Libertarians and Democracy

Tyler Cowen says he agrees that market operations will be flawed due to the irrationality of the participants, but "relative to social democrats, I tend to think that politicians are irrational actors trying to pander to irrational voters and that it can't be any other way. I am much less optimistic about democracy as an instrument for fine-tuning good policy or for that matter as a medium for enforcing progressive sentiments." This is similar to Bryan Caplan's argument for libertarianism in The Myth of the Rational Voter.

Libertarians have always been against democracy (the rapprochement with democracy being one of the key steps in the transition from classical to modern liberalism) but this new vintage of arguments is a curious inversion of the traditional line of attack. The main problem used to be the fear that voters were too rational and that the unlimited prerogatives of property had to be protected through a lack of democracy. Now the fear is that the dire consequences of democracy can best be preserved through the unlimited prerogatives of property.

Needless to say I think this is wrong along several dimensions. One point of dispute, though, is that to me the idea of state committed to neutral and effective administration of justice around laissez faire lines seems like an illusion. The alternative to reasonably effective democratic institutions and a viable left-wing political movement isn't free markets but the capture of the state by large economic interests as during the Gilded Age or, indeed, the Bush administration.

Comments

You're missing a quote in the link to Kevin Drum, which has completely truncated the post.

Posted by Shadow Wolf | January 21, 2008 6:27 PM

by and large, when someone tells me that he or she is a libertarian, i stop listening to what they have to say: there's enough fantasy in the world already.

Posted by howard | January 22, 2008 12:56 PM

I don't think that anybody is really that in favor of democracy, except when they're in the majority. Matthew's vision of "democracy" includes "a viable left-wing political movement." Libertarians would be more comfortable with democracy if it included "a viable libertarian political movement."

Posted by Michael B Sullivan | January 22, 2008 12:59 PM

Matt, Classical 19th century liberals were not libertarians. They were 19th century liberals.

Posted by John | January 22, 2008 1:13 PM

Is capture of centralized power by one party (e.g., the left) or another (e.g., large economic interests) really the only set of options that we have? Matthew apparently thinks so, but I and other libertarians disagree. It is possible to limit the reach of democracy and thereby establish that no one at shall dictate rules for all. Two fine examples are free speech and religion, where laissez-faire rules.

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 22, 2008 1:14 PM

and to follow-on matt tievsky's post: free speech and religion are also areas that require non-laissez-faire vigilance -- the election financing laws being a huge mistake that encourage excessive pandering and incumbent protection.

Posted by mike c | January 22, 2008 1:20 PM

Well, election financing is a weird case. In general free speech and religion are pretty damn easy cases. Economics is not.

This is one of the funny things about libertarians. They are convinced there is no difference here, but they are wrong for reasons that many have laid out over and over again. The libertarians just refuse to pay attention. Let me summarize it this way: there is no default arrangement that does not involve heavy state influence. There is also a big different between the rights involved in free speech and economics, but that, at least, just reflects a different value perspective.

I have to agree that this libertarian line or argument is pretty amusing. They really do refuse to acknowledge that they're lying between two competing interests. Instead, they take on just on liberals. It is my impression that this comes from a profound disregard on their part, Cowen included, for the fate of even the average American. Thus the libertarian focus is on the issues important to them, thus the conflict with liberals but not conservatives.

But the best part is that their claim- that a free market is easier to get politically than a good social democracy is invalidated by the evidence. Europe has functioning social democracies. But there are no good free market systems out there.

Posted by mpowell | January 22, 2008 1:50 PM

Libertarianism is possibly the simplest, most complete and most logically consistent political ideology ever conceived.
Still, like all ideologies it cannot possibly be used as a guide to governing because there comes a moment, the first moment actually, where reality requires some accommodation, some compromise of bedrock principals. Then comes the second compromise and on and on and on.

Then too, libertarians mostly seem to be rather self involved sorts of wankers.

Posted by rapier | January 22, 2008 1:58 PM

There are a lot of things I like about this blog, but its refusal to honor the embargo against hitjobs on libertarianism ranks way up there.

Libertarianism is a fantasy land wherein one must pretend to believe that very rich people won't buy the government and further enrich themselves, when given the chance. The entire "philosophy" is based on "But what if they didn't do that?"

Also, if one wishes to be a libertarian, it takes a great deal of willpower and discipline because one must refuse to reflect upon the fact that no country on earth is remotely libertarian, except for failed states.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 2:31 PM

Libertarianism is exactly the sort of political ideology a bunch of my (male) classmates would come up with: logically consistent, complete, and totally oblivious to how people actually interact with each other.

When libertarians can point to a time in history when a libertarian society actually existed, then I'll start thinking they've got some link with the actual world, rather than living in a Heinlein fantasy.

Posted by grumpy realist | January 22, 2008 2:34 PM

"Libertarianism is a fantasy land wherein one must pretend to believe that very rich people won't buy the government and further enrich themselves, when given the chance."

