Category Archives: Libertarianism

June 12, 2017 by Steven Teles

Will Wilkinson has scaled the Olympian Heights of the New York Times for the cause of liberaltarianism and the greater glory of the Niskanen Center. But what is liberaltarianism? And who cares about it?

Speaking as a historically oriented political scientist, my first way of attacking this question is to ask where the object under examination came from. What is its origin? The term liberaltarianism was originally coined by my good friend, co-author, and co-conspirator Brink Lindsey over a decade ago in The New Republic. While Brinks objective in that article was to invite liberals into a coalitiona coalition that liberals like Jonathan Chait quite firmly refused to acceptI think the articles most immediate target was libertarianism itself. It defined a pole of libertarianism, around which those who were uncomfortable making common cause with conservatism could rally. Brink argued that libertarians should admit that they are not, as many of them had argued going back to the 1970s, equidistant from the two parties. They are natural allies with liberalsalbeit critical allies. Their alliance with conservatism was opportunistic, but their alliance with liberalism was on principle.

That pretty much describes where Will is coming from, as well as many of the other folks at Niskanen who came out of the libertarian network of organizations. For them, liberaltarianism is another way of saying post-libertarianism (a term first coined by our own Jeffrey Friedman). The purpose of liberaltarianism is to describe the political position you get to when youve become disenthralled with the mass of positions and alliances associated with institutional libertarianism but retain a substantial chunk of its underlying principles.

While Ive hung around with a lot of libertarians in my life and learned a great deal from them, Ive never been one of them. I am and (God willing) will always be a straight-ticket Democrat. So my path to liberaltarianism has a different trajectory than my co-conspirators here at the Niskanen Center. It is worth explaining why I now think liberaltarianism is a reasonable shorthand for my political positions, and what I think the philosophy has to offer for people who come more or less from my side of the fence.

I grew up knowing that I was a liberal, but also knowing that I was not quite like the other liberals I knew. This instinct was almost certainly hard wired, with sources that I may never get to the bottom of. But it meant that I was always drawn to liberals who got into fights with other liberals. In college that drew me to the Washington Monthly and its diaspora throughout the media landscape, and to the thinkers around the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). In graduate school I read and was deeply influenced by William Galstons Liberal Purposes, which in a very vulgar way you could think of as higher DLCism. I had not thought through exactly what my program was, but I knew what my tribe was. Much of my subsequent intellectual career has been devoted to figuring out the program that should go with the tribe.

That program, such as I have been able to develop it up until now, can be characterized as left-liberaltarianism. That is just a fancy way of saying that I come to the liberaltarian project not as a refugee from libertarianism, but as an internal critic of modern liberalism. Liberaltarianism, as I understand it, is thus Janus-facedit is not the median between conservatism and modern liberalism, for it has criticisms of both. The core of left-liberaltarianism is an effort to combine liberal principles of social justice with a respect for limited government, and a preference for a relatively sharp line between state and market, and between levels of government.

By limited government, I mean a government that operates as much as possible through relatively simple, transparent, direct means that are susceptible to political oversight and citizen comprehension. The primary defining attribute of the state is coercion, and liberaltarians prefer that it use coercion out in the open. In contrast to the increasing attraction of those on the center-left for social policy nudges, liberaltarianism has a preference for shoveslarge blunt uses of social authority. Instead of a proliferating mass of regulations to combat climate change, liberaltarians prefer a tax on carbon. Instead of a variety of different tax subsidies and clever devices to encourage people to save, liberaltarians have a preference for good old-fashioned tax-and-spend social insurance. In contrast to the confusing welter of rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank, liberaltarians favor blunt limits on bank leverage. The defining characteristic of all these reforms is that they are simple and rule-like, replacing administrative discretion wherever possible with blunt applications of coercion specified in law.

Transparency and simplicity are themselves powerful limitations on government. With rare exceptions, liberaltarians want rules that avoid the excessive entanglement of the state and market, and the interweaving of levels of government. Instead of governments that, at many levels and in subtle ways, sneak up on involvement in a particular social domain, liberaltarians want definitive decisions by the national government to intervene (or not). This serves to enhance political deliberation, since the decision to act must be clear and responsibility for results unmistakably affixed. When the national government operates by steering or nudging or partneringwhether with private firms or state governmentsit is unclear precisely who is to be praised or blamed, and it can become nearly impossible for legislatures or citizens to exercise effective oversight. In addition, especially in the case of partnering with private actorssomething mistakenly referred to as privatizationthis kind of interweaving of state and market creates powerful temptations toward the corruption of both. These temptations can be seen clearly, for example, in the Trump administrations still-vague infrastructure plans, which promise to turn $200 billion of taxpayer money into $1 trillion in projects by creating incentives, guarantees, and inducements for private businesses, rather than using direct government spending. Something similar can be said of proposals like that of the Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey, who advocatesa state investment bank for small businesses. The opportunities for the government to steer such projects to its political allies would be enormously temptingwhich is, in the Trump administrations case, almost certainly a feature rather than a bug.

This gets to a final feature of liberaltarianism, which is that it is especially sensitive to the ways that the state is not always an instrument of egalitarianism, but can be captured by the powerful and turned to their advantage. This is the subject of my forthcoming book with Lindsey, The Captured Economy. While the state is a potentially very powerful tool to enhance equal opportunity, it is also highly susceptible to the manipulations of those with economic and social power. As Brink and I argue, that influence is magnified in policy domains characterized by policy complexity and multiple, obscure institutional venues, which are easier for the wealthy to manipulate. Dentists, to take only one example out of many, are able to turn the regulatory system to their own advantage because the licensing boards that make the rules are so low-profile that they attract attention only from dentists themselves. Something similar typically characterizes other areas of upward redistribution, from financial regulation to intellectual property and real estate.

