A friend of Trevor's decides to speak. Are Libertarians just selfish?

[Michael]

Being a friend of Trevor’s I have read many of the submissions on this
group but have not engaged in any debate. However I thought I would
make one contribution if only because I felt compelled to formulate a
reason for my deep disquiet at ‘Libertarianism’

I have no reason not to see the Libertarian worldwide as a philosophy
of selfishness, born of an arrogant disdain for ones fellow man; anti-
communitarian, teetering often towards solipsism. This is of course
to traduce the concept but nevertheless whatever philosophical
concepts are employed to support libertarianism this traduction does
locate the essential seed of an unpleasant truth. Rather as if one
spends a lifetime arguing theology only to stand back and realise that
these entire libraries rest on a single foundation with one simple
seed: is there a God? Those who have tried to attack Dawkins as being
wholly naïve in his assessment of religion fail to see the inverted
triangle of their religious belief. It’s vast structure reduces
eventually to that one question. Dawkins has no need to understand
theology, exegesis or personal revelations. I would ask the
libertarian to stand back from their philosophical arguments look at
their inverted triangle, resting as it may on unjustified feelings of
superiority to ones fellow man and especially those who would claim to
‘govern. But the mention of theology is more than a simile it is also
to ask another question. Can one speak of the immorality of
libertarianism without recourse to religious arguments? Indeed is such
a criticism nothing more than one hang-up of no more merit than the
worldview I dislike?

Kierkegaard saw the paradigm of the ethical as a state of commitment
and obligation to others as opposed to immersion in one’s own passion.
How I feel is not how I must live, which echoed Aristotle’s duality of
‘man how he is’ and man ‘how he could be’ with an ethical life leading
from the former to the latter. But of course we want to be Enlightment
creatures don’t we? Sovereign from religion and the ‘state’ in our
moral authority. What right has an idea of a divine law or a
government to say anything categorical to me? The good is nothing more
than the allowance of the utilitarian dream, pursuit of pleasure and
avoidance of pain. Any overarching laws have no basis in practical
reason unless they maximise pleasure and minimise pain. But still we
can ask if that is my pleasure or a measure of its totality amongst
everyone? Well maybe the libertarian is a Nietzchian alive to the
fictions of natural rights, utilitarianism. My morality is what my
will creates not grounded in fictions. I must be allowed to become
what I am. But what of those who thought highly of Nietzsche -the
philosopher of their ideals. Of them we should ask, as of
libertarians, not that which you believe but the purpose to which you
would like to employ those beliefs. Your beliefs are not the deep
fountainhead. That instead is the use to which your beliefs are put.
If you were asked, ‘what is the good for you?’ there would be a
multiplicity of answers but all grounded in your sovereignty. If you
were asked, ‘what is the good for man?’ would such a question make any
sense? Is not a government for example not part of a journey to
sustain you in a community that seeks the best together to allow the
best for me to part of the summation of the ‘best for us.’ Laws and
taxes are indeed a mark of failure but only because an ethical basis
of this quest is no longer shared but has to be administered. But if
laws and taxes mark failure they are not an attack on your sovereignty
but instead a crude way to replace ethical guidelines no longer
shared.

I ask the libertarian if you have sons and daughters, cousins, aunts,
tribes, clubs, professions all orbiting but none isolated from the
other. Each carries obligations and debts and sometimes they conflict
and you must make a moral judgement. You are not detachable from your
social roles, no more than you are detachable from history. The notion
that you can isolate yourself at a point of your choosing from your
family, your job, your city, your country, your religion is an
illusion Do you construct a tyre for your car in your garage, a
telephone in your workshop, a mobile phone in your back garden?
Things now are produced outside your house – in fact from a community.
Unless you are a bushman you are sustained by a community. The
community sustains you. It is your mother's milk.