Uhh isn't that the myth that perpetuates pro-government, leftist, socialist, Keynesian economics? (whatever you want to call it)

Posted by independent | January 22, 2008 2:42 PM

No, it's the fact that perpetuates "leftist" (i.e., consensus) economics. Have you read any history?

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 2:46 PM

James M. Buchanan won the 1986 Nobel Prize in economics for this very type of work as published in the 60's; I don't think this argument is such a new tack for libertarians.

Posted by Wilson | January 22, 2008 2:54 PM

Let me add my voice to the chorus that says, "For the love of God, Matt, stop talking about Libertarians!"

They have zero influence on US politics and less than zero to contribute to any discussion of same. They have considerably greater than zero capacity to take over a comment thread, tho. Just leave them be.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | January 22, 2008 2:58 PM

I'm much more of a fan of democracy than is Bryan Caplan, but that said I don't think democracy can work as well as Ezra Klein hopes it will or thinks it can. Concerning your last paragraph, I agree that some set of interest groups will capture the state and that means we won't have laissez-faire or neutral laissez-faire in any case. I don't hold out very strong "ideal hopes," whether in a libertarian direction or another direction, we simply can hope (and fight) that things don't get too bad. I don't consider that a very glamorous political philosophy, but in my view it is where we are at.

Posted by Tyler Cowen | January 22, 2008 2:58 PM

mpowell:

"The libertarians just refuse to pay attention. Let me summarize it this way: there is no default arrangement that does not involve heavy state influence."

I'm not exactly sure how you define "heavy state influence," but it is certainly possible to have a state that concerns itself less with imposing taxes, subsidies, and regulations to make society more fair/efficient, instead using these tools merely to guarantee the norms of individual justice (i.e., preventing people from committing fraud, theft, and violence). Clearly, that's not your or Matthew's ideal government. But the libertarian argument is that any government mechanism you set up to engineer a better society will be diverted by your political opponents (who have a very different view of what a good society looks like), given that they're in power roughly half the time in a democracy. So you can maintain the values you hold today yet still believe that a powerful democratic government is not a good way to achieve them.

"There is also a big different between the rights involved in free speech and economics, but that, at least, just reflects a different value perspective."

I don't think there is any "big difference." The rights you are describing are property rights. E.g., you are free to post signs on your own front lawn, but we recognize that to forbid you from posting signs on your neighbor's front lawn is not a denial of your free speech. Why? Because we recognize that property rights define your right of free speech.

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 22, 2008 3:04 PM

hey grumpy! Let's not do anything new.. because if you can't show me it has worked before,... oh, the hell with it. Glad that you are able to put an original sentence together!

I'm attracted to the libertarian philosophy because it acts as a counter-weight to the nanny-state intrusion into our private lives -- whether it is who you sleep with, communicate with etc. Many of the social ills we've inherited and perpetuate have their origin in some well-intentioned, or less-well-intentioned, policy by those in power -- often with the stamp of democratic approval.

People interact based on their incentives and culture -- the mandate-society that we have created continues to create problems, via distorted incentives, greater than the ones the mandates purport to solve.

Posted by mike c | January 22, 2008 3:07 PM

Having just read Tyler Cowen's post, let me clarify something in my own post. I don't think a truly neutral, laissez-faire state is at all realistic, so don't think me deluded in that sense. I'm just interested in marginal improvements--taking small steps away from dueling interest group politics, where private interests duke it out for a piece of the public pie, saying instead "hands off this particular issue."

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 22, 2008 3:10 PM

lemuel pitkin:

I disagree strongly. A libertarian will never be elected to anything important, but they are granted an inexplicable aura of respectability that they do not deserve.

Their philosophy is preposterous, entirely unconnected from the real world, and has close to zero popular support. But the ersatz respectability they possess is paid for, then deployed by, traditional rightwingers to lend weight to their efforts against government actions that benefit the less well off, and toss the very same libertarian arguments aside when they press for government action that benefits them (like gigantic defense budgets, federal bailouts, unlimited mortgage deductions, tax breaks for SUVs, etc.).

As we all know, libertarians - very nearly all of them - are total intellectual whores. They accept bribes from billionaires to produce tendentious tracts against government "interference" in the economy with full knowledge that those arguments will be selectively deployed to the benefit of very rich people and the detriment of the rest of us, irrespective of whether the arguments are consistently made.

In short, libertarians lend credibility to ideas that would otherwise rightfully have none. That is why their arguments must be mercilessly mocked and disassembled.

Matt Tievsky: ...but it is certainly possible to have a state that concerns itself less with imposing taxes, subsidies, and regulations to make society more fair/efficient...

