Liberals and Libertarians
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last modified 1/25/96
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Is there anything GOOD about the Non-Libertarian FAQ?
Actually there is. For instance, towards the beginning of the document Mike Huben writes:
Evangelists (those trying to persuade others to adopt their beliefs) generally have extensively studied which arguments have the greatest effect on the unprepared. Usually, these arguments are brief propositions that can be memorized easily and regurgitated in large numbers. These arguments, by the process of selection, tend not to have obvious refutations, an d when confronted by a refutation, the commonest tactic is to recite another argument. This eliminates the need for actual understanding of the basis of arguments, and greatly speeds the rate at which evangelists can be trained.
Despite the generally offensive tone, the first part of the above characterization is an accurate description of how all interested groups -- not just libertarians -- hone and develop their arguments over time on the Net and in real life. I think this process is generally applicable to all groups that have any sort of agenda they are trying to advvance. People arguing in favor of gun control do this. People arguing against gun control do it. Libertarians, conservatives, liberals and populists all do it. Even Mike Huben does it. There is a sort of natural selection at work here, a survival-of-the-fittest process that goes on even without conscious effort on the part of the participants.
Here's how it works: If you post an argument on talk.politics.misc and that argument gets brutally shot down, you tend not to make the same argument a second time. Similarly, if you come up with an argument that forces people to think in a new way, if people read your post and tell you by their response that you have helped them see through your eyes, you will tend to remember that argument and use it again in the future. Through this process the best -- meaning most successful -- rhetorical arguments survive and the weakest ones die off. Mike Huben seems to have noticed that the population of libertarian arguments on the net is extremely healthy and tends to kill off competing arguments with a high rate of success. Huben hopes to kill some of the more effective libertarian memes in order to allow repopulation of a few native species. :-)
He often doesn't notice that he is using the same tactics he ascribes to his opponents. ("Taxation is theft," proposes an unnamed source he quotes. "Property is theft!" responds Mike Huben. They call him a statist, he calls them evangelists. Sigh...)
But his approach outlined above and elsewhere in the document is worth thinking about whenever you spot an argument between two sides that don't appear to be really listening to one another. Just keep in mind that it applies at least as well to liberal evangelists as it does to any other group.
What else is good about the Huben Non-Libertarian FAQ?
The fact that it really *is* a sort of FAQ makes it useful. A traditional FAQ is supposed
to be a distillation of the collective wisdom of the readers of a newsgroup and Huben's
piece does not do that. Instead, what it distills and collects in one place are many of
the
arguments that are frequently made by NON-Libertarians. Huben's arguments are not
definitive or unanswerable, but they do nonetheless appear frequently on the Net. For that
reason, a reading of his document plus this one in combination could give a new reader a
sense of where the differences lie between the Hubens of the world (or at least the Hubens
of the net) and the rest of us. An ocasional reading of that document plus this one might
enable thinkers on both sides to avoid a few wrong turns.
What is Libertarianism?
Libertarians wish to build a society based primarily on voluntary rather than involuntary
relationships between individuals. Libertarians share with liberals a concern for freedom
of expression. Libertarians share with conservatives a concern for free enterprise. The
result of this mixture is a political philosophy which favors as little government as
possible. Thus, "Socially liberal, fiscally conservative," is a loose
description. According to recent Gallup and Times-Mirror polls between 8% and 22% of
Americans currently fit in this category and that number is on the increase. On Usenet and
among computer users generally the proportion of libertarians is much higher than in the
population at large.*1
Although a high percentage of the population favors liberta rian reforms -- anything that involves shrinking government and giving more power back to individuals can be categorized as such -- a relatively small number of people have thought through these beliefs and taken them to their logical conclusion, which is that we should rely on government force to do really very little at all.*2 The position of the Libertarian Party is that apart from the court system, police, and national defense, most of what the government currently does should rather be done by private, voluntary organizations if it is to be done at all. Registered Libertarian Party candidates for office received about two million votes in the last major election. I would guess that this variety of libertarian currently represents about 2% of the population.
*1 Evidence of overrepresentation: whenever
presidential polls are held on the net the libertarian candidate tends to win or do
extremely well, but in "the real world" he tends to lose, and rather badly at
that.
*2 Henry David Thoreau's _Civil Disobedience_ is
an example of a
thoughtful individual reaching this conclusion.