But there is a larger delusion at the core of Libertarianism too and
that is the disconnection from one's history. The idea for example
that my earnings, my home, my land is my sovereign domain over which
no one else should impose their will, collective of individual is a
nonsense. Most people's land, (in South Africa, America, Australia,
Ireland, Scotland, a thousand other places) is usurped from others. A
claim to sovereignty is a fiction based on law derived from a state.
From that law - no axiom - you build your idea of your sovereign
rights while at the same time despising the state that granted you
that right. Zimbabwe was portrayed as a corrupt and cruel regime by
its cancellation of land rights. One might ask instead they re-
connected to their history?

Thus I return to selfishness. The idea that you can cut yourself off
from a community at a point you want, be that in friendship or be it
in taxes is in the end nothing but selfishness. By taking good as a
private property you make the selfish disconnection from the good of
those in the community(ies) on which you rely. Which, by the by, is
why Marx was correct. As religion dies we need a new ethics to form a
community not constrained by law but a common belief and goal. Let us
here it for the values of equality and fraternity. Communities of free
individuals with common ownerships.

[Leon Louw]

Please explain the curious view that wanting people to be free and prosperous is selfish and/or arrogant. 

 

It's more intuitive to regard people who want to control others coercively and impose policies proven to impoverish them as being arrogant.  Whether its' selfish may be debatable, but surely not whether it's arrogant.

 

The default assumption must surely be that it's extraordinarily delusional, let alone arrogant, to be so self-assured that one believes one can and should make and impose better decisions for others than they would make for themselves.  Consider what's being assumed when people called "criminals" or "government" force others to do things other than what they'd do if uncoerced.  Criminals don't pretend to be coercing for the benefit of the coerced.  At least they're honest.  Conversely, governments do, which, if honest, is bizarre in the extreme.  It presupposes that those concerned think they not only know as much (or close to as much) about every citizen - their circumstances, preferences, needs, aspirations etc - as they know about themselves, but that they are as selfless concerned about the interests of coercees as they are about their own interests, and can manage their affairs more effectively by remote control of 'the masses', and that they can monitor and make adjustments for unintended consequences for millions of individuals more expeditiously and efficiently.

 

In short, it presupposes selfless benevolence, omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, in other words, that such coercers think of themselves as God. 

 

It's hard to think of anything more delusional and arrogant than that. 

 

It is, I would have thought, self-evidently out of touch with obvious reality observable daily.  Our schools, hospitals, railways, roads, electricity, bureaucracies, telephones, postal services, police and so on do not strike me as being manifestations of divine intervention.

 

One of the conundrums of life is that, despite their manifestly obscene incompetence, selfishness, arrogance, corruption, inefficiency and cost, many people, perhaps you too, seem to worship politicians as if they're gods.  It's really weird.  The fact that they do so is the best evidence of which I'm aware that ordinary people may well be incapable of managing their own lives and may be better off having their lives managed for them by arrogant, delusional, self-righteous, corrupt, inefficient, self-serving coercers.

 

Which is a long way of saying you may be right ... in a convoluted perverted circuitous sense.

[Colin Bower]

Whilst I would simply like to ignore the verbal obscurities, mixed metaphors, empty rhetoric, universal generalisation and the moral posturing that Michael presents as an argument, I can't, mostly because silence might imply agreement, so one has no choice but to assume the burden of reply.

 

Libertarians (why do you put the word in inverted comma, Michael, it's a perfectly good and comprehensible word?) are above all, I think, lovers of freedom. This of course is a love that flows from a value judgment that not all human beings share. If you prefer servility to freedom, you are welcome to a life of servility. Popper, in his classical work, The Open Society and its Enemies, mounts a defence of freedom not only that libertarians generally associate themselves with, but all of the heirs of the Enlightenment as well. Freedom is a gift to us from legions of the very bravest men and women who sacrificed their lives to help make the world safe from tyranny of all kinds. Whilst there may be some meaningful difference even between the men and the women who profess to love freedom - some argue, for instance, that if you are very poor, you are not free - it is not a difference between those who love freedom, and those who elect servility. I think I would be right in saying that libertarians would take the view that even if you are poor you can still be free, and would certainly take the view that it is better to be free and poor, than enslaved and poor. The freedom that libertarians love is a freedom that they want all to enjoy, and must of us feel that our own freedom is harmed by the continuing existence of the unfree. But of course, we can do little to help or to change those who insist on their rights to servility - such as those Zimbabweans, for instance, who continued to vote for Mugabe even as he was systematically destroying their freedom and their wealth. But similar examples of such a wilful desire to abrogate one's right to freedom can be taken from so-called first world as well as so-called third world countries, and even as I write this, the citizens of western Euope and of America tolerate the efforts of tyrants disguised as social reformers, who want to curtail the freedoms enjoyed in those countries, rather than expand it. If you, Michael, prefer a state of some degree of servility over a state of untramelled freedom, you are entitled to do so, and you'll find that we won't even bother you further with our arguments, for the freedom that we believe in is also the freedom that allows you to choose servility.

