An observation about libertarianism
August 10, 2009
1 comments
This discussion shows how there is a natural tension between the goals of libertarianism and the realities of human nature. That post is two months old, but it was the best example that I could think of off the top of my head.
There is a real tension in mainstream libertarianism between its conception of what humanity can and should be, and what it really is. Take, for instance, the view on voluntary single motherhood. Being a good mother is already difficult as it is for women who have the active involvement of a long-term partner or husband helping them daily to support their children. Parenting is expensive, time-consuming and not something that lends oneself to being done by a single parent who wishes to maintain some sort of personal life. That is why, aside from the rare exceptions, single mothers tend to be, to one extent or another, wards of the state. Libertarian goals like privatizing education and making the payment thereof the responsibility of the parent run head long into a brick wall in cases like this because the person's chosen lifestyle is simply not compatible without major heart ache or poverty.
Not to beat a dead horse, but humanity is not by nature rational. The default position of humanity is emotional, not logical. That is why women choose to be single mothers instead of either finding a suitable partner or foregoing children. That is also why the working and lower middle classes around the world often support politicians whose positions on economics amount to class-level economic suicide in the form of unsustainable spending that either leads to rampant inflation or wealth being transferred abroad. Mainstream libertarianism assumes a rational humanity that would choose good policies if better informed, but the truth is closer to Jonestown, except that a majority of humanity is greedily chugging the Kool Aid and asking for seconds.
Liberty is a lot like the infamous Quality-Speed-Cost triangle used to describe the pitfalls of priorities in manufacturing and services. For liberty, the triangle is something like Autonomy-Sustainability-Societal Health. You can have autonomy and sustainability, but you won't have societal health (many people will go without because of the emphasis on individual autonomy). You can have autonomy and societal health, which is where we are today in most respects with our policies on sex, family and debt-financed consumption backed by increased government care for the poor, but it is proving to not be sustainable. Finally, you can have sustainability and societal health, but that will come at a loss of individual liberty on all levels for all classes. It need not come in the form of government regulations, but even in voluntary action it will have that effect as individual happiness is subordinated to higher goals like maintaining mediocre marriages, sacrificing luxuries for the well-being of families, spending more money on charity, etc.
Once libertarians realize that the archetype of the rational human being who, out of principle, chooses to not let their personal lifestyle choices burden society, is a statistical oddity, the tradeoffs and hard choices will become more self-evident.
There is a real tension in mainstream libertarianism between its conception of what humanity can and should be, and what it really is. Take, for instance, the view on voluntary single motherhood. Being a good mother is already difficult as it is for women who have the active involvement of a long-term partner or husband helping them daily to support their children. Parenting is expensive, time-consuming and not something that lends oneself to being done by a single parent who wishes to maintain some sort of personal life. That is why, aside from the rare exceptions, single mothers tend to be, to one extent or another, wards of the state. Libertarian goals like privatizing education and making the payment thereof the responsibility of the parent run head long into a brick wall in cases like this because the person's chosen lifestyle is simply not compatible without major heart ache or poverty.
Not to beat a dead horse, but humanity is not by nature rational. The default position of humanity is emotional, not logical. That is why women choose to be single mothers instead of either finding a suitable partner or foregoing children. That is also why the working and lower middle classes around the world often support politicians whose positions on economics amount to class-level economic suicide in the form of unsustainable spending that either leads to rampant inflation or wealth being transferred abroad. Mainstream libertarianism assumes a rational humanity that would choose good policies if better informed, but the truth is closer to Jonestown, except that a majority of humanity is greedily chugging the Kool Aid and asking for seconds.
Liberty is a lot like the infamous Quality-Speed-Cost triangle used to describe the pitfalls of priorities in manufacturing and services. For liberty, the triangle is something like Autonomy-Sustainability-Societal Health. You can have autonomy and sustainability, but you won't have societal health (many people will go without because of the emphasis on individual autonomy). You can have autonomy and societal health, which is where we are today in most respects with our policies on sex, family and debt-financed consumption backed by increased government care for the poor, but it is proving to not be sustainable. Finally, you can have sustainability and societal health, but that will come at a loss of individual liberty on all levels for all classes. It need not come in the form of government regulations, but even in voluntary action it will have that effect as individual happiness is subordinated to higher goals like maintaining mediocre marriages, sacrificing luxuries for the well-being of families, spending more money on charity, etc.
Once libertarians realize that the archetype of the rational human being who, out of principle, chooses to not let their personal lifestyle choices burden society, is a statistical oddity, the tradeoffs and hard choices will become more self-evident.
...cases like this because the person's chosen lifestyle is simply not compatible without major heart ache or poverty
...or charity. Lots of christian churches sponsor schools in foreign countries to teach the poor. I am sure they would step up to the challenge here at home if the need were presented. As with most other government-run benevolencies, they have that job because they crowded out the private charities, not because the private charities were deficient. Liberals, will still have the chance to put their money where their mouth is and provide free education as a "public good" in their own cities... at their own expense.
Also, with private charities, there is a measure of accountability to the donor and gratitude by the receiver that is absent from government charitable programs.