I recently was reading a wonderful site, Social Matter, and came across this article: State-Society. Now, granted almost all people outside of libertarianism get at least some part of libertarian theory wrong, heck even some libertarians get some things wrong. However, rarely does an author stumble over so much so deeply all the while claiming some key knowledge on the topic of criticism.
Right out of the gate the author, David Grant, stumbles and stumbles badly.
"Libertarians lay claim to being morally superior to, well, everyone else on account of their refusal to legislate morality. "
Let us be clear, it is not likely for a libertarian to claim for himself a position of moral superiority based upon what someone else may or may not do. A libertarian is strictly and solely concerned with the proper use of aggression within the frameworks of property rights. This is it. The author is mistaken in claiming that a libertarian would base his moral view of anyone else founded upon the tenets of libertarianism. He may lay claim to moral superiority but this would not come from libertarian tenets but from his own moral framework. The two, morality and libertarianism, are unrelated categories.
Additional the author goes on to state:
"Libertarians want everyone to be just like them, allowing differences of opinion and behavior only in areas that don’t matter."
No, no they don't...and most libertarians I know would not care what or who you are as long as you do not violate the non aggression principle . Now it is true, I think libertarians in a libertarian world would self segregate into communities that would most closely approximate themselves. It does not follow that libertarians holding vastly different social and cultural values would initiate aggression against each other or desire that others be like themselves.
" There is a body of law—let’s call it the Constitution—that embodies libertarianism..."
Once again, libertarianism is a political and legal philosophy that is concerned only with the proper use of aggression and property rights. It merely defines the framework to be filled, it does not embody it.
Let's briefly touch upon the libertarian understanding of the state, government, and "society" .
The state is most assuredly not "us". That is to say it exists as a self-perpetuating, self-interested engine separate and apart from the individuals it exercises power over. Government, theoretically, could take on a non coercive form and thus qualify as libertarian but truly this never happens in our presently structured world. When libertarians refer in a positive sense to government they usually mean governance. Many libertarians shun the term society and I think this is because of the preference to view issues in terms of the individual (which may or may not be a good). I think this is splitting hairs--I typically use society and community interchangeable--much to the dislike of some.
The author then tries to combine what he calls "leftist notion that I'll call state-society" and libertarianism. Thereafter he spends the body of the article drawing out how strange and unnecessary this "state-society" would be. I entirely reject this; libertarians categorically reject the state in all its forms and may wholly embrace whatever society or community they voluntarily join. The end--but no.
Libertarianism does not speak to how a community or society may be structured. This is forbidden. Libertarians, being grounded in sound economic thought, approach the structuring and organization of society praxeologically. That is to say human action dictates in a spontaneously ordering way how each community would self organize. This spontaneous ordering, of course, would be based upon fundamental founding principles of the community as well as other factors.
Lastly, I will address a theme of criticism I find commonly used by many who do not understand libertarianism in its finality, that is to say when it is taken to its logical end. This is the allegation of utopia.
"Unfortunately, there is no good rhetorical counter to dreams of state-society. Deconstructing it and showing it to be utopian is a good plan, but even then many will support it. Utopianism, effectively expressed, will always triumph over pragmatism in the realm of words. Fortunately, speeches and majority decisions don’t actually decide things in the long run. For that you need iron and blood."
Libertarianism at its most pragmatic level understands forcing another human into conforming or performing action will ultimately result in abject failure and dystopia. Statism necessarily ensures the ever increasing conflict among individuals over scare goods. It is truly utopic to advance a social system based upon coercion when all empirical evidence throughout history reveals statism and coercion bring about the very opposite. Libertarians understand the structural leviathan of statism throughout history and reject it.
Libertarianism does not speak to how a community or society may be structured. This is forbidden. Libertarians, being grounded in sound economic thought, approach the structuring and organization of society praxeologically. That is to say human action dictates in a spontaneously ordering way how each community would self organize. This spontaneous ordering, of course, would be based upon fundamental founding principles of the community as well as other factors.
Lastly, I will address a theme of criticism I find commonly used by many who do not understand libertarianism in its finality, that is to say when it is taken to its logical end. This is the allegation of utopia.
"Unfortunately, there is no good rhetorical counter to dreams of state-society. Deconstructing it and showing it to be utopian is a good plan, but even then many will support it. Utopianism, effectively expressed, will always triumph over pragmatism in the realm of words. Fortunately, speeches and majority decisions don’t actually decide things in the long run. For that you need iron and blood."
Libertarianism at its most pragmatic level understands forcing another human into conforming or performing action will ultimately result in abject failure and dystopia. Statism necessarily ensures the ever increasing conflict among individuals over scare goods. It is truly utopic to advance a social system based upon coercion when all empirical evidence throughout history reveals statism and coercion bring about the very opposite. Libertarians understand the structural leviathan of statism throughout history and reject it.
