I have these little moments of clarity in which I think I understand everything. I’m having one now, so I have to keyboard fast before it fades.
In an essay at The Guardian, Madeleine Bunting writes,
This humbling evidence of our hopeless decision-making exposes consumer capitalism as not being about millions of independent decisions of individuals expressing unique identities, but about how social norms can be manipulated to create eager shoppers.
In a nutshell, why “libertarianism” doesn’t work.
I’ve long had a kind of anthropological interest in Reason magazine. Reason is a libertarian publication that has as its motto “Free Minds and Free Markets.” I had a free subscription for a while, and reading it always gave me an urge to put the lot of the staff on a couch, Ã la Freud, and ask them how they felt about their mothers.
The issue with the Reasonites is not intelligence. Some righties are just bag-of-hammers stupid, yes, but the writers of Reason are articulate and capable of showing insight as long as they aren’t writing about, you know, politics. Or economies. In those contexts, “free market” ideology has so shackled their brains that they can’t critically think their way out of a wet paper bag.
Take this article by Damon W. Root, which is one of the most stunningly wrong-headed things I’ve read on the Web in quite some time:
Chip Berlet, a senior researcher at the liberal think tank Political Research Associates, went even further than that, telling New America Media: “For over 100 years—more like 150, you’ve had these movements, and they came out of the Civil War. It is a backlash against social liberalism and it’s rooted in libertarian support for unregulated capitalism and white people holding onto power, and, if they see themselves losing it, trying to get it back.” …
… Perhaps Berlet should consider the career of South Carolina’s Benjamin “Pitchfork” Tillman (1847-1914), a leading progressive who railed against the sins of “unregulated capitalism” while preaching the salvation of white supremacy. An ally of the agrarian populist William Jennings Bryan, Tillman supported antitrust laws, railroad regulations, the free coinage of silver, and a host of other progressive panaceas. He first entered politics as a member of the Red Shirts, a Klan-like terror group that “came out of the Civil War” to menace African Americans during the early years of Reconstruction. When President Theodore Roosevelt entertained the black leader Booker T. Washington at the White House in 1901, Tillman served as a de facto spokesman for the Southern opposition, declaring: “The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again.” It’s hard to imagine a nastier threat of political violence than that—and Tillman is obviously nobody’s idea of a libertarian.
Jeez, where do I start — I’m not even going to address the crass intellectual dishonesty of defining “progressivism” purely in terms of regulation of capitalism, except that it’s a standard lie righties tell themselves to make the world a simpler place to understand. Sorting everything in into simple binary piles of good-bad, us-them, capitalists-everybody else, is a grand way to conserve cognitive resources, although it doesn’t tell you much about the real world.
Second, if you know anything at all about the antebellum South and the passions and ideas that inflamed into the American Civil War, you should know that 19th century southern whites were anti-capitalists. Indeed, you could define the secession movement of 1860 and 1861 as a libertarian revolt against capitalism. It would be a stretch, but not nearly as big a stretch as defining Benjamin “Pitchfork” Tillman as a “progressive.
By 1860, the northern states were well into the industrial revolution, while the South remained stuck in pre-industrial agrarian mode. More and more damnyankees were leaving the farms and making a living either by getting jobs in industry or starting a business. But the slave economy of the South did not allow capitalism to gain a foothold, because goods and services were either imported or performed by slaves.
The enormous majority of southern whites were illiterate dirt farmers (or “yeoman” farmers, in the vernacular of social historians), not plantation owners or slave owners. But these fellows largely bought into the southern ideal of being one’s own man (women not being full citizens yet) on one’s own property. The northern proclivity for getting jobs and working for someone else was sneered at as “wage slavery.”
So, 19th century Southern culture was thoroughly anti-capitalist. However, you could argue that it was very “libertarian” in that it also was anti-Big Government. The Confederate Constitution is one of the most libertarian political documents America every produced. The Confederate ideal was all about weakening the federal government in favor of states’ rights and neutering the power of government generally to interfere with what a man did on, and with, his own property. The election of Abraham Lincoln represented, to them, the ascendancy of big-government tyranny that would interfere with their freedom to live as they wished.
The hot issue of the 1860 wasn’t just slavery; it was slavery in the territories. The popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin notwithstanding, most white northerners really didn’t care if the southerners kept slaves, so long as slavery was kept out of their neighborhoods (which was an issue in the Dred Scott decision, which determined that a slave remained a slave even if he was taken into free territory). But northerners were passionate about keeping slavery out of the territories, which at that point was most of the country west of the Mississippi, because if slavery moved in, the possibilities of entrepreneurship would be canceled out.
