The Limited Relevance of Ideology

Chris Hayes' brief Nation piece on the Ron Paul campaign is excellent at illustrating the limited relevance of ideology in politics:

Self-identified libertarians may be a tiny portion of the electorate, but small numbers have never stood in the way of bitter intramural sectarian disputes. When Lindsey says that Paul "comes from a different part of the libertarian universe than I do," he's referring to the libertarian version of the Trotsky/Lenin split, which opened up in the early 1980s and continues to echo through libertarianism today.

Assuming he meant the Trotsky/Stalin split, the interesting thing about the way Hayes spells this out is that it ends up being an almost entirely sociological divide between populist types in the provinces and elites in the nation's capital. There are, of course, disagreements about politics and policy within the libertarian camp (like all camps) but it's hard to pinpoint a systematic disagreement about ideas here, it's more a question of different kinds of people.

Comments

Uh-oh. You mean it's class conflict?

Posted by Dan Kervick | December 10, 2007 7:38 AM

Actually it was a Trotsky/Lenin split as far as the commies were concerned in the 80s. Lenin was a stand in for Stalin of course but by the 1980s he was an un-person.

The Trotsky/Stalin split was rather different, that was a question of which shit was going to take over. All the evidence points to Trotsky being just as much of a monster as Stalin if he had got the opportunity.

Posted by PHB | December 10, 2007 8:03 AM

There are, of course, disagreements about politics and policy within the libertarian camp (like all camps) but it's hard to pinpoint a systematic disagreement about ideas here, it's more a question of different kinds of people.

Absolutely! It takes a left-liberal like MY to give the best two sentence summary of this divide among libertarians that I've seen yet.

Posted by Joe Strummer | December 10, 2007 8:11 AM

I liked the closing line best:

"There are personal animosities that will probably never heal," says Raimondo. "But, you know, maybe Ron Paul can unite us all."

United libertarians! Joining together for the common good of establishing that there is no such thing as the common good!

Posted by brooksfoe | December 10, 2007 8:46 AM

There are, of course, disagreements about politics and policy within the libertarian camp (like all camps) but it's hard to pinpoint a systematic disagreement about ideas here, it's more a question of different kinds of people.

That would be because libertarian politics and policies aren't actually based on ideas beyond "government regulation of or interference in the economy is always bad, except in some philosophically indeterminable and incoherent set of cases where I clearly allow for government regulation and interference even though I'll never admit that's what I'm actually doing" and "I'm too ashamed too call myself a Republican, but deep down I really like those wacky guys." Libertarianism is the prototypical empty vessel of the political landscape, partaking only the qualities of each individual proclamant of libertarianism.

The simple fact in the end is that genuine civil libertarians are nearly always, well, Democrats, and never actually adopt the mantle of small or large L "libertarian" sans "civil" modifier; economic libertarians are religiously styled nutcases who utterly reject empiricism in all economic matters, brothers to hardcore communists in the complete shallowness of their unserious economic thinking, and therefore have nothing coherent to say about economics or the ideology of libertarianism.

There is no ideology to libertarianism, just a label and a faith-based antiempirical hatred of government regulation.

Posted by R Johnston | December 10, 2007 8:48 AM

Of course it's nothing like the Trotsky/Stalin split, because the Trotsky/Stalin split was a clear instance of power struggle within the elite. And here the CATO is a propaganda organ for the establishment and Ron Paul is some kind of an anti-establishment populist. His current campaign has little or nothing to do with libertarianism, it's a garden variety anti-war platform.

Posted by abb1 | December 10, 2007 9:02 AM

brooksfoe, that's one of the few times I've actually laughed out loud while reading a blog comment.

Posted by Reality Man | December 10, 2007 9:15 AM

abb1: its nothing like the Trotsky/Stalin split which was about liquidating an opponent in the power elite but it is very much like the 1980s division between the pro-Kremlin 'Tankies' of the Communist party of Great Britain and the anti-Kremlin trotskyites who formed Socialist Worker, Militant etc.

Chris Hayses knows what he is talking about, his critic did not.

Posted by PHB | December 10, 2007 10:17 AM

Matt, you're wrong: Lindsay supported the Iraq war, and the split, while having some cultural overtones, is all about foreign policy. Some Cato bigwigs supported the invasion, although, institutionally, the Institute opposed it: Lindsay, however, went out of his way to make his support for George's war very clear in a piece in Reason magazine's online edition. See here:

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/12/07/cato-institute-vp-sneers-at-ron-paul-hes-not-our-kind-of-person/

Posted by Justin Raimondo | December 10, 2007 10:19 AM

Justin is right. Libertariansism split over the Iraq war, and that split was revealing of older disagreements going back to Lew Rockwell and earlier. I'm shallow and prejudiced, but I basically think of it as guys who wanted to make libertarianism just another inside-the-beltway corporate lobby vs. more genuine radicals.

