01.09.08
5 Common Libertarian Arguments Debunked: Part V – “The Value of Freedom”
Here’s the fifth and final installation of the “5 Libertarian Arguments Debunked” series. Today’s topic, argument number five:
5. The argument from liberty, which claims that freedom per se is intrinsically valuable – valuable for its own sake – and that the best political system is therefore the one that maximizes freedom.
Never let a libertarian be your banker. This one is attempting to limit how we can take our freedom. I like mine gently stirred, with cream, and a bit of sugar. Libertarians prefer their coffee freedom plain because they deny the existence of cream and sugar.
While I agree that “freedom” is valuable to a degree, there are other valuable things. You can have all the freedom in the world while living in a mud hut in the middle of Africa and be completely unhappy. Non – insane people do not want this.
If we should try to allow people to live the best lives they can, there are some cases where some rights may need to be taken away for the greater good. While this sounds a lot like something from 1984 (big brother IS watching you, after all), it’s really not that bad when you get down to it, and is something most people agree with.
People like their right to live well, and even if this means they give up their right to live horribly (they don’t), they don’t have a problem with it. let’s take a look at this as a list:
- People like living in a nice way
- The easiest way to live in a nice way is to have a government make things nice for you
- To do this, governments need to regulate some things
- People consent to having some things regulated in exchange for the good parts of society
- Therefore, the government can morally
have sex withregulate to the degree that the citizenship grants
Freedom is a good thing, but it needs to be combined with other good things in order to be part of the best political system.
01.04.08
5 Common Libertarian Arguments Debunked: Part IV – “The Social Contract”
On to part four of the series. Anyone who has read the prior entries is probably familiar with the way I’ve used the term “social contract”. Libertarians take the argument, and, as usual, come to an insane conclusion based on it.
The argument can be summarized by this:
4. The contractarian argument, which (greatly to oversimplify) argues in general that all moral claims rest on a (hypothetical) “social contract” between the individuals comprising society, and in particular that a libertarian society is what rational individuals would contract for. This sort of argument is represented by such libertarian theorists as Jan Narveson and James Buchanan.
As the author acknowledges, this has been simplified, but the core of the argument remains. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s article “The Definition of Morality”,
The term “morality” can be used either
1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forth by a society or,
- a. some group, such as a religion, or
- b. accepted by an individual for her own behaviour or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forth by all rational persons
The libertarian social contract argument seems to be using the second definition. What’s left to be argued is what is rational for a society.
Governments are supposed to serve the people. That is their purpose, after all. Therefore, the best system of government is the one which best serves the people. With a bit of modification, the argument I am about to present could be used to present socialism. Don’t worry, though. In Soviet Russia, argument makes you.
Laid out semi – formally, my argument is this:
a) The best system of government (or lack of) is the one which does the most good for its citizens.
b) Organized governments do the most good for their people.
c) A regulated capitalist economy does the most good for those who use it.
d) Therefore, if a, b, c is true, it is true that the best system of government is an organized government with a regulated capitalist economy.
Pretty straight forward, but that’s logic for you. It’s not a dump truck you can just pile assertions on. You need to keep the tubes clean. Premises b) was proved in Part II – “Inviolable Rights”. Premise c) was proved in Part I – “The Free Market”. Premise a) requires a bit more thought.
If a government (or non government) is supposed to be a moral body, it should try to do good, or at least try to prevent bad. An immoral government is something nobody (bar the occasional masochist) wants. Their purpose is to take care of the citizens, and you can’t very well ‘take care” of someone by shooting them in the face. Unless you’re Hitler (I had to mention Hitler, it’s necessary for all arguments to have at least one Hitler reference).
If a rational individual will choose the best government, a rational individual will not choose a libertarian non – government.
Check back soon for part 5, the conclusion of the series.
Go to:
- Part I – “The Free Market”
- Part II – “Inviolable Rights”
- Part III – “Cultural Evolution”
- Part IV – “The Social Contract”
- Part V
5 Common Libertarian Arguments Debunked: Part III – “Cultural Evolution”
In continuation of this five part series, today I will address the third of the most common libertarian arguments, and that argument is:
3. The argument from cultural evolution, associated with F.A. Hayek, who held that societies embody cultural traditions which compete with one another in a kind of evolutionary process, the most “fit” traditions – those most conducive to human well-being – being the ones that survive and thrive, driving their rivals into extinction, or at least onto the historical sidelines: hence capitalism’s victory over communism, a culture which respects private property, contract, and the rule of law being superior in cultural evolutionary terms to one which does not.
This argument is really quite strange. Please excuse me if I’ve misunderstood it, but I don’t speak gibberish. If what I see here is correct, the author is arguing that capitalism and “freedom” are better because cultures which contained these characteristics have been selected for, and are therefore “better” for its people.
The similarity to biological evolution is clear, but the conclusion is not. With evolution, the replicator (in this case, “Capitalism” or “Communism” are the replicators) which is best able to make copies of itself is the most successful. The comparison holds up to this point, to a degree. When we reach the “conclusion” (note that biological evolution doesn’t have an equivalent), the problem is apparent. TalkOrigins has a more in depth explanation of biological evolution.