Plantation owners, on the other hand, came to believe that if slavery couldn’t be spread into the territories it eventually would die out. So every time a new state was admitted into the Union, the whole nation would get into an uproar over whether the state would be “slave” or “free.” A very bloody mini-Civil War was fought over the admission of Kansas as a free state (finalized in January 1861), for example. There had been several compromises over the years that postponed civil war, but by 1860 the population of the U.S. was poised to spill over into the vast western plains and mountains in a big way, and a decision had to be made. Clearly, the country could not survive divided against itself, half slave and half free.
So the Civil War was fought, and two of the reasons the South lost was (1) lack of industrial resources, and (2) states’ rights. Jefferson Davis couldn’t get the state governments to work together to maximize federal resources as well as Lincoln could.
The bottom line is that for an old Confederate — and, later, a leading proponent of Jim Crow — like Tillman to be defined as a “progressive” because he didn’t mind some regulation of capitalism is beyond bag-of-hammers stupid. It reveals a deep delusion brought on by seeing everything through a thick fog of ideology. There are no “free minds” at Reason magazine.
The very fact that Tillman opposed Theodore Roosevelt should have been a clue, because in his domestic policy ideas TR was one of the most progressive presidents we ever had. Indeed, some of us see TR’s New Nationalism speech, delivered after he left the White House, as the foundation of American liberalism.
OK, so I got into the Civil War and almost forgot where I started. Going back to Madeleine Bunting, who is one of my favorite writers at Comment Is Free — she writes about new trends in psychological and sociological scholarship, which argue that we are not the free thinkers we think we are. We are all, in fact, programed by our culture and upbringing and easily manipulated by many forces within our societies. Intellectual autonomy is a delusion.
(In short, what the Buddha taught 25 centuries ago. Nice to see the West catching up.)
The libertarian/Randian argument that free people making independent and rational decisions about their own economic self-interest will naturally create self-sustaining, healthy market and community systems that need a minimal amount of government regulation. The empirical fact that such an ideal doesn’t work in the real world never sinks in. The fact is that few of us make genuinely independent and rational decisions, but rather stumble through life in a semi-awake state, being jerked around like puppets by many forces within and without. And it takes enormous effort to break through the fog and see that.
It’s so much more comfortable to cocoon yourself in a place where you are always right, because your ideological interface allows you to manipulate reality any way you like. But some of us don’t call that “freedom.”
(I believe the date you meant for Kansas was 1861?)
Not only was Root misguided about 19 Century history, but it was a stupid way to argue even if he was right. Just proving that a ‘progressive’ could be a racist ass doesn’t prove anything about whether ‘conservatives’ could also be racist asses. It’s like replying to someone saying “I don’t like dogs, they bite” by saying “Yeah, well, snakes bite too, you know, and some of them are venomous!” What does that have to do with dogs, or why I don’t like them?
It’s clear that, in Root’s not-independent mind, proving that a ‘progressive’ has certain qualities is a proof that a ‘libertarian’ couldn’t also have those qualities.
Which to my not-independent mind is just plain weird.
(date for Kansas fixed, thanks)
It’s like replying to someone saying “I don’t like dogs, they bite†by saying “Yeah, well, snakes bite too, you know, and some of them are venomous!†What does that have to do with dogs, or why I don’t like them?
Yeah, the very fact that Root felt compelled to defend “conservatism” or whatever he was defending by such an absurd argument reveals his mind is not free at all.
“Plantation owners, on the other hand, came to believe that if slavery couldn’t be spread into the territories it eventually would die out.”
I literally have a stack of history books that I’ve been reading for the better part of the last month. They are all written with the intent of correcting one’s education probably learned in grade and high school. (ex: Lies my teacher told me: everything your American history textbook got wrong; After the fact: the art of historical detection, etc.) and they all do say that slavery was the real reason for the Civil War, but not in the same context as you suggest. (I may need to re-read those chapters to be sure, but…)
I’m open to learning, so if you can provide either the book or a link that backs up your explanation of the South fearing that slavery would die out, I would love to read it.
On a side note, oddly enough, your stipulation supports Ron Paul’s assertion (and I paraphrase) that the Civil War was unnecessary because, eventually, slavery would have gone away on it’s own terms. Not sure what that means, as I’m no supporter of his, but it does seem to mean he may have a point.
Chris — the fear among southern secessionists was that if a majority of the territories was carved into free states, eventually abolitionists would dominate Congress, and there would be a big enough majority to enact a constitutional amendment ending slavery. (Which in fact is what happened, but not because of the free states thing.)