Posted by mq | December 10, 2007 10:35 AM

The important libertarian split was between Lenin and Rosa Luxemberg. Ot Zimmerwald. Or Marx vs Bakunin.

I am usually too tired and bored to remind people that there are "small government" ideologies of the left, and it doesn't matter that much anyway, because left libertarians (who may not care about labels) are out there actually building distributed energy and sustainable communities.

Posted by bob mcmanus | December 10, 2007 10:36 AM

Perhaps he means the Lenin/Martov split at the 1905 Russian CP meeting, which led to the famous Bolshevik/Menshevik terminology.

Posted by Charlie | December 10, 2007 10:47 AM

The polical differences between radical anti-statism and accomodationist "low-tax liberalism" seem pretty salient to me. Certainly they're more pressing and "systematic" than the differences that lay between our host and, say, Jonah Goldberg.

Anyway--Mcmanus, keep up the good fight.

Posted by Mark | December 10, 2007 11:12 AM

"Anyway--Mcmanus, keep up the good fight."

Okay then, distributed energy is a good example. Whereas both right & left libertarianism might agree on personal windmills or solar roofs, right libertarianism will fail on the question of the grid. Private ownership of the grid can be vulnerable to big gov't or big corporate takeover, and the local grid should be part of the local commons.

Posted by bob mcmanus | December 10, 2007 11:33 AM

R Johnston and other libertarian bashers, you really need to read more and get out more. You may disagree with libertarian thought, and god bless. But if you think it lacks any intellectual content, you need more exposure. Look at "public choice" theory in econ, Nozick in philosophy, or reason.com for some good journalism.

Liberals see government as a useful if sometimes blunt tool to fix problems. If only we could get the right people wielding the tool, we could make the world better. So they think.

In the libertarian view, using government to try to solve problems is more like grabbing a poisonous snake by the tail to hurl it at your enemy in battle. Yes, you might sometimes succeed. But the snake has its own will and its own laws of motion, and it may just as likely recoil and bite the person trying to wield it.

A lot of libertarian thought is about the laws of motion of government--for example, that policy will be set by the few who will reap concentrated benefits, and not by the many who will face diffuse costs.

Again, it may not be your cup of tea. But if you dismiss it with a wave of the hand, you're missing some worthwhile stuff.

Posted by jbd | December 10, 2007 11:49 AM

Justin Raimondo: the split, while having some cultural overtones, is all about foreign policy

That seems right, but it also seemed to me that your comment in the article displayed a certain hostility to gay rights and abortion rights, which is also reflected in Ron Paul's views. Do you think that's part of the split too, or are views on these issues distributed more evenly among the Cato and Mises camps?

Posted by Matt Weiner | December 10, 2007 12:01 PM

It seems to me one obvious split is over where libertarian ideals have their boundary. Many say at the border whereas others think it should extend beyond. Thus some Libertarians see Ron Paul as vastly too protectionist and favor much stronger free trade. Others see the only way to Libertarian ideals as a strong border.

Posted by Clark Goble | December 10, 2007 12:14 PM

Sorry, guys. Even us Libertarians don't have ALL the answers.

Posted by Jeff | December 10, 2007 1:01 PM

Since libertarian is based on nothing more than rank intuition, let a hundred flowers bloom. There's no reason in principle why there shouldn't be a different libertarianism for every libertarian.

My intuition tells me its all a big cover story to dress up greed and make it look like a principle.

Posted by Junius Brutus | December 10, 2007 3:03 PM

The "Trotsky/Lenin" split is probably a typo, and an embarrassing one given the publication it is found in. Back in the day, Trotsky referred to the editors and writers at The Nation as a "reptile breed" because of their support of the Moscow Trials.

Still, there was something of a Trotsky/Lenin split. Trotsky voted with Martov at the 1903 Congress, and so was technically a Menshevik. In "Our Political Tasks", Trotsky wrote some hurtful stuff about how "What is to be done?" showed Lenin wanted to be a dictator. Between 1903 and 1917, he generally tried to stand between the competing Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, as a sort of Commie David Broder. As a result, Lenin felt about him during those years the same way Duncan Black feels about Joe Lieberman.