Libertarianism in One Lesson
One problem with political debate on Usenet is that it lends itself well to short,
oversimplified arguments. There simply isn't enough time or space in net postings to fully
explore the ideas behind all the assertions being made. When defending a given position a
poster inevitably has to make some assumptions about what the other guy already knows in
order to avoid boring him to death. But when you want to explore ideas in greater depth
there is no substitute for reading an actual book. Book authors have the luxury of being
able to start at the beginning of an argument, proceed leisurely through the middle of it,
and eventually arrive at a conclusion. Book authors have a larger canvas to paint in. They
can take more time to consider all the ramifications of each argument. So it isn't
surprising that Libertarians on the net might recommend that someone who is seriously
interested in a given topic actually read a book on the subject.
A number of posters have suggested that Mike Huben read a book by David Bergland titled Libertarianism in One Lesson. Bergland was the Libertarian Party's 1984 candidate for President, and wrote a good book. The book is short, simple, to the point, a nd does a decent job of presenting libertarian views in contrast with other views on a variety of subjects. So here is what MH says about the book in his FAQ:
27.Haven't you read "Libertarianism in One Lesson"?
Every belief system has its evangelistic writings, designed to help convince or draw in new members. The Campus Crusade for Christ uses "Evidence That Demands A Verdict", Scientology uses "Dianetics", and libertarians use "Libertarianism in One Lesson".
All of these books are very convincing-- in the absence of counterargument. However, they are easily rebutted by skeptics because they MUST omit the exceptions to their point of view to be convincing.
[...]
Any time I read how simple it is to understand the world through system X, I know I'm dealing with a convert from evangelistic writings. They blithely assert that their explanations show the true cause of current problems. And the key to showing them to be wrong, is to show that there's more complexity to the world than is encompassed by their simplistic explanations.
Note here what MH does not do. He claims that the book is easily rebutted by skeptics, yet he fails to actually do any rebutting. There's a good reason for this, which is that he hasn't read the book. That's right, he is willing to compare this book to "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" (a creationist tract) sight unseen.Worse still, he implies that the people who read _LIOL_ must be mindless zealots and even lists the book as a source!
So in response, I would note that the fact that a book is influential, wins many people over to its point of view, is easy to read and is "very convincing," is simply not evidence that that book is wrong. Given that by MH's account dozens of libertarians have referred him to a book written by someone they find convincing or informative, he would do well to _read that book_. Just as skeptics on talk.origins respond to Velikovsky himself rather than the people who quote him, MH should do the same with libertarianism. If he is unable to do so then all he is demonstrating is that some libertarians -- based on comments often taken out of context from a long-dead Usenet thread -- can be made to sound like poor arguers for a possibly correct philosophy. What he seems to want to prove is that libertarians are arguing for an incorrect philosophy, but that can1t be done unless he is willing to go to the sources.
When it comes to something as complex and as complete as a politica l philosophy, we can1t spoon-feed you every idea. If you want to confront the issues head-on and actually understand the reasoning behind the debates, you need to read some actual books on both sides of the issue. Read Libertarianism In One Lesson; you can order it from Laissez-Faire Books at 1-800-326-0996. Or read Harry Browne's new book; you can find it in your local bookstore. Draw your own conclusions.
If We Didn't Pay Taxes...
Mike Huben writes:
20. Think how much wealthier we'd be if we didn't pay taxes.
This is a classic example of libertarians not looking at the complete equation. If taxes are eliminated, you'll need to purchase services that were formerly provided by government.
This response is an example of not looking at the complete equation; it ignores that a great many of the "services" provided by government do not need to be provided at all and therefore the corresponding expenses would disappear entirely. For instance, over half the prisoners in the federal prison system are there for non-violent drug-related offenses. Most commentators on Usenet from all sides of the political spectrum favor legalization of drugs; even the Liberalism FAQ which Huben cites takes that position. But if governmental persecution of non-violent dru g users goes away, there will be no corresponding private expense.
It is in the nature of government that half the new programs created each year are designed to fix problems created by last year's new government programs. So after sixty years of government growth we now find ourself in a situation where there may be five government programs to subsidize tobacco and another five programs to encourage people not to smoke. There are programs that drive up the cost of food to protect some farmers and then there are programs that subsidize the cost of food because poor people can't afford it now. And programs that protect other farmers from growing broke because the first programs drove up the cost of the land.
