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The recent kerfuffle with Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has highlighted the massive problems inherent in libertarianism. Over the past weekend, I decided to explain this failure, and then move on to the more interesting question of “why do people still advocate these philosophies?”
First, why do communism and libertarianism fail? John Scalzi, in a comment to his thoughts Dr. Paul’s case of Foot-in-Mouth, said that (I paraphrase) “libertarianism and communism are both ideologies that only work if at some point human behavior fundamentally changes.”
Communism says “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Well, the dirty little secret of communism is that humans are all capitalists. Left to our own devices, our needs are infinite and we’re only able to show up sober to the Yugo factory about half the time.
Libertarianism says that, if left to their own devices, people will compete with one another on the basis of rational, long-term and ethical decisions. The dirty little secret of libertarianism is that we don’t always make rational, long-term or ethical decisions. Rational is easy – for reasons from not paying attention to emotions (and racism is an emotion) to sheer ignorance, sometimes we make non-rational decisions. As far as long-term and/or ethical, well, in a modern society there are many transactions where one will never see the counterparties again, and the “rational” or more profitable decision may be to give the other guy the shaft. (See also, Madoff, Bernie.)
Lastly, competition is hard. Cartel, collusion and cheating are easy. Adam Smith said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” - A Wealth of Nations In short, both ideologies replace how real people interact with how people "should" interact.
Both communism and libertarianism also share a common misunderstanding of government. To a communist and a libertarian, government is somehow apart from business. To a communist that’s good and to a libertarian that’s bad, but they are both wrong. First, the historical legal separation between government and business is a modern thing, seen really as an outgrowth of Victorian England. Prior to that, the king and the nobles (AKA “the government”) were supposed to live off of their “businesses” AKA the land and farming.
More to the modern point, the people in business and government are really the same. Not just the same as in same motivations, but same as in alternate working between business and government. Even somebody who has always been in government went to school with, is related to or otherwise has close contact with people in business. Attempting to somehow segregate these functions while ignoring the interrelationship is a recipe for failure.
So why do people still advocate for communism and libertarianism? That’s tomorrow’s blog.
First, why do communism and libertarianism fail? John Scalzi, in a comment to his thoughts Dr. Paul’s case of Foot-in-Mouth, said that (I paraphrase) “libertarianism and communism are both ideologies that only work if at some point human behavior fundamentally changes.”
Communism says “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Well, the dirty little secret of communism is that humans are all capitalists. Left to our own devices, our needs are infinite and we’re only able to show up sober to the Yugo factory about half the time.
Libertarianism says that, if left to their own devices, people will compete with one another on the basis of rational, long-term and ethical decisions. The dirty little secret of libertarianism is that we don’t always make rational, long-term or ethical decisions. Rational is easy – for reasons from not paying attention to emotions (and racism is an emotion) to sheer ignorance, sometimes we make non-rational decisions. As far as long-term and/or ethical, well, in a modern society there are many transactions where one will never see the counterparties again, and the “rational” or more profitable decision may be to give the other guy the shaft. (See also, Madoff, Bernie.)
Lastly, competition is hard. Cartel, collusion and cheating are easy. Adam Smith said, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” - A Wealth of Nations In short, both ideologies replace how real people interact with how people "should" interact.
Both communism and libertarianism also share a common misunderstanding of government. To a communist and a libertarian, government is somehow apart from business. To a communist that’s good and to a libertarian that’s bad, but they are both wrong. First, the historical legal separation between government and business is a modern thing, seen really as an outgrowth of Victorian England. Prior to that, the king and the nobles (AKA “the government”) were supposed to live off of their “businesses” AKA the land and farming.
More to the modern point, the people in business and government are really the same. Not just the same as in same motivations, but same as in alternate working between business and government. Even somebody who has always been in government went to school with, is related to or otherwise has close contact with people in business. Attempting to somehow segregate these functions while ignoring the interrelationship is a recipe for failure.
So why do people still advocate for communism and libertarianism? That’s tomorrow’s blog.
