This is no surprise, as libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society.
The most fundamental problem with libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. Simple physical security, which even a prisoner can possess, is not freedom, but one cannot live without it. Prosperity is connected to freedom, in that it makes us free to consume, but it is not the same thing, in that one can be rich but as unfree as a Victorian tycoon’s wife. A family is in fact one of the least free things imaginable, as the emotional satisfactions of it derive from relations that we are either born into without choice or, once they are chosen, entail obligations that we cannot walk away from with ease or justice. But security, prosperity, and family are in fact the bulk of happiness for most real people and the principal issues that concern governments.
Marxism of the Right
This article is not new, but it came to my attention through a video from Stefan Molyneux. Here is the video for those interested:
Stefan deals with the article from the perspective of a philosophical libertarian. I am a consequentialist libertarian, so I will deal with it from my perspective.
The first aspect is the argument that libertarianism is merely the mirror image of Marxism. Marxism champions altruism and collectivism while libertarianism champions selfishness and individualism. The truth is found somewhere between these extremes. Naturally, this truth looks identical to fascism. This is why I call many on the right "fasctards."
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about fascism:
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood. To achieve this, fascists purge forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration.
Now, read Locke's article again and tell me how what he advocates is any different from this definition of fascism. I can't tell any difference. Libertarianism is derided as decadence and degeneration repeatedly in the argument. Free markets are also denigrated in favor of state control. Locke would almost certainly want to distance himself from Hitler and Mussolini and make concessions and reversals and all the other bullshit he accuses libertarians of doing. See, I can play his game as well as he can.
The second aspect is the Burkean notion of statecraft as soulcraft. The belief here is that government makes people more moral. From this moral base, we derive freedom. The problem with this argument is that history shows that government lags behind moral revolutions rather than causing them. Slavery, Jim Crow, gays in the military, and other things show that moral revolutions begin with the people, and it is the government that is the last to change. In addition, when government does attend to the moral improvement of people, it fails spectacularly as we see in the failed experiments of Prohibition and the War on Drugs. Finally, government is quite adept at morally debasing people by making them dependent on welfare, promoting rent seeking, and training people to be aggressors and murderers either as soldiers or police officers.
The third aspect repeated again and again is that a libertarian society would be a morally degenerate society. But this is based largely on Christian morality. The internet is free and allows people to indulge in pornography or network with people for sexual activities. Beyond that, the internet has worked to topple governments, make governments more accountable, increase literacy and knowledge, bring families closer together who are separated by long distances, and on and on. The internet is largely a voluntary cyberworld, and it has had a tremendous moral impact. No central planning was required. Granted, you have spam and identity theft to contend with. But private internet security firms work day and night to minimize this harm. If we follow Locke's argument to its logical conclusion, the internet should be 90% child pornography now. This is not the case.
Freedom is not dangerous. Freedom is not the cause of aggression. This argument is false. No evidence can be presented that freedom turns people into criminals or that the lack of freedom will turn them into angels. What has been proven repeatedly is that governments can turn into criminal organizations using aggression against its citizens for nonviolent acts. The moral justification for this is to prevent something worse as a consequence. So, to protect the pot smoker from the dangers of marijuana, he needs to be incarcerated and subjected to anal rape. It is a ludicrous argument. If the punishment is worse than the consequences of the action, you aren't promoting morality. You are simply exercising immorality.
The final argument is that people exercise their freedom of choice by choosing not to be free. A classic example would be the fact that the road in front of my home was built by the state. I use that road, so I consent to using that road. Therefore, I consent to everything else. This is akin to saying that she consented to the date rape when he put the knife to her throat, and she stopped struggling. I think Stefan makes a similar argument. You are only as free as your options, and the State has a nasty habit of limiting those options. The justification then is that because people settled for an option other than freedom they must be rejecting liberty. But we can easily put that to the test to see if is true. For instance, let's give people the option to check out of Social Security. They don't have to pay for Social Security, and they forfeit all future benefits. Obviously, people of a certain age would immediately opt out while others would remain. But the government does not allow this option for the simple reason that the system would collapse as massive waves of young people opted out of that Ponzi scheme. You can apply the same logic to income taxes, the postal service, and all the rest. People prefer the better option, so government should allow people to pursue those better options that they find promotes their general welfare, security, well being, etc. The government does not allow this, so the idea that it governs by consent is a farce. Basically, people tolerate the government because the other option is bloody revolution.
In conclusion, I would say that Locke is arguing in favor of the fascism of the Right. He would be correct that libertarianism is a threat to this fascist impulse. The problem with fascism is that it leads directly to the consequences it is supposed to remedy which is moral degeneration and economic ruination. This is what we are witnessing now in the USA as corporatism, warfare, and the erosion of our civil liberties diminish this once great nation. If freedom made a nation weak, the USA should have been the weakest ever. If fascism makes a country strong, the Nazis should have won. For some reason, "decadence" has an odd habit of winning. Mr. Locke needs to rethink his vilification of libertarianism as the Marxism of the Right.
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