After April 1917, Trotsky joined up with the Bolsheviks, and was universally considered to be the number two guy up to Lenin's death. In his Testament, Lenin predicted the dispute between Stalin and Trotsky, and criticized both of them. In classic understatement, he said of Stalin, he "has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution."

Posted by Pithlord | December 10, 2007 3:46 PM

Bob McManus misremembers the Zimmerwald Conference. Luxemburg wasn't there, since she was an unwilling guest of the Kaiser at the time. Lenin represented the Left.

Luxemburg exchanged polemics with Lenin back before WWI over nationalism and party structure, but they were allies at the time of Zimmerwald.

Luxemburg had private criticisms of the Bolsheviks for dismissing the Constituent Assembly and for giving land to peasants, but she was publicly supportive of Lenin and Trotsky, and she died as part of their International. The view that Luxemburg was a democrat or small-l libertarian is a myth.

Posted by Pithlord | December 10, 2007 3:52 PM

Someone once said "libertarianism often feels like an optional philosophy for citizens in societies or cultures that are already developed or prosperous or stable."

I think that's true. "Libertarian" Raimondo sez "Lindsey and his fellow creative geniuses are too good for the poor untutored hoi polloi who don’t go to the gym four days a week and are neither feminists nor gay."

Hey, I'm a gay, feminist who goes to the gym five days a week! I like the hoi polloi, why can't I be a libertarian?

Or the Mexican trying to get across the border. Can't he/she be a libertarian? A Mexican libertarian?

Posted by Peter K. | December 10, 2007 4:17 PM

Libertarianism is an easy philosophy for those who don't like to think hard or commit themselves to, er, actual morality.

The recipe is simple.

1) Intuit something cool about an action (not an outcome -- that's icky). For example, my intuition tells me that it is right to shoot libertarians.

2) Assert a universal natural right to the cool action you intuited: Everyone has the right to shoot libertarians.

3) Pretend to further "explain" your assertion by underlining it with the stipulation that the right to shoot libertarians is a "side constraint" We can't demand a society where people shoot libertarians, but by god everyone has a duty to let others shoot libertarians if that is their preference. Why anything else would be a paternalistic failure to respect human autonomy!

4) Voila! Bake it half way, and you're done.

Posted by Junius Brutus | December 10, 2007 4:38 PM

Hardguy, liar, know-it-all:

"The view that Luxemburg was a democrat or small-l libertarian is a myth."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg

"During imprisonment, she was twice relocated, first to Poznań (Posen), then to Wrocław (Breslau). There, she wrote as "Junius"; friends smuggled out and illegally published the articles. Among them was "The Russian Revolution", criticising the Bolsheviks, presciently warning of their dictatorship. Nonetheless, she continued calling for a "dictatorship of the proletariat", albeit not the one-party Bolshevik model. In that context, she wrote "Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" ("Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently"). Another article, published in June 1916, was "Die Krise der Sozialdemokratie" ("The Crisis of Social Democracy")."

Posted by Peter K. | December 10, 2007 4:40 PM

Can't he/she be a libertarian? A Mexican libertarian?

The Mexican trying to get across the border can't be a libertarian because he's hungry and powerless. The Libertarian will offer him a job for $3/hour, he'll call it 'contract', he'll feel satisfied, righteous. The Mexican will take the job, but he knows it's not a contract, it's extortion.

See, to be a happy CATO-style libertarian you've gotta be the one with power, the one who exploits unworthy people like the Mexican. Being a libertarian makes you feel good about it.

Posted by abb1 | December 10, 2007 4:46 PM

Yo Raimondo!

I'm not actually a gay feminist who works out 4 days a week, but if I were, could I be a libertarian? Please answer.

Posted by Peter K. | December 10, 2007 5:43 PM

Matt Weiner: Not hostility to gay rights and abortion, but real irritation at the way in which "cultural" libertarians make these issues central to the libertarian vision. To subordinate the idea that the state should not engage in mass murder to, say, the "right" of two gay guys to walk down the street holding hands, seems to me morally tone-deaf. The question of war and peace is, for libertarians, THE question: Ron Paul understands this, which is why his candidacy is annoying to Lindsay et al.

To Peter K: The answer to your question is: Yes. The problem is that you can also be anti-gay, anti-feminist, and anti-gym-going and ALSO be a libertarian.

Posted by Justin Raimondo | December 10, 2007 6:32 PM

"The view that Luxemburg was a democrat or small-l libertarian is a myth."

Pithlord: too pithy for his own good. See, at the very least, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg

And like so many of blogland's would-be intellectual historians Pithlord falls prey to anachronism.

