From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Aug 22 2002 - 17:27:18 MDT
Mike Lorrey writes
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > Personally, I think this demand for perfection is the
> > worst problem of most ideologies today. The irony is
> > that libertarianism is based on liberal thought, and
> > that is one of the few systems that does not
> > presuppose people to be perfect or perfectible.
>
> On the contrary, it presupposes, at least in its classical
> liberalism incarnation, that all people (not just a hand
> picked few) are perfect enough, or perfectible enough with
> some education, to act in the interest of themselves and
> their society as co-sovereigns in a republican society.
This has, to me, always been the greatest flaw in libertarian
thought. Read book after book on libertarian (or minarchist)
thought and you'll find strikingly little discussion of culture.
Does one really believe that a primitive tribe of cannibals
somewhere, or the Mongols used by Genghis Khan, would have been
*capable* of participating correctly in a "republican society"?
Indeed, can one even claim for a moment that 500,000 typical
Japanese sequestered on another planet would or even could
implement a libertarian society exactly the same as a similar
group of French peasants?
For that matter, I've often wondered what would happen if a
great colonizing experiment could be set up on Mars, where
all those North American and Europeans who've been such great
exponents of minarchy and libertarianism could be given a
chance. Here is what would happen: although contentious,
and far from smooth, the experiment would be a success for
exactly one generation. Then the usual patterns of history
would slowly repeat themselves, possibly all the way through
the stages leading from tyranny to aristocracy, and then
finally to a democratic republicanism once again.
(This is *not* to say that I support neither minarchy or
libertarianism, and definitely believe that our societies
should *move* towards those goals. But only one small step
at a time is even feasible, let alone desirable.)
> It presupposes that people are perfect ENOUGH to be able
> to handle the powers that had previously thought to only
> be responsibly handled by a special few as Plato and
> other cynics of human nature have argued.
See? Once again, "all people" are being lumped together
indistinguishably.
> Modern liberalism has succumbed to this same cynicism
> about the average human, which is why it is no longer
> a truly progressive political force in the world.
I disagree. Liberalism sucks for a different reason.
Modern liberalism doesn't care to encourage individual
responsibility and personal freedom---it embodies the
notion that the collective is wiser or that the leadership
of the elites are necessary.
(Yes, in *some* societies that is true: you could not
have gone to a militaristic banana republic in the 1970s
and have expected them to be capable of democracy. That's
why I'm not even upset at Mushareff's seizure of power;
he may have had no choice given what the Pakistani people
are currently like and what the state of their traditions
and culture are like.)
But you can't really fault the liberals for having a low
opinion of most people. Been to a baseball game lately?
Sad to say, but if you take a small typical group of
British soccer fans or American sports fans and put them
on a desert island, the tough guys would take over, and
nothing resembling a middle-class town hall meeting would
ensue.
It's just that many libertarians and minarchists go to
far the other way---they assume that all peoples, all
ethnic groups, all traditions are equal. They're not.
Only a few areas of the globe today have cultures
capable of attaining republican democracy.
> > ### But it assumes your willingness to deny yourself
> > some simple and easy solutions to your problems, doesn't
> > it? You can't hope to gang together with a bunch of
> > other guys and extort cash (directly, if you are the
> > feudal type), in the form of entitlements (for the
> > social democrat), or the monopoly rent (for the
> > corporatist).
>
> Indeed, it is not the individual, but groups which
> classical liberalism and libertarianism distrust.
> Whether they be states (city, regional, national, or
> global) or other forms of corporation or association
> which accord or advocate special powers to some and
> not all, groupism is the enemy of individual liberty.
Yes, I do agree with that! We should move towards less
government (in the US and in other advanced countries),
and fewer laws.
I will admit to this: in almost every society, you can
begin to evolve towards more individual responsibility.
Just don't get impatient; be prepared to have to wait
several generations at least for the traditions to
develop.
Lee Corbin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:21 MST