Libertarianism's Worst Enemy is Not Big Government

I'm still a libertarian, although no longer a member of the Libertarian Party. It is not that simple to define this term; it's been used to describe a very wide range of political beliefs. Bob Barr is a supposed libertarian now, as is economist Milton Friedman.

The late Robert Anton Wilson, MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky, and much of the anti-communist left (yes there is such a thing) also are worthy of this label. The point that everyone seems to agree on is the rights of the individual.

I've tried to convince the liberals and leftists in my life (most of the conservatives I know are of the rational variety and seem to agree with libertarians on many key points) that libertarianism is not an anti-social ideology, that it's not strictly for the rich people who want to use drugs and have sex with hookers legally, or money-grubbing yuppies worried about their taxes.

I've explained that libertarianism is not just for people who "don't care about other people," and who "aren't very nice," as one liberal I'm very close to put it. The good-natured and kindly Drew Carey is a libertarian, and many episodes of the Drew Carey Show dealt with sticky civil rights issues in a light-hearted manner. I don't know Drew personally, but he seems like a very nice person. He just doesn't think it's a good idea to trust the government, or depend on it for anything.

I tell people that libertarianism simply puts the responsibility for caring about other people back on you. It's much easier to say that that "the government should do something about it," than to take any personal responsibility for your life, your community, your country and the planet. To be certain, libertarianism leaves open the option of not caring and doing nothing. Compassion can't be manufactured by a politician's decree, and charity is by nature voluntary and not something a government is really capable of.

I make the case that libertarianism is just a starting point; a basic level of human decency that is not seen on a global or national scale, but is seen between neighbors and friends everywhere, every day. Before we can speak of hope and change, of love for each other, of a good and kind world, we need to learn just to leave each other alone! Respect the baseline human rights; the lives, property, lifestyle choices and belief systems of others; it seems simple and almost easy. But our uniquely gifted yet lethal and self destructive species can't even get to that place.

The strongest rebuttals to these arguments consistently come from libertarians. Libertarianism on line seems to be dominated by the far right for the most part, and I'm not sure who bothers me more, the hard-line market fundamentalists, or the Libertarian Reform Caucus which in my opinion is in the process of gutting the Libertarian Party's platform of libertarian principles, and bringing in elements of social and religious conservatism. In the end I'm a leftist with right-wing sympathies. I realize there is no separating my right to live as I choose from the right of capitalists to make money without government interference.

However, the amount of pure bile and venom that pours forth at the suggestion that workers do have some rights (above and beyond the individual right to enter into a contract), when mentioned on a certain libertarian forum is frightening. The fact that the market fundamentalists often overlook is that massive strikes and boycotts are fair game under their own rules. It's not about "big government" anymore; it's about business, pure and simple. Without big government to turn to, the vulnerability of big business to such actions would drastically increase.

"Turning America over to the corporations" is not the only possible end result of a libertarian system, or a desirable one.

The late William S. Burroughs once said something to the effect of "the belief that people get what they want, and get what they deserve is most popular among people who have what they want and believe that they deserve it."

Exploiting people facing hunger and homelessness who are willing to work for any wage at all is permissible under free market principles. That doesn't make it OK. The use of property, capital, and power as weapons to control human beings doesn't respect the rights of the individual (especially where children are involved, but I guess if we got rid of those nasty old child-labor laws....); and when prison awaits those who fall into the lifestyle of the underclass, there is no real freedom.

Again libertarian dreams are contrasted with corporatist realities. And somehow, although much of big business can no longer survive without our tax dollars, this very taxation is justified with the notion that we cannot survive without Corporate America. Given the near-monopolies on necessities that exist at this point in history, maybe this is true. This does not mean that we are doomed to live as expendable corporate pawns; without our consent, our labor, and our spending, corporations cannot function either.

The true believers in the "The Market" can be addressed in the language of the market. When the working class stops waiting for business and government to clean up their own mess, then a few massive general strikes just for the hell of it might get the point across. Banks and credit card companies have way too much power, but I've done without either of them for long periods of time before. In the end they need us more than we need them. Can we turn on those for whom we slave, and tell them "You're fired!"?

Can you imagine just one day of nobody showing up for work (outside of health care, police, fire, and other emergency services), or a day of no one buying any gasoline?

People would have to start working together though, and somehow that idea offends people, like it's some kind of "commie" thing.

What good is individualism however when it manifests as a self-serving conformity and obedience? How is "going it alone" as a corporate pawn an expression of individual freedom?

Noam Chomsky, the foremost thinker of the libertarian left states it thus:

"Corporations are tyrannical organizations. They are totalitarian institutions. In fact, if you look at them...that what is a corporation...it is an unaccountable private tyranny in which power comes from above, from the owners and the managers, orders are transferred down below and inserted inside the system. You take your orders below and above and you transmit them below. At the very bottom people have the right to rent themselves to this tyrannical system. It is essentially unaccountable to the public except by weak regular career apparatus. In fact, it is a totalitarian institution."

If it is the right of business to exploit, it is the duty of workers to refuse to be exploited. If it is the right of corporate America to try to sell us crap, and enslave us with debt, it is our duty not to buy crap, and to pay cash when we actually need something.

The government cannot and will not straighten this mess out. It shouldn't even try to at this point. In the words of Drew Carey"

*"....As far as your personal goals are and what you actually want to do with your life, it should never have to do with the government. You should never depend on the government for your retirement, your financial security, for anything. If you do, you're screwed."

It's up to us now; it always has been.

References

Drew Carey quoted from Advocates for Self-Government www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/drew-carey.html

Noam Chomsky quoted on www.metaphoria.org/ac4t0507d.htm