 

Libertarians are also great lovers of prosperity. And, just as they would ideally like all people to be free, so they want all people to be prosperous. It is a pernicious myth made and disseminated by the opponents of freedom, that libertarianism is the ideology of the selfish. Libertarians are generally, although not exclusively, succesful people. they can achieve their own material goals in life quite well, and generally do. But they care desperately that the prosperity they enjoy should be multiplied many hundreds of times over for the benefit of all. You call this selfishness? They argue with logic and with evidence, that economic freedom brings economic prosperity, and many independent think-tanks and NGOs collect evidence which seems irrefutably to support such a view. Anyone having any respect for the law of evidence would have to agree that a libertarian orientated, freedom enhancing method of organising our affairs in South Africa would achieve far greater success in alleviating poverty than 15 years of central-planning and big government have done, which pretends to alleviate the plight of the impoverished by imposing taxes, keeping most of them, and allowing a little trickle down effect which it claims as a great triumph in the achievement of human happiness. You buy into this?

 

The personal code of morality that libertarians may prefer (or may not - there are also Christian libertarians, although I am not one of them), has an impeccable intellectual lineage in philosophy and in literature, and it is one that recognises human beings as moral agents, having their own moral capacity, not as foot soldiers for a "higher", or "given" morality. Similarly we recognise truth as human truth. It is we who make it, on a collaborative human basis. These are largely post-Enlightenment developments, but human beings have questioned "given" versions of morality and truth for almost as long as the human record has existed, and it certainly existed as distant in time as in Athens in the Golden Age of Pericles; it was an idea explored by many of the great pre-Enlightenment writers, Shakespeare not the least of them - and of course in post-Enlightenment writers, the poet William Blake being one amongst others who held the view that obedience to an imposed moral code - even , for example, the so-called ten commandments - reflects no individual moral capacity. Thus, the view that most libertarians take -  that they have an obligation to think for themselves, inclusive of the obligation to think about what is right or wrong - is a position of human responsibility; it is not "arrogance", and most certainly not solipsistic, as you allege. 

 

You appear to be calling yourself a communitarian, which I take to be someone who subsumes his personal vested interest to the group interest.  Most libertarians consider this to be a soft option, indulgent and an abdication of human responsibility. This is because we believe we offer the community the most when we offer it the best of ourselves. By sacrificing yourself, you may be sacrificing the best thing that the community has available to it. We are skeptical of those who make their love for humanity their path to personal aggrandisement. Perfect yourself rather, and you help perfect the world in the process. Bill Gates has done infinitely more - infinitely more - to make the world a better place than Mother Theresa.

 

Finally, a large part of your attack seems to me to be a groundless and an unsubstantiable vendetta against the personal moral code of libertarians, who you identify, for reasons mystifying to me - as "arrogant", and "selfish". . For all their own modest material successes in life, it's funny but telling to libertarians how those professing a social concern - socialist politicians, trade union leaders, academics whose salaries are paid, in part at last, by taxpayers -  do so well personally in their crusades ostensibly to help others. And there is at least a very large slice of plain honesty that characterises the libertarian approach to taxes - we openly begrudge every last cent we pay the Receiver, and we do not regard it as either a crime or a sin to manage our affairs in such a way as to deprive the Receiver of what he hopes to steal from us. I really would love to see the tax returns of all of those collectivists whose entire ideological position, were it to be a sincere one - and the one you admire so much - would be reflected in a cheerful willingness to pay the Receiver more than he was strictly entitled to.