You can get this from the secessionists themselves, if you want to wade through the “declaration of causes” documents written by secession conventions in 1860 and 1861.
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
“On a side note, oddly enough, your stipulation supports Ron Paul’s assertion (and I paraphrase) that the Civil War was unnecessary because, eventually, slavery would have gone away on it’s own terms.”
It probably would have ended sometime before the 20th century, but since it was the damnfool Confederates who started the war, it’s kind of stupid to say that the Civil War was “unnecessary.” Unnecessary for whom?
I’ve known a few (self-identified libertarians) and found them to be (hopelessly) idealistic in their firm belief that each individual is capable of living and even surviving apart and independent of anybody else. (Build your house, grow your food, be your own fire-fighting company, educate your children, provide for your own safety…you don’t need anybody and you don’t want anybody to need you.)
True, a libertarian advocates free will esp. as regards thought and conduct but advocating and actually being able to live, even survive in strict accordance with what one advocates will result in having to live a lie.
As its opposite, a necessitarian believes that all events, including acts of the will, are determined by anticedent causes; determinism. (Frankly, I feel better taking Buddha’s middle path through life.)
I’m pretty sure “Reason” magazine would quickly find its way into the trash at my house. I’ve long concluded that libertarians are blind to the web of life we all exist in (the Buddha and many others are right). They’re like five year olds in a way (which is probably insulting to five year olds).
The myth of the free man providing for himself is pervasive in the US. Out here in Northern California I’ve been using the recent wildfire to good effect to demolish that myth – I’ve been saying how lucky we are that we pay taxes to train firefighters and buy the equipment needed to control the fires.
Sometimes I’ll go on to talk about how fire companies worked under laissez faire rather than socialist organization. It really gets through to some people that capitalist fire fighting leads to fire companies blocking competitors from helping put out the fire, that free market ideology says they should expend some effort in fighting rival companies rather than fires.
I think Kevin Carson does some very nice writing on libertarian ideas that actually could be workable.
Even if you limit yourself to the economic sphere, it’s hard to argue that there was anything libertarian about the Confederacy. The CSA — the national government, not the state governments — had 70,000 public employees just two years after secession. It regulated heavily, inflated the currency, and soon was directly operating mills, factories, and foundaries. (Nor were southerners particularly consistent about states’ rights in the antebellum period. In the debate over the fugitive slave law, for example, it was anti-slavery northerners who argued for nullification. There’s a good discussion of this in Eric Foner’s Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men.)
Historians frequently group Ben Tillman with the southern progressives; the ones who don’t (e.g. Stephen Kantrowitz) tend to be the ones who have trouble with “progressive” as a category in the first place. It’s not surprising to see him at odds with Theodore Roosevelt; it’s not as though all the progressives subscribed to an identical platform. Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt were often at odds too, but they’re still the paradigmatic progressive presidents. At any rate, I don’t think any serious historian would deny that racism was an essential part of progressive-era thought (Wilson was certainly one of our most racist presidents), which is not to say that every progressive of the time was a racist.
Finally, I don’t see anything in Damon Root’s article that suggests that progressivism was purely a matter of regulating capitalism. What I see is a strange quote from Chip Berlet linking “libertarian support for unregulated capitalism” to “white people holding onto power,” and then Root noting that some of the preeminent promoters of white power were not, in fact, supporters of “unregulated capitalism.” Berlet is the one trying to sort the past into “simple binary piles of good-bad, us-them”; Root is complicating his narrative.
The CSA — the national government, not the state governments — had 70,000 public employees just two years after secession. It regulated heavily, inflated the currency, and soon was directly operating mills, factories, and foundaries.
The CSA had to jettison its own ideals as part of the war effort, and even at that the state governments balked, because that wasn’t what they had signed up for. For most of its existence the Confederacy was almost as much at war with itself as it was with the Union. The bottom line is that libertarian ideals don’t govern, especially during wartime.
In the debate over the fugitive slave law, for example, it was anti-slavery northerners who argued for nullification.
Yes, states’ rights were embraced by the Confederacy only when it supported the institution of slavery. When it didn’t, states’ rights flew out the window.
Still, I would argue that there’s a direct ancestry between Confederate ideology and today’s libertarianism. One evolved from the other. This is not to say that modern-day libertarians are pro-slavery or (necessarily) racist, but their anti-government ideology can trace its ancestry directly back to John C. Calhoun and the arguments against slavery and tariffs and several other antebellum issues. That’s essentially what Chip was saying, I believe.
it’s not as though all the progressives subscribed to an identical platform.