Matt, this is only true if you assume that no actual human beings are present in this fairyland of yours. Because we - you and I and the rest of us here - know how many actual human beings believe this nonsense and vote this way.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 3:15 PM

Many libertarians, myself included, consider themselves a species of liberal. Those of us who do share most of the basic values (peace, freedom, tolerance, political equality) held by liberals in general. It really pains me to see such incivility here towards libertarians (in marked contrast to the classiness of Matt Yglesias), which makes it impossible to work together or learn from each other.

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 22, 2008 3:29 PM

slippery pete - long on diatribe, short on substance.

The billionaire knock fails when it appears all the political parties have their own captive billionaires (soros, gates, bloomberg, etc.)

The other stuff you bring up confuses the Republican party politics with libertarian thought. Just to pick one from your list, there is no way that mortgage deductions survive in a libertarian world.

Posted by mike c | January 22, 2008 3:40 PM

We need to emphasize more the link between public choice theory and the irrationality of democracy and Unitary Executive theories. Some have based their arguments for giving executives a freer hand with fewer checks and balances and much less transparency on similar arguments about the unworkability of legislatures. It isn't just that they don't believe in democracy--it's more that they don't believe in the rationality of arguments and discussion--whether we are stockholders evaluating a CEO or voters judging a president, we should only look at the results, and not worry about how the sausage is made.

Like a Hayekian rational actor in a marketplace, the chief executive is more able to react to local information--and easier to hold accountable--than the "central planners" on a FISA court, congressional committee, or SEC regulator. What matters is not Sunshine Laws or Due Process or international treaties or regulation of accounting procedure, but ability of voters to choose an alternative should things turn south.

There is something ironic in libertarian theories leading a "democratic autocracy" like that. It's true that social democracy and fascism have common roots, but it's amusing to see that the issue of respect for democracy--or at least respect for the possibility of rational group decision making--really does put social democrats and classical liberals on one side and libertarians, authoritarians and traditionalists on the other.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 22, 2008 4:06 PM

The billionaire knock fails when it appears all the political parties have their own captive billionaires (soros, gates, bloomberg, etc.)

No, it doesn't. Don't hate the player, hate the game. I have respect for rich people. I think they deserve to be richer than I and median Americans are by several orders of magnitude. I wouldn't mind, whoever, shifting that down by something less than one order (or the rest of us up by something less than one order.) And, more to the point, whether or not I like what the billionaire says, I don't like the fact that they have such outsized political power relative to the rest of us. I cheer for the players who are trying to change the game, and condemn the ones who hold it in place.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 22, 2008 4:14 PM

Holy shit, according to Sneaky Pete, nearly all libertarians accept bribes from billionaires!

My fellow travellers have completely been holding out on me. Guys, give up the billionaire loot, seriously. Daddy wants a Porsche.

But, back in the real world, the claim is that we're the ones divorced from reality?

Posted by Michael B Sullivan | January 22, 2008 4:22 PM

Is it libertarian to argue that the state shouldn't interfere with our right to shoot libertarians? I mean, we're just expressing our rational choices.

Laissez-faire.

Posted by Don Williams | January 22, 2008 4:27 PM

The differences between Matt and his commentators in terms of paranoia, vitrol, and downright wingnuttery is astounding.

Why do some of you people read him? He's obviously far too sensible; that jackass actually reads people who disagree with him and doesn't immediately assume they are all liars or crooks! Matt is so gullible.

Posted by Wilson | January 22, 2008 4:50 PM

Michael -

What I meant, and probably worded poorly, is that all (or virtually all) of the major libertarian thinktanks (like Reason, Cato, etc.) are funded by extremely wealthy Republicans who give no evidence that they're libertarian. What they're doing is purchasing intellectual credibility as camouflage for policies that can't be defended on their own merits.

It is simply a fact that that's where the funding comes from. I didn't mean to imply that the joe sixpacks who actually buy this tripe don't believe it. I'm sure they do. They don't need bribes to believe nonsense and fairy tales.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 5:02 PM

Re Consumatopia "it's amusing to see that the issue of respect for democracy--or at least respect for the possibility of rational group decision making--really does put social democrats and classical liberals on one side and libertarians, authoritarians and traditionalists on the other. "
----------
You can't have "rational group decision making" without (a) a referee who will enforce Robert's Rule of Order and (b) a fair exchange of information.

However, libertarians think Freedom of the Press belongs to those billionaires rich enough to own their own TV networks or urban newspapers.

When your discourse is controlled by Rupert Murdoch you don't have "group decision making" -- you have a Corporate News Letter telling the sheep being laid off that every thing's for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Posted by Don Williams | January 22, 2008 5:05 PM

Mike C: You've done a remarkable job of taking away from my words everything but the point.

The billionaire knock fails when it appears all the political parties have their own captive billionaires (soros, gates, bloomberg, etc.)

I wasn't talking about the libertarian party. I was talking about the libertarian think takes, obviously. And I wasn't speaking about billionaires or rich people per se, I was talking about...well, libertarian think tanks, and why (functionally) they exist. I think a Venn diagram or two may help you here.

