede and did it peacefully, good for them.

The "libertarians" apologizing for Trump are saying that we should overlook Trump's socialism because he's "fighting PC/globalism/unicorns."

I don't like that stuff either but I don't see too much of it on Mises. It seems like most of that stays at LRC.

Their library (consisting of things written by non-Trump-slurpers) is great and I cite it often.

Their current activities? Not so much.

Like MisesU? Or the FREE high school seminars I take my kids to every year? No benefit to that?

[Natural Citizen]

ALTOGETHER, this is real, real $#@!ing sad. Ludwig von Mises would want nothing to do with this chimpery.

eeeeyep. I agree.

Mises, not unlike libertarianism, is gradually but surely becoming nothing more than a word to be tossed around by the underinformed.

[r3volution 3.0]

And staying in the EU does have something to do with liberty? Give me a break.

Staying in the EU would mean fewer restrictions on trade and immigration, no?

They chose to secede and did it peacefully, good for them.

There's no such thing as a right to national self-determination.

The best outcome is the one which preserves the most liberty - that's not BREXIT.

Like MisesU? Or the FREE high school seminars I take my kids to every year? No benefit to that?

Sure, that too. I'm talking about their current politics, not their pure educational activities.

They should stick with the latter.

[r3volution 3.0]

I doubt any of them would describe themselves as Trump supporters.

Google "Libertarians For Trump."

...which reminds me, Block is another one.

Ron Paul was criticized as a "nationalist" and "isolationist". Just because he wants to focus on the US, does not make him some kind of evil person.

Ron Paul wasn't a socialistic, warmongering, conman.

Agree. No reason to dismiss the Mises Institute because of a fringe disagreement on a single issue.

Shilling for the sitting, highly anti-liberty President of the United States isn't a "fringe" matter.

[Brian4Liberty]

Google "Libertarians For Trump."

...which reminds me, Block is another one.

Ron Paul wasn't a socialistic, warmongering, conman.

Shilling for the sitting, highly anti-liberty President of the United States isn't a "fringe" matter.

Found this. Not a ringing endorsement, more like Trump was a lesser evil that didn't sound like a neocon.

Libertarians for Trump, Revisited
By Walter E. Block

I had this idea that we libertarians should support Donald Trump for the nomination of the Republican Party for president, not because he was a libertarian, nor, even, because his views were very congruent with our philosophy. My thought, though, was that out of all the Republican candidates, he was the most libertarian on foreign policy. He was the least likely to get us into World War III. And, thanks to the tutelage I had received over the years from the likes of Murray Rothbard, Ralph Raico and Bob Higgs, I knew that imperialism, foreign aggression, were more of a threat to liberty than were violations of economic or personal liberty rights.
...
More: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/03/...tarians-trump/

[r3volution 3.0]

Found this. Not a ringing endorsement, more like Trump was a lesser evil that didn't sound like a neocon.

...except that he wasn't and did.

Block's "not a ringing endorsement" sounds to me like "trying to shill for Trump without coming off as a sellout." Some of the same "libertarians" shilling for Trump were doing so in the fall of 2015, long before he clinched the nomination. Some were doing this while simultaneously $#@!ting on Rand. And I recall none of them jumping on the Obamawagon in 2008, despite the fact that he actually sounded much less neocon-ish than Trump. I don't see pragmatism here. I see people who've lambasted pragmatists for years (to the point of $#@!ting on Rand Paul when he actually had a chance of winning), suddenly join the Trump train for the simple fact that they like his attack on PC and his anti-immigrant views - the rest being rationalization, trying tp pretend those foolish/ignoble reasons aren't the real reasons.

Another fine example of this now comes to mind: Raimondo (arguably the worst of the lot)

[Natural Citizen]

I really am baffled by the disconnect associated with the Mises name. The politics verus the education material are two completely different paradigms. Granted, the old school guys are thinning out but I just don't understand this new socialistic breed of political beings associated with the Mises name.

Anyway. Off topic, perhaps. I'm merely reminded of the phnomenon.