This vision of liberaltarianism, then, is primarily institutional in character. Back in the early twentieth century, Progressives who sought to increase the power of government to enhance social justice concluded that the only way to do that was to emancipate government at every level, to remove formal limits on the state (other than individual rights). But it turns out that a system of pervasive intertwining of the national and state governments, and the market and state, is one that is not particularly good for social justice, political accountability, or citizen engagement with politics.

One agenda for liberaltarianism, therefore, is to think about how to pursue important state functions in environmental protection, social welfare, and other areas in ways that are simpler, that sort out more cleanly who is responsible, and that involve the national government either in a way that occupies the field or that leaves matters for the market or state and local governments. We want a welfare/regulatory state governed as much as possible by law rather than administrative discretionrule-of-law big government, you might say. Often that will mean purer nationalization of functions, for example by nationalizing Medicaid (i.e., ending its status as a joint state-federal venture). But it will also mean reconsidering the mass of complex mandates and funding structures in K-12 education. It will mean trying to pull the national government out of the business of subsidizing private savings (through 529s, IRAs, 401ks) and just increasing social insurance. By doing soby sharply reducing the expectation of mass participation in private equity marketswe could also reconsider how we regulate finance, with less expectation that we need to protect unsophisticated investors. Other than preventing systemic risk (for example, through capital requirements) we could let markets rip more than we do now, since only the well-to-do would be significantly invested in them.

This is not the only vision of liberaltarianism. There are other visions that come more from the left, such as those that are primarily motivated by cosmopolitanism, or an aversion to paternalism. I am less convinced by those visions, although I think they are a necessary part of the larger conversations that should happen under the liberaltarian umbrella. I hope to address them in later posts.

Steven Teles is a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and Associate Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He is co-author (with Brink Lindsey) of the forthcoming The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Become Richer, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality, and (with David Dagan) Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration.

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How to Get to Liberaltarianism from the Left - Niskanen Center (press release) (blog)

Being Libertarian

The extent to which a state should exist Being Libertarian This has been a constant issue in the libertarian movement: between non-libertarians attacking our movement because they mistakenly view Somalia as an example of a failed libertarian state and the thriving size of the anarcho-capitalist faction in the ...

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The extent to which a state should exist - Being Libertarian

Paleolibertarian economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and progressive lawyer and internet troll Matt Bruenig, would appear to have little in common; yet they both have the same idea of what a libertarian world would look like.

In this two-part article (Part I is here), I argue that(1) the very idea of libertarianism that Bruenig claimslibertarians should be following (2) is not only compatible with, but looks like it would result in,Hoppes theorized libertarian society of the future; furthermore, while (3) Hoppes account of that societysuffers from serious flaws and errors, (4) Bruenigs account of that future society, being almost identical to Hoppes, has the same flaws and errors.

Hoppes vision of what a libertarian world of proprietary communities would look like seemsriddled with false assumptions. Let us examine a few:

(1) the restoration of private property rights and laissez-faire economics implies a sharp and drastic increase in social discrimination and will swiftly eliminate most if not all of the multi-cultural-egalitarian life style experiments.[1]

No; there is no reason discrimination would increase sharply or drastically. Some property owners might discriminate on this or that grounds, but there is no reason to think that everyone would: no reason to think that any original community would stop people of different races, religions, or sexual orientations, from living together in it. Nor is there any reason for a community to prohibit life style experiments, from same-sex marriage to rock n roll or hip-hop to marijuana use. Proprietary communities would be established for one reason only to protect the residents property rights, and with it the division of labor not for any of this other stuff.

(2) towns and villages could and would do what they did as a matter of course until well into the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States: to post signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and once in town for entering specific pieces of property (no beggars,bums, or homeless, but also no Moslems, Hindus, Jews, Catholics, etc.); to expel as trespassersthose who do not fulfill these requirements.[1]

Yes, they could; but no, they probably would not. Why would any town or village in 21st-century America do, or even care about, what towns and villages did in 19th-century Europe? In todays America, Moslems, Hindus, Jews (both Sephardic and Ashkenazi), and Catholics (both Hispanic andHibernian) live and own property in existing small towns and villages all over the country. Whyin the world would they agree to a community covenant whereby they immediately had their realproperty seized and were expelled?

If Hoppe wanted to live in a community with such rules, he would be free to join with other grumpy old white men, leave, and found his own community somewhere; but he would have no power in any existing community to impose such rules on others.

(3) They [these confused libertarians] fantasized of a society where every one would be free to choose and cultivate whatever nonaggressive lifestyle, career, or character he wanted, and where, as a result of free-market economics, everyone could do so on an elevated level of generalprosperity.[1]

Why not? The only necessary criterion, for allowing someone to live in a libertarian proprietary community, would be whether or not his behavior was nonaggressive (in the standard libertarian sense). Communities might also require residents to be productive to support themselves by labor and exchange but even this would not be a necessity: communities could well have consensual welfare arrangements to take care of the old, the sick, the orphaned, et al. There is no reason for anyone to care about other citizens lifestyle, career, or even character, beyond the requirements of standard libertariannonaggression.

(4) every neighborhood would be described, and its risk assessed, in terms of a multitude of crime indicators, such as the composition of the inhabitants sexes, age groups, races,nationalities, ethnicities, religions, languages, professions, and incomes. [] insurers would be interested in excluding those whose presence leads to a higher risk and lower property values.. That is, rather than eliminating discrimination, insurers would rationalize and perfect its practice.[1]

No. First, there is no reason nationwide or even statewide insurance companies would exist without the state. Second, even if they did, there is no reason to think they would want to replace their present-day actuarial methods with the ones Hoppe imagines. Third, even if somedid that, there is no reason to think community residents would want to deal with them. Theriskiest group is young people 16-24, who consistently have the highest violent crime rates; buthow many communities would agree to expel everyone in that age group?