When you privatise government, most of the programs or combinations of programs that are completely useless or counterproductive will simply go away. Without the Department of Agriculture no private company would be likely to step in and lose vast amounts of money in the commodities market just to make sure that poor American consumers continue to pay twice the world market rate for sugar. Instead of that, the price of sugar will drop in half. The price of peanut butter will drop by 2/3rds. It will once more be legal for a California grocer to buy ice cream from Canada and milk from Wisconsin.
Finally, according to "Friedman's L aw" (named after the libertarian nobel-prize-winning economist Milton Friedman) any services which we do still require will cost about half as much to provide in a free market as they did under government. In short, we would indeed be a lot better off if we did not pay taxes. There would be more abundance; we would be better able to provide for those in need, and those in need would be better able to provide for themselves.
The World's Smallest Political Quiz
Mike Huben writes:
31.The World's Smallest Political Quiz. [Nolan Test]
This libertarian quiz asks a set of leading questions to tempt you to proclaim yourself a libertarian. The big trick is that if you answer yes to each question, you are a macho SELF GOVERNOR: there is an unspoken sneer to those who would answer anything else. It is an ideological litmus test.The most obvious criticism of this quiz is that it tries to graph the range of politics onto only 2 axes, as if they were the only two that mattered, rather than the two libertarians want the most change in. For example, if socialists were to create such a test, they would use a different set of axes.
The second obvious criticism is typical of polls taken to show false levels of support: the questions are worded to elicit the desired response. This is called framing bias. For example, on a socialist test, you might see a question such a s "Do you believe people should help each other?" Libertarians would answer "yes" to this question; the problem is the "but"s that are filtered out by the question format.
Many libertarians use this as an "outreach" (read: evangelism) tool. By making it easy to get high scores on both axes, subjects can be told that they are already a libertarian and just didn't know it. This is the same sort of suckering that cold readers and other frauds use.
The quiz in question attempts to place people on the Nolan Chart, a two-dimensional political spectrum invented by political scientist David Nolan in 1972. The accusations of deliberate framing bias are false with respect to the most common Advocates For Self Government version of the quiz. The Advocates' version tries very hard to make the distinctions meaningful and get a good spread of results, because if the quiz were biased in any consistent direction it would lose most of its predictive power and people could shrug it off as MH seems to want to do. Toward t hat end, the wordings and topics were carefully selected so that nobody would score at the very top who was not absolutely a libertarian, and also selected so that the right and left are pretty consistent with the opinions of people in those categories . To accomplish this there are even a few "weed-out" questions in both categories that almost nobody answers yes to.
Tests which are designed to show false levels of support (framing bias) generally exclude the middle, which forces people to make yes/no statements about fuzzy subjects. But the World's Smallest Political Quiz does not do this; instead it includes a "maybe/unsure" category and explicitly asks respondents to pick that answer if they have any problems with the nature of the question.If you answer maybe/unsure on all the questions you end up with a score right in the middle which does not make you a libertarian. So the "but"s are NOT filtered out by the question format after all; in fact they are an important part of the scoring.
Now, there might well be some versions of the test out there that are biased in the way MH describes. But the most popular version of the quiz is not top-biased. In any case, a more accurate response would note that there are a variety of Nolan tests out there and that anyone who gives such a test to real people (non-compute r people, that is) will find a wide range of responses. NONE of the questions are obviously YES to all people, and most of them are obviously NO to most politicians. Take the test on behalf of Clinton or Bush or Reagan or any other public political figure answering as you think he or she might based on their actions and positions, and I can almost guarantee you will get an answer below the middle line.
As for the choices of axes, one would be hard-pressed to find a better choice for a 2-D graph that includes within it both the traditional right-left axis and a new separate set of polar opposites (up/down) for the "reformers" and the "hard liners" in the Chech Republic. The reason Gallop and Times/Mirror are using this model is that it works. It says something useful about the distinctions between various political groups and is much better than the simple one-dimensional "left-right spectrum" that it replaces.
Incidentally, the on-line World's Smallest Political Quiz at "http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html" is now one of the most popular sites on the Web, and well worth the trip if you haven't been there yet.
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