Of course not, and just about 19th century white man was racist by our standards. However, how do we define “progressivism” today? I submit that merely being in favor of some kinds of government regulation is not a definition of progressivism (which IS how Root implicitly defined it); nor is populism a synonym for progressivism.
So if the Confederacy “had to jettison its own ideals” after secession, and if the South embraced those ideals only opportunistically before secession, in what sense were they the operative ideals in the first place?
their anti-government ideology can trace its ancestry directly back to John C. Calhoun and the arguments against slavery and tariffs and several other antebellum issues
You could as easily “trace its ancestry” back to William Lloyd Garrison, who wanted to abolish government altogether. Much more easily, actually, since Garrison was anti-statist in general while Calhoun’s concern was elevating the power of the state governments at the expense of the federal government.
But the easiest argument of all would be to trace libertarianism back to the 19th century classical liberalism that it directly developed from. Classical liberal language was employed by some in the Confederacy — classical liberal arguments were common in many corners of 19th century American politics — but more often you heard paternalistic arguments for slavery that fly in the face of libertarianism.
So if the Confederacy “had to jettison its own ideals†after secession, and if the South embraced those ideals only opportunistically before secession, in what sense were they the operative ideals in the first place?
Libertarian ideals are not operative. There weren’t then, and they aren’t now, but that doesn’t mean the damnfools who write for Reason magazine would ever muster the intellectual honesty to admit that. If we were to limit our discussion only to policies that are operative, we couldn’t talk about libertarianism at all.
The Confederacy did not embrace those ideals “only opportunistically.” Read their bleeping Constitution. It’s a libertarian’s wet dream.
You could as easily “trace its ancestry†back to William Lloyd Garrison, who wanted to abolish government altogether.
Please. Garrison wanted to abolish the U.S. government because it supported slavery. He wasn’t against government per se.
Ah, intellectual dishonesty. You must be a libertarian.
But the easiest argument of all would be to trace libertarianism back to the 19th century classical liberalism that it directly developed from.
Certainly there are elements of classical liberalism in libertarianism, and I realize the more elitist and academic followers of libertarianism want to believe their ideology is just updated classical liberalism. But I’d say rank-and-file libertarianism taken as a whole, as it exists today, is more the bastard great-great-grandchild of the Confederacy than anything else. Or, you could argue that it’s classical liberalism heavily corrupted by the residue of the 19th century South.
I don’t see the implicit definition that you see. I see Root turning Berlet’s language back against him.
Root took Chip’s definition out of context (from an essay titled “Behind the Town Halls’ ‘Angry White Men‘”) and twisted it around as if Chip had said that today’s racism is the result of “support for unregulated capitalism,” which is not what Chip meant. Then he concluded that because he found a 19th century flaming racists who supported a populist agrarianism, that this constitutes “anti-black brutality on the American left.”
Root’s essay is essentially a temper tantrum trying to pass as “critical thinking.” It isn’t.
P.S. I don’t see the implicit definition that you see. I see Root turning Berlet’s language back against him.
It was once not uncommon to hear someone say Communism looks good ON PAPER, but when acted out in real life, it is unworkable. And yet, this is just as true as any form of lassez-faire capitalism as well. It may look good ON PAPER as well, but when you factor in human beings, its not so simple. The problem in the US is that we already have a strong inclination for Manichean thinking to begin with (perhaps this has its roots in Puritanism? I don’t know). What libertarians want is PURITY. It doesn’t exist, it never did, it never will.
To quote a lengthy passage by Simone Weil:
“In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. To keep to the social level, our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities. This is illustrated by all the words of our political and social vocabulary: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property, democracy. We never use them in phrases such as: There is democracy to the extent that… or: There is capitalism in so far as… The use of expressions like “to the extent that” is beyond our intellectual capacity. Each of these words seems to represent for us an absolute reality, unaffected by conditions, or an absolute objective, independent of methods of action, or an absolute evil; and at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever.”
I’ve known a few “libertarians,” their philosophy is truly, I should be able to do anything I want. You shouldn’t.
WOW! So many complications here. Too many.
Libertrians, live by your mantra’s.
Build your own Highways and roads. No sneakin’ across federal, state or local ones!
Build your own electric grid/communications supply.
Build your own water supply.
Build your own school’s, fire and police companies.
Create your own senior-care system.
Your own disability.
Your own medical care
Go ahead. Duplicate everything that’s already there for you. How many dollars does that save you? ZIPPO! How much does it cost you? MUCHO!!!
