Unforeseen Contingencies

Happy October!  "Reclaiming Libertarianism" month is upon us.  What's it all about?  Why libertarianism anyway?

Libertarianism is the only political philosophy that respects the rights of every individual, and it's also the only political philosophy consistent with the idea that these individual rights are co-equal across individuals, non-conflicting, and mutually compatible.  That's quite mouthful of jargon, but what it means is, "Freedom for the individual means freedom for everyone!"  In other words, libertarianism is that political philosophy that every individual is to be free to pursue truth, life, happiness, or whatever s/he chooses, so long as s/he respects (i.e. doesn't violate) the equal rights of others to the same.  It's a happy corollary that when individuals are free and their rights respected, the ensuing interactions create a positive-sum world.

This political ethic matters now, more than ever because we humans have a rapidly increasing mastery over our physical environment.  We have more ability, more wealth, and more power to act -- for good or ill --than ever before in history.  Consider, for example, information technology.  Individuals now have the ability to communicate almost instantaneously with others essentially anywhere in the world.  We can transmit news, art, ideas, instructions, financial capital, and cyber weapons simply by pecking away on a keyboard.  We can organize ourselves into clubs, government agencies, criminal syndicates, spontaneous 'organizations' like Anonymous, etc. to increase our power by working together.  The power of the individual, whether alone or contributed to a group effort, is greater than ever, and growing.  The same goes for other kinds of activity, other sorts of technology.

Great, our growing wealth and abilities are wonderful things.  But do we have a similarly growing ability to use these things wisely and decently, without doing great harm to ourselves?  In fact, I think there's more than a little evidence that we do (e.g. here and here).  But unfortunately, it's not really clear to most people what the institutional prerequisites for a peaceful, prosperous, successful social order are.  Instead, 21st century humans labor under primitive ethics coupled with confused economic and political doctrines, all of which enshrine, in one way or another, the principle that some people are properly prey for others.  The libertarian ethic sees society as an opportunity for of mutual gain, the alternatives devolve into zero-sum exchanges.  A zero-sum world in which humans are gaining increasing power is not a sustainable world, a world of mutually beneficial exchange is.  Or more bluntly, once humans reach a certain level of development, they'd better recognize each others' rights, because if they don't they'll destroy civilization.

So it's "our" contention that the world needs libertarianism like never before.  Furthermore, the world is ripe for it; I think it's fair to say that nearly everywhere in the world there's increasing dissatisfaction with the status quo, coupled with a desire for, well, what to call it but a "bourgeois" lifestyle (Deidre McCloskey's terminology).  And so, rising to the occasion, libertarian thinkers everywhere are preparing to stand up and explain these ideas and lead everyone to a better tomorrow and...

Uh, one problem.  Half of the libertarians seem to have gone entirely off the rails... a very vocal half.  Fiddle around reading "libertarian" websites and you'll find all sorts of bizarre things: neo-Confederate denunciations of Lincoln, 9-11 Trutherism, anti-vaccine nonsense, climate change denialism, idiosyncratic "theories" of mental illness, apologia for Putin, arguments for the moral equivalence of Nazi Germany-United States-Israel, and (especially) rabid, blind rage against anyone who dares offer a counterargument.  A sensible person, wondering what libertarianism is all about and trying to find whether it offers anything of value, would be so put off by this stuff that they'd forswear libertarianism as a kind of madness.  (This isn't hypothetical -- decent people occasionally ask me how I can be associated with such craziness.)  So right when the world most needs 'em, libertarians are going bonkers.

"We" at Unforeseen Contingencies have tried to expose some of this nonsense from time to time, and PL's excellent Post-libertarianism blog is now doing the same.  So for October, Unforeseen Contingencies will feature several pieces on where libertarians go wrong and why, as well as a few choice reviews of the crackpottier side of the libertarians.

Transcend the Madness!