(5) There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism will have to bephysically removed from society too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.[1]

No. The idea of expelling not just communists and parasites, but gays, hedonists, environmentalists, and even advocates of democracy is as silly as that of expelling all of the Hispanics and Irish. Would Hoppe be in favor of expelling someone who said things like the following?

For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary it is the very means of preventing revolutions and civil wars. It provides a peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority.[11]

If so, Hoppe would be in favor of expelling Ludwig von Mises.

How does Hoppe reach such strange and erroneous conclusions? Only by imagining that what he would do, if free of government coercion, to be the same as what everyone would do if freed from government coercion. How he manages to conflate those two different things seems to rest on onemore error that he makes:

(6) In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on ones own tenant-property.[1]

No, again. While communities with only one proprietor could conceivably exist, why would they? The first proprietary communities would be already existing communities with prior private property ownership, and they would be established specifically to defend that property. Why would their first act be to give up all their real property, along with their privacy and all otherownership rights, to someone else, even someone so eminent as a professor of economics from Nevada?

Rousseau believed that a social contract requires the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights,to the whole community.[12] Hoppe thinks they should be alienated to some sort of feudal lord instead. But there is no reason for the members of a proprietarycommunity to alienate any of their rights. Since, as Hoppe notes, the very purpose of the covenant [is]preserving and protecting private property, one would expect them to hang onto not only theirown real property, but as many rights to it as they could.

Since Bruenigs account of the libertarian future follows that of Hoppe, one would expect it to reflect all of Hoppes faults and errors. And indeed one would be correct.

One point needs emphasis. Bruenig considers Hoppe one of my favorite thinkers,[13] not because he has learned anything from Hoppe, but solely because of confirmation bias; because Hoppes views of libertarianism match Bruenigs own, already set views:

Whats interesting about Hoppe to me is that he sees exactly the things every critic of libertarianism sees. He sees that, in fact, totally unfettered private control over the resources of the world would be a brutal existence (if an existence at all) for the vast majorty ofpeople. Instead of denying these things are true (as many try to), he says they are absolutelytrue, and that constructing this private tyranny is precisely the point of libertarianism.[1]

So, while sometimes Bruenig hides his opinions of libertarianism behind phrases like according to Hoppe, those instances can be dismissed as mere semantic games. Bruenig is not merely describing Hoppes opinions, but also claiming that those opinions are fact and truth (or, in other words, Bruenigs opinions).

With that out of the way, one can turn to evaluating Bruenigs opinion of the libertarian future:

(1) a libertarian world is one in which we all basically live in these private gated communities that are generally managed by big landowners and their insurance companies (the insurance company is also the private police, by the way). The whole world will get chopped into what amount to gated communities, and insurance companies will decide who can live in them and who cant by looking at things like race, gender, class, age, and so on.[1]

No. While gated communities would probably exist in a libertarian world (and almost certainly would exist in Bruenigs Grab World), there is no reason to think the whole world will be chopped into them and that everyone would live in them. Neither is there any reason, or much likelihood,that insurance companies would be the ones to decide who lives in them. There is none at all tothink those companieswould become the police. Insurance companies are based on a profitable business model. An insurance company could see further opportunities for profit by getting into the police business; but so could any other company or entrepreneur.

Not only are most of Bruenigs assumptions here unlikely; two of them that we all will live in his gated communities, and that simultaneously his insurance companies will be deciding that a huge number of people cant live in them are also contradictory.

(2) [Insurance companies] biggest function will be to discriminate against people, and keep people of color, poor people, religious minorities, and so on from the good and civilized people.[1]

As noted, it is impossible both that everyone will live in Bruenigs gated communities and that many if not most people will be kept from living in them. To be charitable, Bruenig might be interpreted to mean (even though he doesnt say) that there will be separate gated communities catering to people of one color, one economic group, one religious minority, and so on. Theremight, but that would depend both on the strength of peoples prejudices, and on how much they value their prejudices over other things. One would expect both to be low in most communities, simply due to the fact that people with strong prejudices could go off and live in communities of their own.

(3) you cant be gay, polyamorous, a bum, or Jewish in this libertarian utopia.[1]

Why not? A person building and selling homes in a community would likely sell none to bums (if by that Bruenig means people with no money to buy them), but why would they refuse to sell them to the rest of Bruenigs list? How would they even know a persons religion or sexual partners without extensive and expensive background checks; and why would they take on that expense just to limit their customers? As noted, people who did care about those things could ghettoize into non-gay or non-Jewish communities, but that would simply lower anti-gay and anti-Jewish prejudice in thecommunities they left.

Besides, as Walter Block points out, suppose that the town or village passed a law prohibiting the entry of a bum, a Jew, or a Christian into the town, but that one of the local property owners wanted to invite such a person into his house or store. Then, for the town council to forbid this access would be a violation of private property rights.[15] Similarly, if a builderwanted to sell to a gay or a Jew, for a community government to forbid that would actuallyviolate property rights. Remember that the purpose of these communities would be defend property rights, not to violate them.