As to my confusion between libertarians and the GOP - that was, you know, the entire point of my posts. The GOP and people more or less aligned with the pro-business (versus pro-market) wing of the GOP are funding libertarian think tanks. These think tanks craft theories that are as pursuasive as they can be in terms of warning against government action, fear-mongering (Road to Serfdom yadda yadda yadda, slippery slope yadda yadda yadda). There are lots of good points to be made here, lots of truth, but the arguments are selectively deployed by libertarianism's sugar daddies against government programs that help the non-rich, and are wholly disregarded when it comes to government action that benefits the rich.

Disagree all you want, but I'm not sure I can be any more clear about what my charge is.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 5:09 PM

Pete: I knew what you meant, but hey, it was funny.

To take the point seriously for a moment, I don't think that looking at the source of funding for something is really all that convincing of an argument for anything.

I mean, if a union makes a donation to Clinton's presidential campaign, or puts forward a blog that argues in favor of unionization, it's obviously spending money in favor of its own political or economic interests. Does that mean we should decry Clinton as a -- what was your term? -- intellectual whore, or disregard anything in the blog as bought-and-paid-for? Sure, a grain of salt is in order, but the fact is, rich people, rich companies, and rich organizations sponsor a lot of political speech that ends up going in a lot of political directions. People only bitch about that funding when it plays into the narrative that they want to make.

If the people at Cato or Reason are making arguments that are utterly unfounded in reality, as you claim, you should be able to show that directly, not by inference. Bill Gates is spending a lot of money to fight malaria in Africa -- it doesn't directly follow that the fight against malaria is some kind of secret means of enriching Bill Gates. Some other billionaire may be funding Cato -- it doesn't directly follow that Cato's publicans are some kind of not-so-secret means of enriching billionaires.

Posted by Michael B Sullivan | January 22, 2008 5:21 PM

People only bitch about that funding when it plays into the narrative that they want to make.

MBS, This isn't quite right. It's possible to agree with the end without agreeing with the process. And, for liberals, process matters.

That's the whole point of the Rawlsian veil of ignorance--would I approve of politicians being driven by donations if I didn't know who was doing the donating or the accepting. That's the test a liberal uses in deciding if they approve of a process. Overall, without knowing what the results of the system are, I would like it to be changed so that the donations of rich people were a smaller factor, and mutual dialog between citizens of divergent interests and viewpoints were a larger factor. The fact that I might be sympathetic towards some of those donations and think tanks represents, at worst, a pair of concerns to be balanced, not at all a contradiction.

Overall, though, I think Cato/Reason are more honest then, say, AEI and Heritage. Ironically, I think if dialog were more determined by the worth of ideas rather than affinity with the views of rich people, Cato/Reason would grow comparatively stronger over AEI/Heritage.

Then again, I'd decry Clinton as lots of things.

Posted by Consumatopia | January 22, 2008 5:37 PM

Michael -

Ah, but think that all the way through. We assume if Bill Gates fights malaria in Africa that he's doing it because he dislikes having malaria in Africa.

But if people who are not libertarians provide virtually all the funding for libertarian organizations, it's fair to ask why it is they'd fund think tanks they don't actually agree with. Right?

Here's who funded the Reason Institute in 2005:

- Pete Coors, conservative Republican (not a libertarian), 7%
- Roe Foundation, Thomas A. Roe, conservative Republican, Heritage Foundation trustee, 14%
- Carthage Institute, chaired by Richard M. Scaife, conservative Republican, 33%
- Claude R. Lambe Foundation, run by the Koch brothers, two of the 50 wealthiest people in the US and major GOP donors, 21%

So that's 75% of Reason's 2005 funding. I don't have the time to go on down the list but you get the idea. These guys aren't libertarians.

The point - which I guess you don't agree with - is that libertarian organizations happily take money from GOP johns to put out intellectual arguments that are not consistently deployed, but are selectively used to generate opposition to government programs that benefit the non-rich.

They have every right to prostitute themselves in this way, but it is what it is. They are not grassroots organizations, they are astroturf shops set up by the GOP to advance GOP political objectives. So the pertinence is not exactly that they take money from billionaires, but that they know their words will be twisted to non-libertarian ends, and they take the money anyway.

This isn't Slippery Pete's grand insight, this is pretty well documented in a number of mainstream periodicals and books. A lot of people are familiar with the fact that libertarian organizations take their money and orders from GOP-aligned donors.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 5:39 PM

Re "A lot of people are familiar with the fact that libertarian organizations take their money and orders from GOP-aligned donors "
--------------
Which may explain why libertarians seem remarkably silent when the GOP abuses the powers of government in malign ways.

Have you seen libertarians marching in the streets over the fact that the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world?? FAR higher than even totalitarian regimes?