[Brian4Liberty]

I really am baffled by the disconnect associated with the Mises name. The politics verus the education material are two completely different paradigms. Granted, the old school guys are thinning out but I just don't understand this new socialistic breed of political beings associated with the Mises name.

Anyway. Off topic, perhaps. I'm merely reminded of the phnomenon.

Any examples of "socialism" from Mises Institute?

[r3volution 3.0]

Any examples of "socialism" from Mises Institute?

Well, there's the OP, which is one great paean to nationalism contra libertarianism.

[Natural Citizen]

Any examples of "socialism" from Mises Institute?

Well. What's a little humorous is that the op itself is an excellent demonstration of that political mindset.

It's unfortunate.

I'm mixed about the Mises Institute these days.

If they stuck with the Mises economic platform, that's one thing.

But Rev's right when he says it's been about a 30 year transition toward the political entity that they've become. Their politics are fudged up.

[Suzanimal]

Any examples of "socialism" from Mises Institute?

Well, there's the OP, which is one great paean to nationalism contra libertarianism.

Which part is an example of socialism?

Well. What's a little humorous is that the op itself is an excellent demonstration of that political mindset.

It's unfortunate.

I'm mixed about the Mises Institute these days.

If they stuck with the Mises economic platform, that's one thing.

But Rev's right when he says it's been about a 30 year transition toward the political entity that they've become. Their politics are fudged up.

Since you also made the claim they are socialistic and progressive, I'd like an example. Pick which part of the op you have a problem with or pick something off the Mises Wire. I don't care. I'd just like an example.

[Origanalist]

Well, there's the OP, which is one great paean to nationalism contra libertarianism.

Well, no, it's not. And why are you equating socialism to nationalism in general?

How about an abstraction, like fighting for “your country” or freedom or your religion? This is where thing get more tenuous. Many people have and will fight for such abstractions. But if you ask soldiers they’ll tell you that in the heat of battle they’re really fighting for their mates, to protect the men in their units--and to fulfill a personal sense of duty.

In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people. Libertarians ignore this at the risk of irrelevance.

This is a "great paean to nationalism"? It was the only part that even mentioned anything related to it. I suspect there were other things in it that triggered your response. I also have no clue what Natural Citizen is going on about.

[Natural Citizen]

Well, no, it's not. And why are you equating socialism to nationalism in general?



This is a "great paean to nationalism"? It was the only part that even mentioned anything related to it. I suspect there were other things in it that triggered your response. I also have no clue what Natural Citizen is going on about.

War and Socialism come from Nationalism. And while Nationalism is ancient, the only thing that has changed is its form. From ancient Egypt to the Roman Empire to 17th century Mercantilism, the result has always been the same. A planned economy. And again, by way of war and socialism.

That's likely where Rev's coming from with it. It's certainly where I'm coming from with it. But we could go much deeper from a historica lperspective. I don't really feel like it, but we can, I suppose. And reading through the thoughts there in the op, it really is reflective of the Nationalist history and form of planned economies which leads us to to war and Socialism.

I think that the person in the op just hasn't thought that all the way through.


An example of the writer's shortcoming in understanding the process I've just kind of touched on would be this single line....

And we probably would fight for our towns and communities if they were physically invaded by an outside force, even though we don’t personally know all of the people in our towns and communities.

That really does echo the old saying about Proletarians of all countries unite.

But its form has changed. Now it's moving toward Proletarians of all countries, don't come to my country and take my property away from me.

[Origanalist]

War and Socialism come from Nationalism. And while Nationalism is ancient, the only thing that has changed is its form. From ancient Egypt to the RomanEmpire to 17th century Mercantilism, the result has always been the same. A planned economy. And again, by way of war and socialism.

That's likely where Rev's coming from with it. It' certainly where I'm coming from with it. And reading through the thoughts there in the op, it really is reflective of the Nationalist history and form which leads us to to war and Socialism.

I think that the person in the op just hasn't thought that all the way through.


An example of the writer's shortcoming in understanding the process I've just kind of touched on would be this single line....