(4) in a world of a true lock down on private property, with no regulation on how such property might be used, there would be unbelievable amounts of social coercion to prevent people fromliving the lives theyd like.[1]

This claim of Bruenigs looks positively bizarre. In standard libertarian theory, private property in homes is important precisely because it allows people to live the lives theyd like on their own property. But not in Bruenigs version; as he sees it, the government in the future libertarian world will not and cannot tolerate people chattering about democratic governance and other evil things[1] in their own homes, any more than it will tolerate their having sex with whom they like in their own homes. And that is by no means all that a government will forbid; government intolerance would extend to vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, drug use, promiscuity, pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, polygamy, pedophilia or any other conceivable perversity or abnormality.[1]

It is bad enough that Bruenig sees this sort of government regulation of private property as no regulation, and worse that he calls it libertarian. But it gets even worse when one considers how such regulations could possibly be enforced. How could a community government knowwhether property owners are entertaining forbidden guests, taking forbidden drugs, having forbidden sex, practicing forbidden religions, listening to forbidden music, reading forbidden books, or saying forbidden things in their homes? Only by having the power to enter and search their homes at any time, and the power to monitor all their conversations.

Not only would Bruenigs libertarianism dispense with freedom of speech and religion, but also the security of person or property against unwarranted searches, surveillance, and seizures

(5) But thats not all. What happens if Bruenig-style libertarian governments find a property owner doing any of those forbidden things? Why, then They will violently exile such people.[1] And again: If you make statements against Hoppes politics, are a nature lover, or are gay [oranything else on Bruenigs lists] you will be expelled from society. [1; stress inoriginal].

Not only do Bruenigs libertarian governments have the power to regulate what people do on their own property; not only do they have the power to search and surveil property owners without the owners consent; they also have the power to throw property owners out of their own homes and expropriate the homes.

To sum up: In Hoppes account of the libertarian world (and also Bruenigs, as he calls Hoppes the true account), individuals would have few if any rights, including few if any property rights. How did the two of them come to reach such bizarre conclusions? Why do they think that an ideology based on individual rights would turn around and practise the exact opposite? There seem to be two reasons, both based on confusion.

The first confusion seems to lie in Bruenigs use of the term the libertarian utopia to describe Hoppes preferred community organization. Both Hoppe and Bruenig assume that, in their postulated libertarian world, all the communities will be the same: that members will have the same beliefs, tastes, and preferences, and those norms will be what every community government enforces. Perhaps it is understandable that Hoppe conflates his own preferred norms with those of every libertarian, indeed of every property owner. It is less understandable that Bruenig does the same thing, considering that those do not seem to be his preferred norms; his motive appears to be only to caricature libertarian ideas. In any case, this looks like simple confusion.

Robert Nozick (whom Bruenig claims to have read) points out that, in a libertarian society individual communities can have any character compatible with the operation of the framework.[15, 325] Byframwork he means the background law governing relations between communities, protectingpeoples right to leave communities, and the like. As Nozick sees it, the framework isequivalent to the minimal state.[15, 333] In contrast, within that framework, individual communities will not correspond to any one form of organization or set of rules: There will notbe one kind of community existing and one kind of life led in utopia. Utopia will consist ofutopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds oflives under different institutions.[15, 311-312]

The second confusion seems to lie in their account of private property. While both describe thesituation in these communities as being based on private property, both assume a state ofaffairs in which private property does not exist. In Hoppean communities, all property is owned by its ruler(whom Hoppe actually calls the proprietor). He may assign property to individuals, and even tell them that hiscommunity covenant is for the protection of their privateproperty, but this is merely a bait-and-switch. In fact they remain mere tenants, and theirhomes and land merely tenant-property.[1] Real ownership is always held by the ruler.

In this case, Bruenigs confusion (given his ideological prefrence for state property) is themore understandable; he appears to sincerely believe that all property is given (or should begiven) by the government, and is (or should be) owned only by permission of the government. Hoppe , on the other hand, seems motivated only by narcissism; since he wants property owners to dowhat and only what he would do, he imagines himself the sole proprietor. But whatever the reason, the idea of a government that lets people alone to live the way they would like to live is incomprehensible to both of them. Both seem unable to imagine that rational people might have different preferences from them.

As strange as their beliefs are, a free society could still accommodate both of them: it would leave Hoppe free to set up his racist community and Bruenig to set up his socialist community. However, it would also leave others free to reject their two communties, and limit their communities success to their ability to persuade others rather than forcing them. Which explains why both, in their own way, reject theidea of a free society.

[1] Matt Bruenig, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Demos, September 11, 2013.http://www.demos.org/blog/9/11/13/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-extraordinaire

[11] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1949, 150. Print.

[12] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (translated by Jonathan Bennett), Early ModernTexts, December, 2010. Web, Jan. 12, 2017.http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/rousseau1762.pdf

[13] Matt Bruenig, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Libertarian Theoretical Historian, Demos, December 31,2014. http://www.demos.org/blog/12/31/14/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-theoretical-historian

[14] Walter Block, Plumbline Libertarianism: A critique of Hoppe, Reason Papers 29, 161.https://reasonpapers.com/pdf/29/rp_29_10.pdf

[15] Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Print.

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When Worlds Collude: Hoppe, Bruenig, and their shared vision of the libertarian future (II) - Nolan Chart LLC

Being Libertarian

Five Ways to Get Friends to Hate Minimum Wage Laws Being Libertarian When it comes to making libertarianism more marketable to people, I've always tried to advocate realistic ideas. I looked at the issue of Medicare and Social Security and changed my tune from saying Abolish it! to Let's make it better and cheaper ...

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Five Ways to Get Friends to Hate Minimum Wage Laws - Being Libertarian

Progressive lawyer, online pundit, and internet troll Matt Bruenig has a question forlibertarians: My first question for Cato and libertarians more generally is this: What is upwith Hans-Hermann Hoppe?[1]

I wish I could respond, Who? Alas, I am well aware of Hoppe. Many libertarians and other readers, though, may have just that response. Fortunately, Bruenig hasprovide an introduction:

For the unacquainted, Hoppe is a very prominent libertarian academic, certainly well knownwithin intellectual libertarian circles. He ironically works at the University of Nevada as aneconomics professor, making him a public employee. He publishes frequently in libertarianacademic journals, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, founded theProperty & Freedom Society, is frequently referenced by other libertarians as one of them, and[authored a] 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed. It is a tad on the long side, but itsreally good, the [following] quotes especially.[1]

We will look at Bruenigs quotes later. For now it is enough to say that, while Hoppe does have followers who self-identify as libertarians, many if not most libertarians who know of him want nothing to do with him.