Posted by Don Williams | January 22, 2008 5:52 PM

Which may explain why libertarians seem remarkably silent when the GOP abuses the powers of government in malign ways.

Oh?

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6330

I don't think it would be worth my time sifting through the Cato and Reason websites (as well as the numerous libertarian bloggers) to link the massive volume of criticism towards the Bush Administration's policies both at home and abroad.

Of course, if you want to suggest that the Cato Institute is in bed with the GOP because they take money from conservatives, it shouldn't be difficult to unearth a substantial body of evidence, no?

You can disagree with Cato's public policy positions, but to do so on the basis that you think they are sacrificing their own principles is a stretch.

Have you seen libertarians marching in the streets over the fact that the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world?? FAR higher than even totalitarian regimes?

If I believe some of the people here, we are so small and insignificant that even if we did, I doubt you'd notice.

Do you think we actually approve of some of the reasons people are incarcerated?

Posted by East Coast Libertarian | January 22, 2008 6:09 PM

In all due fairness, Slippery Pete, your criticism of "libertarians" really doesn't apply to the most prominent libertarian in the current news cycle - Ron Paul. Nor to the Mises Institute, both of which are completely willing to excoriate those among the rich whose wealth comes from government largesse (particularly from the largesse of Ben Bernanke and the Federal Counterfeiters).

Posted by Glaivester | January 22, 2008 6:26 PM

I don't know where to start on Matt's stupidity in this post.

Apparently Matt believes in some sort of "ultimate democracy" in which the voters choose everything - and somehow "libertarians" (WHICH libertarians? Matt doesn't say - because he's too ignorant to know...) are opposed to this fantasy society. Then some other morons attribute libertarianism as a "fantasy."

Most of the morons here don't even know what a "libertarian" is. They can't cite any libertarian names outside of Ron Paul - who's a Republican with some libertarian positions. They have no clue that there is a considerable variety in lib positions ranging from left anarchist to left minarchist to right minarchist to right anarchist.

Matt is a clueless newbie to this, because he hasn't been out of college but four years. He has no more clue about "libertarianism" than he has about technology. He knows nothing about Austrian economics (and probably damn little about ANY economic theory) and nothing about libertarian theory. All he knows he gets from second hand sources - critical sources, at that - in the blogosphere.

That doesn't stop him from babbling any utter theoretical nonsense that enters his mind on the topic, based on nothing more than his emotional antipathy to the notion of people having responsibility for their own lives without some "nanny state" hanging over them.

Here's the bottom line: You've tried every variant of the state that there is. They've all produced what you see around you. Ergo, the state is a total failure in producing a sustainable, free human society.

Now, as it turns out, since you're chimps, there is in fact NO way to produce such a society. It simply isn't possible in human nature.

Therefore, libertarianism (whichever version you prefer, assuming you know enough about the variants to choose) isn't going to work either. This is why I gave up on it years ago. This is why I'm a radical Transhumanist.

But that doesn't excuse the fact that all the efforts you put into trying to craft a state that will produce such a society are a total waste of time and a direct contradiction to what you claim to want to produce.

So don't give me this "holier-than-thou" crap about libertarianism. The results of YOUR belief system are all around us - and it isn't pretty.

When things actually do get better, THEN you can start crowing. Until then, STFU.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 22, 2008 7:26 PM

Another Cato policy paper which puts the lie to the claim that the Institute is just a front for plutocrats:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8230

"The Corporate Welfare State: How the Federal Government Subsidizes U.S. Businesses"--5/14/07

People who complain that Cato, Reason, etc. are just GOP tools obviously haven't looked very thoroughly at what these organizations actually publish.

I should also note that this tangent (the motives of libertarian activist organizations) is pretty irrelevant to the point Matthew made and which some of us have tried to refute.

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 22, 2008 7:58 PM

Oh yeah, another thing that comes to mind is Cato and Reason Magazine's very vocal opposition to taxpayer-funded stadiums.

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 22, 2008 8:00 PM

"Libertarians have always been against democracy ..."

Say what? I've been a libertarian for over 40 years and didn't know that. Thank's for letting me know. Or did you mean "Libertarians are against statism and socialism, whether created through purported democratic procedures or dictatorship" ?

Posted by Craig J. Bolton | January 22, 2008 8:16 PM

The main problem used to be the fear that voters were too rational and that the unlimited prerogatives of property had to be protected through a lack of democracy.

This is only rational behavior if you assume that appropriating other people's money is a rational approach for society.

Surely, it is in a sense rational for someone who wants material goods to vote to take other people's money in the same sense that it is rational to look for a restaurant when you are hungry. This is not rational behavior in the sense that it shows great reasoning about how to make society function.

The concern is that voters are too stupid to understand the long-term ramifications of policies and vote based on what sounds good in a 30-second sound bite.

Posted by Glaivester | January 22, 2008 8:18 PM

Well, that's Matt for you - thirty second sound bites and thirty second blog posts (if he thinks about them that long.)