The replicator best able to produce is not inherently “better” than another, at least in this case. Capitalism is not better than Communism (not quite opposites, socialism would be a better word for communism) because it reproduces better, it is better because it creates the greatest good for society.
Still, extreme capitalism (the economic side of libertarianism) is not necessarily the best option for society, either. Part I of this series goes into this in more depth. To reiterate, it’s not what’s the best, it’s what reproduces the best.
As with the previous arguments, this one is appealing on the outside, but lacking on the inside.
Part IV of the series will cover the contractarian argument.
Go to:
- Part I – “The Free Market”
- Part II – “Inviolable Rights”
- Part III – “Cultural Evolution”
- Part IV – “The Social Contract”
- Part V
01.03.08
5 Common Libertarian Arguments Debunked: Part II – “Inviolable Rights”
Yesterday, in Part I of 5 Libertarian Arguments Debunked, I debunked the utilitarian argument. Today, I will address the natural rights argument. The natural rights argument is thus:
2. The natural rights argument, which emphasizes the idea that individuals have inviolable rights to life, liberty, and property that it is morally wrong for anyone, including the state, to violate even for allegedly good reasons (such as taxation for the sake of helping the needy).
The author of this summary is clearly not a libertarian himself, though his observations seem to hold, and fit with my observations of libertarian debating style.
This particular argument is dependant on the assumption that there is nothing an individual can do to waive his rights in exchange for others if they so choose. In democratic countries, there exists a sort of unwritten contract between the government and its citizens. The citizens agree to allow the government to control certain aspects of their lives to improve their lives overall. While some government actions may be inconvenient for an individual, as a whole, the actions of democratic governments improve the lives of their citizens.
Looking at countries like the U.S., it can be hard to imagine a system more self serving. Still, it serves (this is not an endorsement of the U.S. government, only a remark on its few benefits). Without government, infrastructure does not develop, or develops very slowly. The industrialization of the U.S. was very much government controlled. While corporations may have done the actual work, the government paid the bills, or at least created opportunities.
Infrastructure (and government programs, something for which corporate equivalents are almost nonexistent) and scientific development usually go together. Difficult tasks call for easier solutions, and science is the way to find them. Advances in infrastructure and science usually improve the quality of life, and quality of life is what governments are there to improve.
Add it all together, and government intervention is a good thing in many cases, even if the contract it has with its citizens is unwritten.
Go to:
- Part I – “The Free Market”
- Part II – “Inviolable Rights”
- Part III – “Cultural Evolution”
- Part IV – “The Social Contract”
- Part V
5 Common Libertarian Arguments Debunked: Part I – “The Free Market”
The more conservative the right wing gets, the more liberal the left. Libertarianism is becoming increasingly popular, especially on the Internet. In my opinion, libertarianism takes both liberal and conservative too far.
Under many forms of the idea, libertarianism is just another word for liberal. A moderate libertarian might argue that people should be left to themselves when their actions do not harm others, and the free market should be maintained. This is generally a good idea.
Unfortunately, some go too far. “Extremist” libertarians, or – anarcho – capitalists as some have taken to calling themselves – claim that government in any form is “evil” or “immoral”. Here, I present responses to some of their most common arguments for this surprisingly popular viewpoint.
1. The utilitarian argument, the suggestion that a free market and free society best fulfil the goals – prosperity, alleviation of poverty, technological innovation, and so forth (Edward Feser, “What Libertarianism Isn’t”).
Superficially, this looks like a good idea, and I partly agree with it. “Free society”, taken to mean free speech and other similar liberties, is a very good idea. What isn’t a good idea is an unregulated free market. Don’t get me wrong – I like capitalism. I like to own stuff.
With any absolute economic doctrine (absolute socialism or absolute capitalism), there are inherent flaws. With capitalism, people best able to exploit others succeed the most. Needless to say, exploitation is a bad thing. With socialism, motivation is lacking. There are also issues with resources, but we’ll pretend we actually have enough for now. Soviet Russia, notably, overcame this lack of inherent motivation through widespread use of the AK 47.
Ideal economies aside, absolute capitalism (a fundamental tenet of libertarian thought) tends to lead to heavily unbalanced distributions of wealth. It’s common for libertarians to argue that the “free market will stabilize the economy”. This is a blatant falsehood. There is no magical free market fairy to swish her wand and take back all the money from the naughty corporations, and tiny imbalances in the economy would refill their pockets in short order.
It’s unlikely that we’ll ever find a perfect economic system, but we can certainly come close. Libertarianism seems to be shooting for the moon, because it’s way out there.
Check back tomorrow for part two of the series, or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Go to Part:
- Part I – “The Free Market”
- Part II – “Inviolable Rights”
- Part III – “Cultural Evolution”
- Part IV – “The Social Contract”
- Part V