Here is an assessment of Hoppe that I suspect many libertarians who have read him or his admirerswould accept:

The errors of Hans-Hermann Hoppe are regrettable for two reasons: Firstly, Hoppe is a highlyintelligent and well-educated economist who for whatever reasons fails to notice when he doesdamage to the values of freedom and property, which he claims to support. This is the tragicpersonal side of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. But it is also tragic for academic discussions: At a timewhen we are surrounded by ever growing welfare states we badly need thinkers like Hoppe to showus how to tackle todays problems. But instead of doing that, Hoppe prefers to take refuge in hispipe dreams of a so-called natural order, which rather resembles the abyss of a variation ofright-wing totalitarianism. For all these reasons, for all his errors and mistakes and for hiswrong-headed methodology we may expect Hoppes ideas to remain a footnote in the history ofpolitical thought. And it may well be better this way. An effective strategy of liberation wouldlook very different. If Hoppe continues to use the terms liberalism and freedom for hisauthoritarian and pseudo-liberal agenda, it is time for the true liberals to claim back theseterms from him.[2]

It is only necessary to add that (1) the very idea of libertarianism that Bruenig claimslibertarians should be following (2) is not only compatible with, but looks like it would result in,Hoppes theorized libertarian society of the future; furthermore, while (3) Hoppes account of that societysuffers from serious flaws and errors, (4) Bruenigs account of that future society, being based on his reading of Hoppe, has the same flaws and errors. Making those four points is easy enough, but demonstrating them requires a bit more work.

Bruenig believes that libertarians should advocate for an ideal state of affairs that he calls Grab-what-you-can world or Grab World. He claims that this is the only possible world compatible with thelibertarian core belief (or set of beliefs) that are referred to under the label of the Non-Aggression Principle or NAP:

The world which follows the non-aggression principle is the one Roderick Long calls the grab-what-you-can world' this quote [from Long] clearly describes the only world that followsthenon-aggression principle the grab-what-you-can world satisfies the non-aggressionprinciple andno other world does almost everyone opposes following the non-aggressionprinciple as itrequires the grab-what-you-can world the grab-what-you-can world is theworld that follows thenon-aggression principle.[3]

This claim follows from Bruenigs definition of force, which is not the standard libertarianone. By his definition, theft, embezzlement, fraud, looting, and other property offensesshould not be considered uses of force: a property offense involves no force (strictly defined) becauseno body has been attacked.[4] By this definition that force is just attacking other peoplesbodies Bruenig reasons his way to Grab World:

Its simple: 1) grabbing pieces of the world does not, by itself, involve initiating forceagainst other people (if it did, then all resource use would be considered aggression), and 2)attacking someone for grabbing up a piece of the world does involve initiating force againstother people.[3]

In Grab World, there is only one law, the Basic Rule: You may not act upon the bodies of otherswithout their consent.[4] Everything else, including the property crimes listed above, wouldbe legal.From this Rule follows the idea of Grab World, as envisioned by its creator, Roderick Long (thelibertarian philosopher from whom Bruenig grabbed the idea):

Imagine a world in which people freely expropriate other peoples possessions; nobody initiatesforce directly against another persons body, but subject to that constraint, people regularlygrab any external resource they can get their hands on, regardless of who has made or been usingthe resource. Any conception of aggression according to which the world so described is free ofaggression is not a plausible one.[5]

Plausibly or not, Grab World is free from aggression (the initiation of force) as Bruenig definesit: in the libertarian set, there seems to be severe difficulties with distinguishing betweenwhat we might call Actual Initiation (defined as who touched who first) and IdeologicalInitiation[6]. What [libertarians] actually mean by initiation of force is not some neutral notionof hauling off and physically attacking someone.[7]

David S. Amato points out that Bruenigs criterion of Actual Initiation as touching would not includepointing a gun at someone else: even the mugger doesnt, underBruenigs Actual Initiation standard, initiate force against his victim, at least notnecessarily. Pointing a gun at someone, with the desired goal of taking his money or possessions,doesnt require the mugger to touch the victim, to make any actual, physical contact.[5] Nor, for that matter, would pulling the trigger. But to be charitable,that conclusion should probably be chalked up to Bruenigs sloppy writing rather than his actualbeliefs; it is reasonable to think that he includes shooting and threatening people with guns,bows and arrows, and bombs as examples of the use of force as well as mere touching.

What seems less reasonable is to imagine the Grab World state of affairs obtaining in reality.Grab World would require a society of pacifists (as, by stipulation, nobody initiates forcedirectly against another persons body). But while difficult to conceive, it is not logicallyimpossible. As a youth I read a speculative fiction novel by Damon Knight, Rule Golden, in whichthe galactic overlords unleashed a gas upon earth which caused everyone who physically hurt another personto experience the victims pain; those who killed others would die.[8] Anyone with enoughimagination could probably think of other ways for Grab World to be instantiated.

So far, so good. But Bruenig makes assumptions about Grab World that do not look so reasonable.Among them:

(1) It is more or less communism, yes.[9] No, it is not. It may resemble the ultimate communistsociety that Karl Marx envisioned; but it rules out any chance to establish the dictatorship of theproletariat that Marx saw as being necessary to get there. In the dictatorship stage, which isall that every self-proclaimed Communist regime has ever reached, there is plenty of property; itjust all belongs to the state. Property rules against trespass, theft, and the like have alwaysbeen enforced by the states violence and bloodshed (as Bruenig likes to call it) under thoseregimes just as strongly as in states with private property; even more violently and bloodily, in many cases.