How the hell this guy gets a rep as a "pundit" and a blog at the Atlantic is beyond me. What DOES he know? Anything?

According to the Wikipedia article on Matt, he studied philosophy in college.

Wonderful. That pretty well proves it - he knows zip about anything. And he's smug about it to boot.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 22, 2008 9:20 PM

Glaivester believes that the entire civilized world - the entire civilized world - is irrational because it taxes people. Not just irrational, but illegitimate. And he - Glaivester - knows what those fools do not. He is smarter than them all. Despite how happy the Danes claim to be, despite the peace and prosperity, despite the fact that people like me vote for people who will increase my taxes, he knows better. He knows the entire world as we know it is wrong, and he is right.

Right there - that's your infantile libertarian mindset, all wrapped up in a pretty little bow. This nobody is going to tell the planet that government and the taxes that pay for it is wrong, and that we are all wrong, and that if we moved to Haiti, we'd be happier.

And why don't we?

Wait for it: the conspiracy theory is just around the corner.

Sometimes I think there's not enough contempt in the world to do justice to these silly, arrogant people.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 10:16 PM

Richard Hack - Matt (and I) know enough about libertarianism to know it's retarded. I know enough about Scientology to know it's retarded, too. I mean, I don't exactly have to sign up for the brainwashing clinics to get the picture. It. Is. Retarded. It is self-evidently retarded.

Matt doesn't know enough about Austrian economics? Oh, really? He doesn't know enough about engrams, either, nor about Tom Cruise's volcano gods. Why? Because they're both retarded, and retarded things don't require a lot of analysis.

That's why you couldn't fill a high school gym with people who think like you do. You're a radical fringe political extremist yammering to yourself in the dark. People may look in your direction out of amusement or morbid curiosity, but never out of respect.

As for whether he's studied economic theory - Richard, actual economists who have actual degrees in economics, and are actual practicing economists - they think you're a clown.

Here's the bottom line: You've tried every variant of the state that there is. They've all produced what you see around you. Ergo, the state is a total failure in producing a sustainable, free human society.

This is a remarkable example of delusion or the effects of brainwashing. What Richard is saying is that every civilized country on the planet - in the history of the planet - is non-libertarian. And these - to his soggy, gasping mind - are greatly inferior to the libertarian societies which don't actually exist because nobody wants the fucking things. And this counts as a refutation.

I have to question why I bother responding to self-refuting cultists like this.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 10:26 PM

Talk about self-refuting.

I have news for you. Actual economists who have actually studied economics have an entire economic school based on the free market. And while they are a minority compared to the deluded Keynesians, they are a valid school - one of whose members won a Nobel Prize - in Economics, not philosophy which is Matt's alleged forte.

You're perfectly correct that no libertarian state has ever existed. I said as much - that none can, due to the effects of chimps like you.

Neither has any successful state existed in the sense that fuzzy-minded liberals think of - i.e., a state where everyone has equal economic status, everyone has perfect health care, everyone - not matter in what minority - is respected, no wars get started unless attacked, etc., etc. Make a list - then try to find one single state in human history that matches that criteria of success.

But, oh, no, you're willing to go on believing in a myth that makes Scientology look like physics: the myth of the successful state. All it takes, for idiots like you, is just a "little more" tweaking of the law, a few more legislative measures passed, and we'll be in the "Golden Age".

Meanwhile, what you've got is right here, right now - and it's getting worse by the day.

Also, the fact the morons like you don't want a libertarian society - because, as you so brilliantly pointed out, they "don't need to know anything about it" - merely emphasizes my point that chimps couldn't create a successful society if they tried.

Your yammering about anything being retarded merely demonstrates your own retardation. The only self-evident retardation here is your own.

You vote for people who increase your taxes. Nice way to prove you're not retarded.

Moron.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 22, 2008 10:36 PM

But Richard, there are varying degrees of "failure". A continuum,as it were. Everything from Rwanda to the commonplace corrupt goatfuck. Personally, I still prefer this place to Rwanda.

What's really strange is that development of political philosophy seemed to stall in this country at the Founding -- i.e., the Constitutional debates , the Federalist, the Anti-Federalist. The Civil War involved profound issues but was settled with brute force.

The Founders set up a intricate mechanism but one whose design was largely laid out by Aristotle and Polybius over 2000 years ago. Even a Rolex starts to malfunction over time -- but no one seems interested in sorting out where our Constitution is broken and what needs to be done to fix it. We are driving into the future at 100 MPH and the windshield is covered with black spray paint.

Your response is that the mass of people are morons, deserve to be fucked for their stupidity , and that one needs to look out for Numero Uno.

You're not turning into a Republican, are you?

Posted by Don Williams | January 22, 2008 11:05 PM

Neither has any successful state existed in the sense that fuzzy-minded liberals think of - i.e., a state where everyone has equal economic status, everyone has perfect health care, everyone - not matter in what minority - is respected, no wars get started unless attacked, etc., etc. Make a list - then try to find one single state in human history that matches that criteria of success.