Pithlord: How could Rosa have been a libertarian? Communism evolved into Stalinism!

Rosa Luxemburg: I died in 1919.

Pithlord: So?

Posted by Mark | December 10, 2007 8:11 PM

As a "right anarchist" for the last thirty-seven years or so (before becoming a radical Transhumanist and exceeding even that small niche of radicalism), the "lib bashers" here are truly small time. They're ignorant of just about everything significant about libertarianism, adhering to reductio ad absurdum arguments and misrepresentation to discredit it.

Meanwhile, look at the US and see nothing but the results of discredited mainstream political thought from both left and right.

Personally, I agree with Bob Black, who once said, "Libertarians are just Republicans who smoke dope." That would be the "Beltway libs", except they're probably against dope, too, these days.

As for "Mexican libertarians", do keep in mind that there are right and left anarchists in many countries. And the right anarchist movement - if sometimes not the left anarchist movement - is most definitely included in the (small-l) libertarian movement.

As for being "committed to morality", nobody was more committed to morality than Ayn Rand - unfortunately, since "morality" is mostly a content-free concept easily appropriated by anyone for their own purposes. Anyone saying libs aren't "committed to morality" is fundamentally clueless. They confuse "morality" with their own notions of "social justice" - which is a joke on the face of it, since all such "social justice" entails coercion of some sort on the part of the state to enforce these notions of how society should work.

The one thing these people can't stand is everybody being required to stand on their own responsibility. The concept is impossible for primates to comprehend, I now see.

As for Peter K - sorry, neocons can't be libs by definition.

The fundamental split between libs is the min-archist vs the anarchist. And never the twain shall meet, despite certain bozos who joined the Libertarian Party back in the day and used to represent "the area of Wyoming" at the Party Conventions.

The fundamental problem is that the distinguishing characteristic of the state is a coercive monopoly on the use of coercion itself - and Austrian economic theory proves that coercive monopolies 1) don't last, 2) are ineffective, and 3) are necessarily coercive. I established back in the early 70's that all states are by definition and necessity imperialistic as well, only being restrained of such in practice by competing imperial states with greater power. This completely explains the current world situation.

Not to mention that it's extremely easy to identify the basic characteristic of all states in practice as being an extortion/protection racket. Even the Wachovski Brothers took two seconds to figure that one out in "V for Vendetta".

I later established via Transhumanist analysis on the Extropian mailing list that morality and ethics are fundamentally bogus concepts as well, with some assistance from Robert Anton Wilson and others who established the non-existence of "natural rights" as another content-free concept.

Thus, I transitioned from being a (small-l) "libertarian" to being a radical Transhumanist.

Politically, I remain an anarchist essentially in name only, since as a Transhumanist I recognize that not even anarchism is a workable political philosophy given that NO form of social organization is workable as long as you're dealing with chimpanzees.

Thus, the only question of interest remaining to me is: how do we transcend the chimpanzees without any unnecessary or pointless violence?

Unfortunately, given that I'm still mostly human, I find myself frequently not caring whether there will be unnecessary or pointless violence.

Other than questions of effectiveness and efficiency - and basic questions of security - and these are valid and important questions, I concede - why should I care whether the chimps get their asses kicked in the process?

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 10, 2007 8:55 PM

Some libtard said, "the "lib bashers" here are truly small time. They're ignorant of just about everything significant about libertarianism, adhering to reductio ad absurdum arguments and misrepresentation to discredit it."

Not sure who you're talking about, but in my posts here it was not so much a reductio ad absurdum as what you might call, to coin a phrase, a reductio ad nihil.

Libertarians are great at grinding out all the implications of their assumptions. But they forget the all important Animal House Theorem: "When you assume you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me". Well, you anyway.

Libertarians are like the guy who plans out his vacation itinerary down to the last detail but arrives at the airport and finds he forgot to buy plane tickets. Doh!

(FYI: reductio arguments are pretty powerful -- especially when you're talking about an a priori deductive theory like libertarianism. Your complaint is a bit like someone defending his girlfriends's looks by saying she's not ugly, she's just fat and got her face stuck in a meat grinder)

The same libtard said, "They confuse "morality" with their own notions of "social justice" - which is a joke on the face of it, since all such "social justice" entails coercion of some sort on the part of the state to enforce these notions of how society should work.

This is really quite humorous and illustrates quite nicely the characteristic blindness of the libtard. It amounts to saying, "Hah! You are wrong because, on the assumption that I am correct, I am correct!" That's some gotcha there, pardner.