(2) there is a state that is preventing people from assaulting and battering and the like.[9]Wrong again. States require a division of labor society which in turn requires an exchangeeconomy: since those enforcing the Basic Rule are losing the opportunity to grab or produce goodsand resources or themselves, they must be supported by those who are doing the latter. ButBruenig forecasts that, on grab world, exchange would initially break down completely:

there is no such thing as a non-coercive trade. All trades rely upon violent coercion. I onlytrade with someone because they have a violence voucher that they will redeem [from the state] if I decide to actupon the piece of the world without doing so. They only trade with me for the same reason. If yougot rid of the coercion, which is to say you got rid of violence vouchers, no trading wouldoccur.[6]

Without the possibility of exchange, production of consumer goods would grind to a halt; whowould buy them, when one could just loot for them? But with nothing being produced, at a certainpoint people would start running out of stores to loot; then where would a state get its tools ofviolence, its guns, handcuffs, police cars, prisons, tanks, fighter planes, and all the rest?Given Grab Worlds universal pacifism, those are not things they could go around and grabfrom just anyone.

Even if the state did get manage to get supplied with its tools of violence, it could not usethem, as that would be acting on the bodies of others without their consent, just as it is today.No one could be physically detained, arrested, or held at gunpoint (much less shot) in Grab World. No one couldbe jailed or placed under house arrest awaiting trial, physically compelled to attend a trial(including witnesses or jurors as well as defendants), or punished physically, including byimprisonment, if convicted.

Since Bruenigs Basic Rule forbids anyone to act on the bodies of others, it forbids its ownenforcement. All a state could do to anyone violating Bruenigs Rule, without itself violating the Rule, would be to grab things from him; in other words, the Basic Rule would forbid anyone fromtreating those who violate it any differently from non-violators. That would mean the end of thestate as we know it, and as we have known it for all of recorded history.

(3) It is a propertyless society.[9] There is no reason to think so. As Bruenig admits, there is nothing in Grab World stopping people from developing their own rules and conventions, which could include rules against taking each others property, invading each others homes,killing each others pets, and the like. Those rules could of course include standard libertarianrules respecting property rights, as they would be consensual, and therefore could include allowing others to useforce in response to cases of theft and so on.[11]

Since in communities with such rules, and those communities only, people would be able to produce and tradegoods, it is reasonable to imagine them as coming into immediate being in actual communities;villages and small towns where people know and trust each other. Only such communities could givepeople the property security, and the division of labor, necessary to maintain a more-thanstarvation existence after the cities were looted. However, they could do so only byinstantiating property rights through voluntary community covenants.

It is easy to imagine these proprietary communities expanding to the size of whole counties,walled or fenced off and guarded against outsiders. It would be easy enough (and not necessarilyinvolve any touching) to restrict admission only to those who consented to the community rules onforce. One can even imagine a flood of refugees to them from the cities, all of whom were admitted would haveconsented to the standard libertarian view of defensive force.

Outsiders like Bruenig would still have the negative liberty to invade and loot communities, andsome might do just that; but there is no reason communities would have to merely let them do it.Non-consenters could climb fences, or cut holes in them, to get in to do their looting; but toget out again they would have to let go of their loot; at which point a community police or possecould simply grab it all back. Would-be looters could also tunnel under fences; but communitydefenders could simply destroy the tunnels. (Question for any Bruenig Bros reading: woulddestroying a tunnel with looters in it count as attacking them?)

I have written elsewhere on this evolution.[10] To sum up:rather than a propertyless society, Grab World looks like it would evolve into thestateless world of proprietary communities envisioned by Hoppe, where political power isstripped from the hands of the central government and reassigned to the states, provinces,cities, towns, villages, residential districts, and ultimately to private property owners andtheir voluntary associations.[1]

However, the vision of those libertarian communities imagined by Hoppe looks completely flawed,riddled with conceptual errors. Those errors in turn inspire Bruenig to adopt a similarly flawedaccount filled with the same errors. Documenting that assessment, though, must wait for now.

[1] Matt Bruenig, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Libertarian Extraordinaire, Demos, September 11, 2013. http://www.demos.org/blog/9/11/13/hans-hermann-hoppe-libertarian-extraordinaire

[2] Oliver Hartwich, The Errors of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Open Republic Magazine (Dublin) 1:2 (October 2005). Web, June 9, 2017. https://oliverhartwich.com/2005/10/10/the-errors-of-hans-hermann-hoppe/

[3] Matt Bruenig, What a World Following the Non-Aggression Principle Looks Like, Demos, January 29, 2014. http://www.demos.org/blog/1/29/14/what-world-following-non-aggression-principle-looks

[4] Matt Bruenig, The Lesson of Grab What You Can, Demos, June 3, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140606193500/http://www.demos.org/blog/6/3/14/lesson-grab-what-you-can

[5] David S. Amato, Against Grab World, Libertarianism.org, October 15, 2015. https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/against-grab-world

[6] Matt Bruenig, Violence Vouchers: A descriptive account of property, Matt Bruenig Politics, March 28, 2014. http://mattbruenig.com/2014/03/28/violence-vouchers-a-descriptive-account-of-property/

[7] Matt Bruenig, Can you sustain an economic philosophy solely by begging the question?. Matt Bruenig Politics, October 7,2015. http://mattbruenig.com/2015/10/02/can-you-sustain-an-economic-philosophy-solely-by-begging-the-question/

[8] Damon Knight, Rule Golden, Three Novels. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Print.