This is called a straw man argument, and a particularly stupid one at that. Yes, you concede, no libertarian society ever has or ever will exist. But the many liberal societies that have existed are imperfect. Therefore, you win? Er...no.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 11:14 PM

Actual economists who have actually studied economics have an entire economic school based on the free market.

Wow! An entire economic school! An ACTUAL one, not an imaginary one, like the square root of a negative economic school! Fantastic! Good job!

Posted by Consumatopia | January 22, 2008 11:20 PM

Richard, if this were a failed state, people would be trying to leave. If Denmark and Sweden and Norway - socialist hells, according to you - were so bad, people would be breaking out. But they're breaking in. Danes are so fucking happy, so utterly contented and cheerful, they can hardly stand it. The peace and prosperity are nearly unbearable, that's how lovely and nice it is there.

And it is still far, far from perfect. Only infants believe in perfect worlds. Chimps who believe in democracy and a mixed-capitalist economy - and who have kept voting for it for decade after decade - are not victims of a conspiracy, the only thing your damp imagination is capable of conjuring by way of explaining why it is that the whole world fails to see the truths you think you perceive.

You are deranged. You have been brainwashed. In addition to being a taunt, there is actually a grain of truth to it, in all likelihood; believe in vast conspiracies is a sign of derangement.

You are, in fact, demonstrating what you claim to be refuting. It is not liberals who claim society is perfect or perfectible - that's why liberals emphasize process over outcome (think about it - sloooooowly). It is libertarians who jettison process - literally, they pretend away not only democratic process but all the human beings that comprise a polity - because they interfere with the abstract perfection of their pretend societies.

Dude, get out of politics. Play the Sims or something. The real word operates nothing like you pretend it does or will. Get laid or get a hobby or something.

Posted by Slippery Pete | January 22, 2008 11:22 PM

Re Tievsky's comment "Another Cato policy paper which puts the lie to the claim that the Institute is just a front for plutocrats:

"The Corporate Welfare State: How the Federal Government Subsidizes U.S. Businesses"--"
----------------
Hmmmm. I checked the above cite and found that Cato examined the US government's $2,568 Billion budget for 2006. Cato determined that the total amount of welfare that the Government gave to big corporations was only $92 billion.

Hmmm.
snicker.
hee hee.
ha ha ha ha ha ha

Stop! You're killing me.

Posted by Don Williams | January 22, 2008 11:24 PM

Don: I never said every country was equally fucked. I said sooner or later every country with a state will be fucked one way or the other..

The facts are that, compared with where the human species should be now with the level of technology we have, every society is WAY behind the curve of where we should be in providing a decent level of survival for everybody. And there's absolutely no doubt that the degree of involvement of the state in each society pretty much determines how far behind the curve each country is (relative to other economic and environmental factors, of course - the US, e.g., is simply bigger than many nations.)

The Constitution was a decent attempt by apparently well-meaning individuals to deal with the flaws in the concept of the state - to the degree that they understand those flaws. The problem is: it's not the flaws that are the problem - it's the concept of the state itself. It can't work and never has in human history. It merely flounders along until there is either a war which destroys it from the outside or a revolution or civil war which destroys it from the inside - whereupon a new version immediately replaces the old and the cycle begins all over again.

Sure, some people will manage to survive and even prosper, no matter what. In fact, most people will survive and manage to die of old age instead of state or social violence. So what? This still isn't anywhere near where people would like to be.

Check out Chalmers Johnson's article on the impact of US defense spending over the last half century for an example of how the state sucks economic life out of a society:

How to Sink America
by Chalmers Johnson and Tom Engelhardt
http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=12248

All I'm saying is that this state is just as doomed as every other state has been in human history.

Slippery Pete is incapable of comprehending anything I'm saying. He's the one that has been utterly and totally brainwashed into thinking that the state is the be-all and end-all of human existence, and that without it, humanity would be doomed (ignoring a few hundred thousand years when humans had no states per se.) Nothing but what he's experienced over his lifetime has any reality to him. Since he grew up with the state, he assumes it's a given, like the sun or air.

It's truly pathetic. It's also moronic.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 23, 2008 4:55 AM

Don, the fact is that the vast majority of the federal budget is defense spending and entitlement programs like Medicaid and Social Security. If 92 billion sounds too low a figure to you, fine, what is the "true" figure and how did you derive it? And does anyone who calculates a lower figure than you automatically qualify as a corporate shill? Cato doesn't have to vocally oppose corporate welfare at all, but it does.

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 23, 2008 10:00 AM

It is not liberals who claim society is perfect or perfectible - that's why liberals emphasize process over outcome (think about it - sloooooowly). It is libertarians who jettison process - literally, they pretend away not only democratic process but all the human beings that comprise a polity - because they interfere with the abstract perfection of their pretend societies.