But, you’ll be SO much more independent.
As for the problems of today vs. the pre and post Civil War era’s?
Jesus! Answer: NONE! (Except that the party’s switched and now the Rep’s are pro-discrimination, and for the most part, Dem’s are against it until it comes to health care), where they believe that you can’t have them nigger’s, spic’s, hebe’s, slav’s, women, gay’s, etc., havin’ no rights!
What would their right’s do to the rest of us and our rights?
Really! Increase them? No way. OK but, I just can’t give them “other” people the same right’s as I want. It just wouldn’t be right!!!
“Might makes right” is a pretty neat philosophy to live by– that is, when you are one of the ones with might.
Darwin wasn’t the one who came up with the phrase “survival of the fittest”– that was Herbert Spencer.
Garrison wanted to abolish the U.S. government because it supported slavery. He wasn’t against government per se.
It depends on what phase of his career you’re talking about. I’m referring to the Garrison who wrote this:
“Unquestionably, every existing government on earth is to be overthrown by the growth of mind and moral regeneration of the masses. Absolutism, limited monarchy, democracy – all are sustained by the sword; all are based upon the doctrine, that ‘Might makes right;’ all are intrinsically inhuman, selfish, clannish, and opposed to a recognition of the brotherhood of man. They are to liberty, what whiskey, brandy and gin are to temperance. They belong to the ‘Kingdoms of this World,’ and in due time are to be destroyed by the Brightness of the coming of Him, ‘whose right it is to reign;’ and by the erection of a Kingdom which cannot be shaken. They are not for the people, but make the people their prey; they are hostile to all progress; they resist to the utmost all radical changes. All history shows that Liberty, Humanity, Justice and Right have ever been in conflict with existing governments, no matter what their theory or form.”
I’d say rank-and-file libertarianism taken as a whole, as it exists today, is more the bastard great-great-grandchild of the Confederacy than anything else. Or, you could argue that it’s classical liberalism heavily corrupted by the residue of the 19th century South.
With all due respect, I don’t think you’re very familiar with the history of the libertarian movement. It has roots in all sort of places, from the Henry Georgists to the Gold Democrats, but the most important source is the classical liberalism of people like Herbert Spencer. You’ll find some rank-and-file libs today who try to cross-breed their libertarianism with neo-Confederate sympathies. (You’ll find libs who try to cross-breed their libertarianism with all sorts of stuff, from Rawlsian liberalism to Maoism.) But if you think the Confederates dominate the movement, you should explore a little further. Anyway, they aren’t the linear descendants of the old Confederacy so much as they’re a byproduct of the odd coalition that was the Goldwater movement.
I cannot comment on the Garrison quote because I don’t know the context. I repeat what I said before, that Garrison’s beef was with the U.S. government, because it supported slavery. This is Historical Fact. It’s also a fact that he publicly supported the Union during the Civil War, which is hardly something someone who hates all government would do. He also said,
This is not a man who was opposed to government per se.
This is why I am revoking your posting privileges. I don’t have time to deal with bullshit, and like most libertarians, you are intellectually dishonest and revise history and whatever else suits you to support the Almighty Ideology that enslaves your mind.
As for the rest of your arguments: The late 20th-century revival of anti-government ideology had its origins in the pushback against de-segregation, most especially when President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce de-segregation. I don’t have to look this stuff up in books, as I remember it, and I’ve watched it happen. You can drape all the high-flown if absurd economic theory over it all you like; it is what it is.
Thanks, Maha. This clarified for me most of the reasons I tend to zone out when Libertarians start droning on and on. Their “philosophy” just doesn’t take into account human behavior and history. Wishful thinking is dangerous without some perspective. People in power don’t share it or give anyone else a chance to accrue any. Libers forget that fact in favor of pushing their own utopian ideals. The few I’ve talked to are as stubborn as a mule and about as flexible.
I personally feel slavery is the best worst-case example of capitalism without boundaries.
Libertarianism like communism, may have worked quite well as a permanent philosophy, back in the Mesolithic period. Or maybe even the Neolithic.
But technology, concentrations of power and population, inequitable distribution of limited resources, and all that.. has really created a magnifier effect for the inevitable human faux pas. Libertarianism may have it’s moments, but such a simplistic ideology cannot solve all the issues that are coming at us at increasing speed.
I mean, what the hell are we supposed to do when the disgruntled replaced-by-a-robot former employee for the Rupert Murdoch XIII run Libertarian World Mega Corporation releases the self-replicating carbon eating nanobots? Cower in our little cardboard boxes?