[9] Matt Bruenig, Comment, June 23, 2014, to Bruenig, Pick-up basketball and grab what you can. Matt Bruenig Politics, June 22, 2014. http://mattbruenig.com/2014/06/22/pick-up-basketball-and-grab-what-you-can/

[10] George J. Dance, Grab World, Nolan Chart, May 26, 2017. https://www.nolanchart.com/grab-world

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When Worlds Collude: Hoppe, Bruenig, and their shared vision of the libertarian future (I) - Nolan Chart LLC

Libertarianism is not conservatism, nor is it an offshoot of conservatism, a subset, or even a relative of common extraction.

Conservatism, as such, is and must be anathema to libertarianism (at least libertarianism properly understood), because libertarian political philosophy is best understood as a radicalization of traditional liberalism.

While this formula is not perfect, both of its componentsradical and liberalsuggest the incompatibility of conservatism and libertarianism. The radical, going as she does to the root, hopes to provoke change at the deepest sub strata of society, motivated by the conviction that the political and economic status quo is fundamentally unjust.

Thus, by definition, libertarians cannot adopt a posture of deference to the past but must instead agitate for a revolution, albeit a peaceful one (libertarian Josiah Warrens The Peaceful Revolutionist is widely considered Americas first anarchist periodical).

If anything, then, the philosophy of liberty belongs on precisely the other side of the political spectrum assuming, that is, that we must submit to a confused, often unhelpful left-right spectrum squarely opposing the forces of reaction and conservatism.

At least a short consideration of intellectual history is necessary to the task of properly categorizing todays libertarianism.

Certain strands of aborning nineteenth-century socialism were very clearly related to, even outgrowths from, the Enlightenment liberalism that had sprung up in the previous two centuries.

The common heritage of socialism and classical liberalism is underappreciated today, in part because the salient features of the latter (among them free trade, individual rights, private property, and a government limited in both its role and size) are now associated with conservative, not liberal, thought.

Historian Larry Siedentop goes so far as to argue that [n]othing reduces the value of discussion about modern political thought more than the simplistic and misleading contrast between liberalism and socialism.

And, as Siedentop notes, many of the concepts and modes of argument long credited to socialism were in fact introduced by liberal thinkers, making the common contrast particularly unfair to liberalism.

For example, libertarians have been quick to call attention to the fact that early French liberals developed a pre-socialist (or perhaps proto-socialist) class theory, embedded in which was an argument for radical laissez-faire.

In Britain, the political economist Thomas Hodgskin similarly defied the crude contemporary contrast between socialism and liberalism.

Historian and Hodgskin biographer David Stack correctly argues that Hodgskin can be adequately understood purely as a radical, his ideas submitting a penetrating free-market attack on the use of legal privilege to attain wealth.

By the end of the century, liberalism had all but abandoned its earlier meaning, as a philosophy centered on the freedom of the individual from state oppression. It had embraced a new meaning, the state having taken on a new democratic spirit, as least in theory.

As Stack observes, Liberalism became the language of government, and sounded the death knell of radicalism. If liberalism did not always connote the growth of government, then neither did socialism, at least not necessarily.

In America, individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker explicitly identified themselves as socialists even as they advocated a perfectly free market, in which only force or fraud would be out of bounds.

Tucker spent much of his life arguing in the pages of his libertarian journal Liberty that the conduct of capitalists generally is condemned, not glorified, by genuine free-market principles.

The capitalist, for Tucker, was guilty of criminal invasion, of violating the central libertarian law against the use of aggression against the non-invasive individual. He worried that many of those employing what seemed libertarian-sounding language had actually become the mouthpieces of the capitalistic class. That class had achieved wealth and power not by competing for consumers hard-earned dollars, but by abolishing the free market, by using the coercive power of the state to artificially limit the range of competition.

Throughout the 20th century, some stalwart proponents of the peaceful, cosmopolitan order produced by free trade and respect for private property rights have continued to identify as liberals.

The economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, with whom modern libertarianism is so often associated, were such committed liberals, dependably opposed to conservatism and, in Hayeks works, its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge. As a philosophy of universal individual rights, libertarians contemplates a deep break with centuries-old orders of power and privilege, in which a handful of political and ecclesiastical authorities made the rules and reaped the rewards.

The lazily constructed straw-man version of libertarianism, which treats it as a subsidiary of conservatism, ignores both the tangled history of radical thought and the beliefs and representations of actual libertarians.

Because the dominance of todays corporate powerhouses rests largely on government privilege, and thus violencenot voluntary, mutually beneficial trade the anti-corporate rhetoric of progressives rings hollow; they emphasize wealth inequality and economic justice, yet they would expand the very power on which corporate abuses now rest.

American political history finds self-described progressives among the most reliable guardians of corporate welfare.

Libertarianism is a principled alternative to conservatism and progressivism, both of which, at base, represent authority against liberty.

David DAmato, an adjunct law professor at DePaul University, is a policy advisor at the Heartland Institute.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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The case for libertarianism in American politics - The Hill (blog)

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By Ian Tartt

As if it didnt already have enough problems, the liberty movement is now divided even more than it was before the last election cycle. This is largely a result of the campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. While most libertarians reacted in horror to both candidates, some were more concerned about one than the other.

Accordingly, some voted for Clinton to stop Trump, while others did the opposite. At the same time, many of them joined organizations that are not libertarian in nature but agreed with them on a handful of issues brought up during the election. This resulted in some libertarians aligning with right-leaning organizations and others aligning with left-leaning organizations.

The core problem with these associations is that they are based on what those from different sides oppose rather than what they support. That is, those who side with right-leaning organizations do so because those organizations oppose socialism; likewise, those standing with left-leaning organizations have allied with them because of their shared opposition to fascism. But simply opposing socialism or fascism does not a libertarian make. Its the consistent recognition and defense of individual liberty that makes one a libertarian.