Pete,

This myth is about as intellectually bankrupt as the libertarians as libertines/atomistic individuals that conservatives tend to throw in my face when they're in an ornery mood.

Can you please provide some links that show where serious libertarian thinkers (no jokes please, you're only funny when you're trying not to be) who lament about "perfect" societies? After all, I'd love to see some facts support your polemics. I happen to think you are completely full of yourself and have no supporting evidence to back up your assertions.

What offends you is that I believe that it is not the proper role of government to use coercion to take from A to give from B just because some democratic majority decides that the case. Of course, what's amusing to me is that the very ideal that government should be implemented to cure social ills is the same principle used by those homophobic bigot social conservatives (who I assume you just hate) who believe that we should government to enforce THEIR views of virtue and put same-sex marriage bans in their state constitutions. As someone who believes that constitutions secure our blessings of liberty, I'm quite offended by that.

Put that concept on the table and you'll get something like Gonzales v Carhart.

Of course, if the choice is being called retarded by you or sharing the same mindset as homophobic bigots, I know what choice I'd make.

I'm not anti-democratic. I just happen to believe that democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. I'd refer to James Madison and Federalist 10 for his concerns towards the sort of unbridled majoritarianism that many people seem to embrace (on both sides) but I'm sure he's beneath you, as well as people like Smith, Locke, Jefferson and Bastiat.

Posted by East Coast Libertarian | January 23, 2008 10:58 AM

Lest anyone should think that all us libertarians march in lockstep, insist on total ideological purity, and are completely hostile to the state, I personally disagree with the anarchist position and temperament of Mr. Hack.

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 23, 2008 11:08 AM

How are libertarians for corporations controlling government? Big business loves government intervention when it is in their interests or protecting their foreign investment. They love using government to restrict liability, keep little guys from invading their turf, government managed trade, corporate welfare. Actually government intervention and a movement away from libertarianism is what makes it easier for big business to capture government. Ask yourself this, does the liberal utopia of half your paycheck going to DC increase or decrease the chance of lobbyists fighting for your money? If you take the money out of government there is much less to fight for and much less incentive to do so which would greatly help the consumer.

Of course the usual liberal excuse is that we need politicians that care about the people over their own personal interests. When has that ever happened? Now you tell me who is out of touch with reality. Yes, let's invest more money for terabytes of powerpoint presentations that accomplish nothing and maintain a de facto "employment" program for representatives and their families via lobbyists.

Of course the only people who can save us from the corruption of big business is a former board member of Wal Mart or a Chicago politician who is the darling of the bankers and ZBig. Keep dreaming people because it must be much better than reality.

Yes I am against a federal democracy, while I am a Libertarian I don't give a damn how somebody outside of my community and state governs themselves. California can go full communist for all I care and Mississippi can be a theocracy. If that is how you want to live go right ahead, the only way a Libertarian country could be realized is if they held a majority in every branch of government, federal, state, and local. That will never happen. So I am against a federal democracy, which was never intended, and am for actual self determination and real diversity. Why give two mafia like parties stationed in Washington control of 312 million people, either this or that "solution"?

Posted by PC | January 23, 2008 1:02 PM

What do libertarians say about information asymmetry and natural monopolies?

Also, do libertarians simply not believe that one's initial social position is a strong predictor of one's economic outcome?

Posted by mike | January 23, 2008 10:42 PM

"What do libertarians say about information asymmetry and natural monopolies?"

Not exactly sure what you expect us to "say," but the answer probably varies between libertarians.

"Also, do libertarians simply not believe that one's initial social position is a strong predictor of one's economic outcome?"

I imagine most libertarians would agree with you there. But for most of us, the response is, so what? Being born with a high intelligence is also a strong predictor of economic outcome, I imagine, and that's a matter of luck. Does that somehow justify redistributing wealth from the brilliant to the slow? I don't think so. The proper moral justification for allowing a person to own property is not based on his objective merit (however you define that).

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 24, 2008 12:19 PM

Actually, I probably should have said "virtuousness" rather than "merit."

Posted by Matt Tievsky | January 24, 2008 12:22 PM

Very good points by Yglesias. I think that pure libertarianism is pure anarchy. The folks at that new social networking site Know Me Now have a good conversation going on about it.

Posted by Huntley | January 24, 2008 4:33 PM

I am a libertarian. All I want is more control over my life. You, too, must be libertarians, because you want more control over my life.

I guess that the thing which is missing from this posting and the comments, is a lack of respect for freedom. Freedom isn't when you let other people do things you agree with. Freedom is when you allow total fuckheads to fuck up their lives because you don't agree with how they're running them. How do we stop these fuckheads from fucking up our lives? Private property and free markets.

You know, the libertarian prescription.

Posted by Russell Nelson | February 1, 2008 2:24 AM