I also find it funny that a guy who proclaims his innocence of the charge of being immoral would go on to say, "Unfortunately...I find myself frequently not caring whether there will be unnecessary or pointless violence."

Unfortunate indeed. That's what I'm talking about, son.

Posted by Junius Brutus | December 10, 2007 10:18 PM

Here's another gem from the aptly named libtard, Dick Hack: Austrian economic theories prove that coercive monopolies are necessarily coercive.

L. O. L.

That's some fancy reasoning there, son. But it doesn't take any fancy economic theory to prove that, you fucking moron. Did you know that basic logic also proves that all mortals eventually die and that upright bipeds are necessarily upright?

Posted by Junius Brutus | December 10, 2007 10:37 PM

See, this is the level of "reasoning" you get from lib-bashers.

And yes, moron, I'm talking about you when I say "small time."

Moron thinks that I'm defending myself against the charge of being immoral.

What the hell did I say up there? That morality is bullshit. Can this nitwit read or is he too busy responding to posts to bother?

What I SAID was that LIBS claim to be moral - more so than any conservatives or even liberals that I know of. I'm not a lib except in the broadest sense by being a political anarchist of the Austrian economic persuasion (which, as I also said, is almost irrelevant.)

My phraseology as to coercive monopolies was not as precise as it should be. The point is that the only real monopolies are necessarily coercive. So-called "natural" monopolies do not work. If you don't have a state or some other coercive force supporting the monopoly, it gets clobbered fairly quickly. Therefore the notion that the state - "democratic" or otherwise - is some sort of "non-coercive" institution is nonsense. It IS coercion - or more precisely, as we anarchists like to say, "The state IS organized crime!"

Meanwhile, this clown goes right on doing what he claims libs do: "It amounts to saying, 'Hah! You are wrong because, on the assumption that I am correct, I am correct!'"

A classic case of projection.

I wonder if he knows Robert Powell, or Chris Ford? Maybe he IS Chris Ford under yet another handle?

Who cares? You seen one moron, you've seen them all.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 11, 2007 3:32 AM

You're still a dick, I mean Dick, and a hack, Hack.

The fact that you think morality is bullshit tells us everything we need to know about you, Dick. And that's not actually what you said above, Dick. You pointed to libtard hero Ayn Rand as being committed to morality with all the appearance of presenting a counterexample, and you also qualified your statement with the word "mostly," but I will accept your own most recent blanket statement. You think all morality is bullshit -- making you a quintessential libtard sociopath.

I notice that you made no attempt to address my most devastating charge against your kind of libtard theory: that it is nothing more than bald assertion, nonsense on stilts. If there is no morality, Dick, then there are no rights, including rights to property. By the same token there is no such thing as coercion in any moral sense either.

FYI: being an anarchist doesn't mean that you avoid coercion. It just means that you freeze into place whatever coercive powers dominate in a pre-governmental situation.

What a Dick!

Posted by Junius Brutus | December 11, 2007 9:26 AM

Also, I stand corrected on my statement that your argument amounts to saying, "You are wrong because, on the assumption that I am correct, I am correct!'"

I was writing quickly and didn't express myself with sufficient precision. What I meant to say is that your argument is even worse and amounts to saying, "You are wrong because on the assumption that my assumption is correct, I am correct."

Libertarians - still retarded, still immoral.

Posted by Junius Brutus | December 11, 2007 9:33 AM

I realize that my previous 2 posts were too subtle for a retard like Dick Hack, so as a preemptive measure let me spell one thing out for you, son.

If you don't believe in any kind of morality, then you can't get all up in arms about "coercion". Your every statement depends on the prior assumption that there is something wrong with coercion. Your "argument" against morality, such as it is, is based on the assumption that it involves coercion and that there is something wrong with that.

But don't thank me, Dick. I'm always happy to spell things out for my retarded libertarian friends. You might say it's my duty.

Posted by Junius Brutus | December 11, 2007 9:47 AM

Some Cato bigwigs supported the invasion, although, institutionally, the Institute opposed it.

I love the slight of hand here. All three of Cato's foreign policy scholars opposed the war at the time, and Cato's foreign policy shop has continued to oppose the Iraq war ever since. On the other hand, one Cato scholar not in the foreign policy department publicly supported the war. Therefore, Raimondo sensibly reasons, the friction between Paul and beltway libertarians must be about the war--an issue on which almost every Cato scholar agreed with Paul--rather than say, gay marriage, immigration, or free trade--issues where a significant number of Cato scholars disagree with Paul.

Posted by Tim Lee | December 11, 2007 5:15 PM