Because some libertarians are joining with organizations who are merely enemies of their enemies instead of being their friends, there is great risk involved. Over time, they may adopt some decidedly un-libertarian positions and could even end up leaving libertarianism altogether. Of course, that depends on how heavily theyre involved with the organization and why theyre involved with them in the first place.

Another major drawback is that the libertarians who align with non-libertarian organizations often become divided (that is, those working with right-leaning organizations would see those aligning with left-leaning organizations as their enemies, and vice versa). Since there are also a number of libertarians who reject such alliances entirely, the liberty movement is now further split in several different directions. Some libertarians, whether theyre aligned with those on the left, those on the right, or with neither, refuse to work with those who reject their alliance or lack thereof.

While theres nothing wrong with working with an individual or organization to advance a certain goal (such as standing with a right-leaning group to protect gun rights or helping a left-leaning group push for drug decriminalization), libertarians should avoid strong partnerships with those organizations. And they absolutely shouldnt reject fellow libertarians, with whom they agree more often than not, in favor of working with those with whom they almost never agree. Doing either will only weaken the liberty movement by bringing in people who shouldnt be there in the first place and severing ties among those who are natural allies.

The best thing to do at this point is for those libertarians who are strongly aligned with a left or right organization that doesnt respect individual liberty to break those ties. Once they do that, they should try to rebuild as many bridges between themselves and their fellow libertarians as possible. This will help strengthen the bonds between lovers of liberty as well as prevent those unfamiliar with libertarianism from thinking that its something that it isnt. There is still time to undo the damage that was done from unnatural alliances, but until a serious effort to set things right is made, the liberty movement will continue to struggle while increasingly more freedoms are lost.

Alliancesdivisionleftlibertariansrightstrategy

See more here:
The Enemy of Your Enemy is No Friend of Liberty - The Libertarian Republic

10 Ways Not To Make Your Friends Libertarian Being Libertarian Libertarians are, in all honesty, the cringe lords of Facebook. They've become the Jehovah's witnesses of the internet. Libertarianism is a movement with a ton of wonderful people in it, many simply read paperwork on economics and policy, are very ...

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10 Ways Not To Make Your Friends Libertarian - Being Libertarian

Helen Milenski visits the Los Alamos Daily Post world headquarters Friday to announce that she has been appointed acting chair for the Los Alamos County affiliate organization of the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, which has just qualified as a major political party in the state. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

By MAIRE O'NEILL

Los Alamos Daily Post

Just as the Libertarian Party of New Mexico announced it now meets the requirements to qualify as a major political party in the state, beginning with the 2018 election cycle, Helen Milenski announced that she has been appointed acting chair for the Los Alamos County affiliate organization of the LPNM.

According to State Chair Elizabeth Hanes, Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Elections Director Kari Fresquez have confirmed that as long as the Libertarian Party maintains or increases its voter registration numbers, it will be designated as a major party on the date of the Governors primary election proclamation in January 2018.

Today marks a historic day for the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, Hanes said. We look forward to representing the ideals of thousands of New Mexicans who believe in living their lives peacefully and free from government interference.

The Libertarian Party of New Mexico will be able to participate in the primary election process in 2018 instead of having to nominate its candidates in convention and Hanes said the party is already identifying potential candidates for local, state and federal offices.

Milenski says she has always been a Libertarian at heart. Turning 18, she says she registered as a Democrat because of the social issues of the time. The country was coming out of the Reagan era and the Democratic Party had an altruistic feeling that she liked. She says liberalism called to her but not in the way Libertarianism speaks to her.

Milenski worked hard on Gary Johnsons campaign for president last year, coordinating a sign-waving campaign at the junction of Trinity and Diamond drive for several weeks. She feels she has a common- sense approach to politics and has been encouraged to get more involved. She just recently got involved at the state level.

Today there are 134 registered Libertarians in Los Alamos County which is up 14 from the time of the Gary Johnson campaign. Milenski said there are currently 6,000 affliate members statewide and that the party grew by at least 50 percent in 2016 largely due to Johnsons presidential campaign. She said Los Alamos County has the highest percentage of registration in the nation.

A public meeting has been slated for 6-8 p.m. June 21 at Mesa Public Library.

This will be a preliminary planning and interest meeting, Milenski said. We want to gauge peoples interest in the Libertarian Party and answer any questions people may have. We also want to elect a chairperson in a more permanent manner.

Milenski, 43, is a graduate of Los Alamos High School and UNM-LA. She has an Associates Degree in Engineering and is employed by Los Alamos Nation Laboratory, working in Chemistry Chemical Diagnostics and Engineering. She has one grown daughter and another daughter in high school. She and her husband Scott live in Los Alamos.

According to its news release, the Libertarian Party stands for individual freedom and responsibility. In New Mexico, the party advocates defending and expanding civil rights; eliminating government regulations that stifle economic growth; and lowering or eliminating taxes of all kinds. LPNM also is opposed to any restrictive immigration reform measures and supports the free movement of law-abiding citizens throughout the region.

For more information about the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, visit http://www.lpnm.us. For information about the Los Alamos group specifically, email helen.milenski@gmail.com.

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Helen Milenski Appointed Acting Chair Of Los Alamos County Affiliate Of Libertarian Party Of New Mexico - Los Alamos Daily Post

Local column: Libertarianism gone hog wild Post Register We all want liberty, but taking it to a point where our safety is constantly threatened goes too far, writes Jim Delmore. Why does the Idaho Legislature persist in giving people the right to infringe upon the freedoms of others? Let me give some examples.

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Local column: Libertarianism gone hog wild - Post Register