 

In the main, it is hard to identify exactly what it is you are proposing, because you lose yourself in a kind of metaphorical style of language that obfuscates rather than clarifies - which as the many who have read Orwell will know is the tactic of polticians and posturers  everywhere. Why would you slide to so comfortable an ellision as the following, for instance?  "The notion that you can isolate yourself at a point of your choosing from your family, your job, your city, your country, your religion is an illusion...". Who is the "you"? Libertarians love their families as much as anybody else - what gives you the apparent right to think otherwise? We take our jobs very seriously, although we tend to work for ourselves. Many of us like our cities very much - although we reserve the right to criticise the oafish city managers. If we detest the governments of the countries we live in, it doesn't mean we detest our countries. And I think you will find that libertarians are mostly non-religious people, although, being freedom lovers,  they are more than willing to  remain on good terms with those who are religious, which is a darn site more than you can say for the reciprocal generosity of many of the religious. You write: "A claim to sovereignty is a fiction based on law derived from a state", and if you mean by that claim, "national sovereigntyy", most libertarians would agree with you, and I wonder why you stray into making such an assertion, because many libertarians thoroughly support the destruction of nation states, and support the idea of small communities with their own relevant powers, tied into a global order of free people moving freely wherever they want to go. We believe in private property not only as a moral principle that is enrooted in centuries - indeed of millenia - of the common law,  but because ownership of private property is an effective means of growing prosperity. Have you not read of the tragedy of the commons?

 

That must do. Exercise better command over the language that you use, and get focused. Then we might be able to have a real discussion, which I have no doubt will always remain a friendly one.

 

Colin.

.

[Garth Zietsman]

Fantastic reply Colin. 

I was going to wade in but your and Leon's replies have made the effort superfluous.

[Garth Zietsman]

Still I would love to know what exactly gave you, Michael, your notions about libertarianism.  I just don't understand how you managed it. 

Is it perhaps that we think it ok for someone to withhold their consent?

Is it that we regard people as independent moral agents?

Is it that believe that if your happiness and dreams aren't your own you have nothing, no being?

 

Please what was it that set you off?

[Trevor Watkins]

Thank you to Michael for reminding us that there are sincerely held views out there that are not like ours. Thank you to Leon and Colin for their quick and excellent replies. Sometimes I'm so proud of you guys. 

This exchange has restored my faith in the usefulness of the libsa forum. It reminds me that there are readers out there who often don't comment, but may nevertheless find our exchanges interesting or useful. It allows me to refer interested persons to that excellent discussion initiated by Michael, long after the topic itself has gone quiet. I think it may even say something about the quality of South African minds and libertarians.

Thank you again guys.
Trevor Watkins - Base Software
bas...@gmail.com 083 44 11 721 - 042 293 1405 - (fax)0866 532 363
http://sketchesbyboz37.blogspot.com www.libertarian.org.za
PO Box 3302, Jeffreys Bay, 6330

2009/9/2 Garth Zietsman <garth.z...@gmail.com>

[Stephen vJ]

Michael wrote in the original mail;

"As religion dies we need a new ethics to form a
community not constrained by law but a common belief and goal."

 

Which belief and what goal would that be exactly, and who would choose it ?

 

S.

 

[Stephen vJ]

Michael also wrote;

"But the mention of theology is more than a simile it is also
to ask another question. Can one speak of the immorality of
libertarianism without recourse to religious arguments?"

 

Surely the same would apply to someone with an undying faith in government despite clear evidence of immense government failure all around us. Faith in Government is the biggest religion ever.

 

S.

