The question libertarians just can't answer

8 posts / 0 new

Tue, 2013-06-04 13:42

Snuckles

[url=http://www.salon.com/2013/06/04/the_question_libertarians_just_cant_answ... your approach is so great, why hasn’t any country anywhere in the world ever tried it?[/url]

Quote:
Why are there no libertarian countries? If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?

It’s not as though there were a shortage of countries to experiment with libertarianism. There are 193 sovereign state members of the United Nations—195, if you count the Vatican and Palestine, which have been granted observer status by the world organization. If libertarianism was a good idea, wouldn’t at least one country have tried it? Wouldn’t there be at least one country, out of nearly two hundred, with minimal government, free trade, open borders, decriminalized drugs, no welfare state and no public education system?

Thu, 2013-06-06 08:14

ygtbk

Thanks for posting this, Snuckles.

From the point of view of U.S. domestic politics, the article seems intended to discredit Rand Paul in the run-up to the 2014 and 2016 election cycles (not exactly a tough conclusion to draw given the picture of his dad at the head of the article).

The article is interesting in its own right, however, whatever its intended purpose. For example:

Quote:

If socialism is discredited by the failure of communist regimes in the real world, why isn’t libertarianism discredited by the absence of any libertarian regimes in the real world? Communism was tried and failed. Libertarianism has never even been tried on the scale of a modern nation-state, even a small one, anywhere in the world.

I'd have to say that arguing that libertarianism cannot possibly succeed because communism has been tried and failed is kind of novel.

Thu, 2013-06-06 10:33

quizzical

i had to do some research on what libertarianism is since reading this yesterday. geez there's so many types how do you lump them all into one school of thought?!

after a lot of thought i think it's bs saying its never been tried by any government or peoples in the world.

from the descriptions i read compared to what i know of history in the USA and to a lesser extent Canada libertarianism was the golden egg. until people found it didn't work so well.

Fri, 2013-06-07 06:14

Left Turn

Michael Lind @ Salon.com wrote:
Wouldn’t there be at least one country, out of nearly two hundred, with minimal government, free trade, open borders, decriminalized drugs, no welfare state and no public education system?

I'd agree that no state has implemented a version of libertarianism that includes decrimnalization of drugs, and no country has voted for libertarianism when there have been other option available, but...

Haiti has minimal government, no welfare state, and no public education system. NGO's run practically everything, wasting tons of donated money in the process, while the poor majority doesn't get the help it needs. The country has not recovered from the earthquake of January 2010. Broken housing, squalid tent camps, and unemployment are the reality for a majority of the population. I'd say the results are a strong indictment of libertarianism.

And Somalia doesn't even really exist as a state except on maps. Armed militias run rampant, as does famine. Again, the results are a strong indictment of libertarianism.

Fri, 2013-06-07 07:11

onlinediscountanvils

Not countries, but Honduras has had stop-start plans to introduce libertarians cities.

[url=http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/4129-modeling-capit... Capitalist Dystopia: Honduras OKs Plan for Private Cities[/url]

Fri, 2013-06-07 08:24

ygtbk

quizzical wrote:

i had to do some research on what libertarianism is since reading this yesterday. geez there's so many types how do you lump them all into one school of thought?!

after a lot of thought i think it's bs saying its never been tried by any government or peoples in the world.

from the descriptions i read compared to what i know of history in the USA and to a lesser extent Canada libertarianism was the golden egg. until people found it didn't work so well.

You're right that there are many types of libertarianism. For example, Noam Chomsky describes himself as a libertarian socialist:

http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/1999----.pdf

I usually recommend "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" by Robert Nozick to people who want to understand a variety I find congenial. Another good book is "The Libertarian Idea" by Jan Narveson.

Fri, 2013-06-07 09:36

ygtbk

@ Left Turn:

You make interesting points but I disagree with your conclusions.

Note that Lind could not use your examples since he a) says that there are no libertarian countries but then b) inconsistently proceeds to pick Mauritius as an example country to criticize. He chooses it because of its economic freedom rating as given by, for example, the Heritage Foundation. If he tried to go with prong b) he would not be able to cite Haiti (since ranked at 152nd in the world) or Somalia (not ranked). See:

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/haiti

Libertarians support individual rights to person and property and a state large enough to enforce them. This is sometimes caricatured as "the night-watchman state", but it's clear that Somalia does not have even such a minimal state in place. The current situation in Somalia is therefore a Hobbesian war of all-against-all, not an indictment of libertarianism.

Haiti is a poor country and has been poor under a variety of governments, including monarchy, a republic, U.S. occupation, dictatorship, and the current government. The government is perceived to be corrupt, as cited at, e.g.

http://www.transparency.org/country#HTI

I think the 2010 earthquake would have been devastating under any form of government. I'm therefore dubious that Haiti's problem is libertarianism.

A more interesting question is whether specific libertarian policies would be beneficial to the U.S. (Lind is writing primarily for a domestic U.S. audience, I think, and so tries to steer clear of this).

For example, take the following propositions:

- The U.S. military should have a purely defensive role.

- The state should have no role in deciding whether two consenting adults can marry.

- Marijuana should be legalized (or at least decriminalized).

- The government should, at minimum, have to obtain a warrant before monitoring your telephone and internet use.

These are all propositions that many if not most libertarians would support. I think a lot of people who describe themselves as progressives would also support them.

The last one is kind of topical. See:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-07/billions-of-phone-calls-mined-by-u-s-seeking-terrorists.html

ETA: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_print.html

It's getting so you can't tell the players without a program.

Thu, 2014-05-15 12:17

ygtbk

And just for fun, someone besides me has decided that Michael Lind either does not understand libertarianism or is perhaps not arguing in good faith, this time smearing Bryan Caplan:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/378004/twisting-libertarianism-kev...

I think the idea of an ideological Turing test is very cool, but unlikely to catch on.