That really does echo the old saying about Proletarians of all countries unite.

But its form has changed. Now it's moving toward Proletarians of all countries, don't come to my country and take my property away from me.

My second point relates to civil society itself. Because while libertarians enthusiastically embrace markets, they have for decades made the disastrous mistake of appearing hostile to family, to religion, to tradition, to culture, and to civic or social institution — in other words, hostile to civil society itself.

Is this what you are referring to? I happen to agree with this. I don't see how you get from this to a planned economy, socialism and war.

As far as rev goes the talk of decentralization is what triggered him in my opinion. He despises the idea of smaller, decentralized government.

[Natural Citizen]

Which part is an example of socialism?



Since you also made the claim they are socialistic and progressive, I'd like an example. Pick which part of the op you have a problem with or pick something off the Mises Wire. I don't care. I'd just like an example.

A lot of the new breed of ''Mises'' writers and politicos have no business even being associated with the name Mises. So a separation must be made in order to acknowledge that reality.

The person in the op, while he does get some fundamental things right, is one of those people. I can explain why the combined influence of war and socialism has historically existed as an international movement of the working class. And I can explain that war and Socialism have both historically served as the Nationalist's means of economic control. I touched on it in my previous post.

But I can't make you put two and two to gether, Suz. You're a hard head.

It's okay. I love you all the same.

You're doing the right thing by introducing your children to the Mises eductational material. That's something else entirely.

But this new breed of young politicos who are latching onto the Mises name have much to learn about history. It's the only way they'll realize the shortcomings in their political logic.

[Origanalist]

An example of the writer's shortcoming in understanding the process I've just kind of touched on would be this single line....

And we probably would fight for our towns and communities if they were physically invaded by an outside force, even though we don’t personally know all of the people in our towns and communities

That really does echo the old saying about Proletarians of all countries unite.

But its form has changed. Now it's moving toward Proletarians of all countries, don't come to my country and take my property away from me.

wut?

[Natural Citizen]

Is this what you are referring to? I happen to agree with this. I don't see how you get from this to a planned economy, socialism and war.

As far as rev goes the talk of decentralization is what triggered him in my opinion. He despises the idea of smaller, decentralized government.

The one thing that I've always disagreed with rev about is his trust in anarcho-monarchism. Perhaps I have my isms confused and I don't really understand what he's actually promoting. I dunno.

But that's really the only thing I disagree with him about. The guy knows his history. I can tell that he does because he equates things in his writings that one really wouldn't know that he's equating unless they, too, knew their history.

He equated Nationalism to Socialism. So if we look at history, we know that war and socialism have always been the mechanism of the Nationalist's economic control.

If I were a clever nationalist (or one who hasn't really studied geopolitical history), I'd promote precisely what the guy in the op promoted. I would promote the idea of collectively organizing to defend society (again, regardless of whether we even knew them) from an international invasion of people looking to take our property. Nationalism is based on a national economy and the idea that a nation can only grow economically at the expense of the rest of the world. That's why he brought up the bit about an invading nation. And his solution was historically no different than any other nation in history which have used war and socialism to support nationalism.

Anyway. It's early, O. I'll probably look at this later and retype it. I can't eventhink straight this early.

[Brian4Liberty]

Well, there's the OP, which is one great paean to nationalism contra libertarianism.

Well. What's a little humorous is that the op itself is an excellent demonstration of that political mindset.

It's unfortunate.

I'm mixed about the Mises Institute these days.

If they stuck with the Mises economic platform, that's one thing.

But Rev's right when he says it's been about a 30 year transition toward the political entity that they've become. Their politics are fudged up.

While I may not agree with everything in Deist's speech, I don't see it advocating "socialism" as defined by most people.

It's hard to even twist what he said into nationalism. He talks about human nature to form into groups, and that those groups can create a civil society without government.

And once again, equating nations with socialism is stretching definitions beyond the breaking point. Ron Paul explicitly believes in nations. It does not make him a "socialist", an "isolationist" or any other twisting of language in an attempt to disparage him.