 

[Michael O'Dowd]

Well there is an element of pious hope I admit, though I might ask, does not my sentence end with what is the Libertarian goal of a life lived according to agreed principles? If such a goal can be achieved then maybe it can arise from alternative principles too. It seems pious hope since it involves a somehow a magical consensus appearing or a dictat from a leader? No, because what I said was that the consensus and goal arise from ethics.  There is indeed a choice being made even now. Who is choosing it? Well it is choosing itself. Bootstrapping itself almost. It is in America with the spread of evangelical religion and its associated dislike of evolutionary theory, abortion, and adherence to a book of rules written thousands of years ago. We may not approve of this example but it can happen.  Well maybe the great error in the sentence is that religion is dying. We certainly do need another ethic to bootstrap itself.

 

 

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[Michael O'Dowd]

I think this is kind of answered in my ‘desert island’ postings. Sorry to have fractured the debate by misunderstanding how the site worked.

 

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From: li...@googlegroups.com [mailto:li...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen vJ
Sent: 05 September 2009 17:38
To: li...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Libsa] Re: A friend of Trevor's decides to speak. Are Libertarians just selfish?

 

Michael also wrote;

[Leon Louw]

I repeat what I wrote earlier, because it is crucial to understanding the nature of governmentalism.  This is not a response to M O'D, from which discourse I've withdrawn, but a diversion on the nature of religious faith.

 

Belief in government is, as explained by philosopher Anthony Flew, religious faith by every criterion of theism.  Flew pointed out that Marx realised this and regarded atheism as essential for communism because non-government theism is a rival faith.  Gullible people, "the masses", he thought, could not worship rival gods simultaneously, belief in one would undermine blind faith in the other.

 

The worship of government has the following inter alia in common with theism:

• Abstraction - the belief that there is an undefinable invisible amorphous force, entity or power apart from and above the clerics (bureaucrats) who run the earthly manifestations of the faith, such as cathedrals (parliaments), altars (statues), churches (licensing offices) and the like, and publish its scriptures and canons (laws, policies, dictates).
• Supernatural - the belief that governments have supernatural knowledge, powers and presence beyond and above the conspicuous limitations of the clergy (politicians, officials).
• Tithes - the belief that it is everyone's moral duty to contribute a fixed proportion of income to church (government).
• Divine right - the belief that governments are an objective reality and necessity, and rule by divine right over everyone, including pagans (libertarians), that there must be civil obedience and moral compulsion regardless of individual differences.
• Subservience -
• Forgiveness; absolution - the belief that sins (crimes) can be forgiven (and penalties ameliorated if there is full confession); note that church and state both arrogate unto themselves the right punish and forgive people who wrong others, usurping the rights, prerogatives and interests of victims.
• Blind faith - the belief that it is a cardinal sin to question (heresy = treason), if being no coincidence that bureaucrats are called "the authorities".
• Religious war - the belief that it the divine duty of all to kill and/or subjugate enemies (infidels, pagans, heathens)
• Creation - the belief that existence is the result of miraculous creationism (as in governments creating state enterprises they actually nationalised, 'stimulating growth and 'creating' jobs out of thin air; providing welfare without first looting it, producing costless benefits such as 'consumer protection', 'job security' and 'safety')
• Sacrifice - the belief that people and their possessions should be sacrificed for the well-being of the faith (state, government, country).
• Immaculate conception - the belief in myths about how gods (politicians, national 'heroes') came to be thus.

These are examples.  Anyone can think of more.  All you have to do is look up political definitions ('government', 'state', 'country', 'law', 'patriotism' etc and reflect on how they mirror religious concepts.  Look-up the definition for 'crimes against the state', for instance, and see that the state is regarded as having precisely the same divine status as the church, whereas no one is ever, nor can be, against a country - it as a permanent geographic phenomenon - all you can do is oppose current High Priests (rulers).  Research definitions of religion, theism, heresy etc and it's strikingly obvious how identical concepts apply to government, the state, the polity, society, heritage and the like.

 

One of the most nefarious manifestations of the deification of people called 'government' is that there are called 'the authorities'.  They are, like clerics, embarrassingly ignorant about basic facts - science in the case of religion, unintended consequences for government - yet have followers calling them 'the authorities'.