Im not a sports fanIm bored by games in general, including that wordy color-blindness test or whatever it is that everyone online seems to be playing latelybut Im already rooting for the defeat of the newly rechristened Washington Commanders. The name is a clumsy reminder that Washington, DC issues orders and the rest of us are expected to obey. Its as obnoxious in its way as the propagandistic, authoritarian tone of the Olympics opening ceremony.
But sports isnt the real enemy here. For all the brutality, primitivism, sadism, tribalism, and zero-sum win/lose thinking of sportsmade worse by nationalism in the case of the pompous Olympicspolitics is worse. Politics is also involuntary, so long as governments (or other, more anarchic threats of violence) exist. Involuntary, by definition, isnt fun.
Thats why so many political figures devote their time to the pretense of being just like you, as if theres no need to fear their preferences would ever diverge from yours. No divergence, no need to wonder where theyre taking you or what they plan to do to you when you get there. Theyre all competing to see who can get you to a centrally planned economy fastest.
Take the Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance, with his oscillations between sounding like the populist whos coming to save you from the depredations of capitalism and sounding like the party stalwart wholl save Republicans from further embarrassment by Trump. Its a safe bet that as the primary approaches in May, Carpet-Bagger Vance will sound like he has whatever principles are polling well, likely determined by that months stock market fluctuations but explained via homespun tales about his working-class upbringing.
One of the most positive spins on Vances oscillations was a Simon van Zuylen-Wood piece arguing that Vance is taking care not to let his anti-woke thinking devolve into classical liberalism and is striving to combine Trumpism with the milder reformicon (ostensibly-reformist conservative) tendencies of Ross Douthat circa 2010.
In short, if you squint, you can see Vance working to avoid libertarianism (that is, 19-century-style, small-government, classical liberalism) while also grinding a cultural axe, bashing global trade, and praising the most expensive parts of the welfare statesuch as Social Security and Medicare, the debt-swelling, huge-ticket items that purported reformers such as Douthat are keen to leave intact, since a citizen is afraid to discuss tampering with them.
Whatever that makes the Vance agenda, its not really capitalism. Far from being a fresh set of ideas, its basically a watered-down version of the anti-economic, pro-big-government thinking celebrated in those Chinese ceremonies I mentioned earlier. If conservatives are just milder commies now, dont expect me to get worked up making distinctions between the two philosophies or voting for either.
Vance is far from alone on the right in his bland attack on the market and private property. Floridas Gov. Ron DeSantis, inordinately beloved by some pseudo-libertarians whose anti-regulatory thinking goes little farther than their dislike of anti-Covid rules, crowed on Twitter last Thursday about urging his state legislature to throw another $100 million of taxpayers money at fighting cancer. So much for the heirs to Trumps populist mantle looking to dispel the illusion that government is generous and lifesaving. Unless they explicitly argue for the non-violation of property rights and the drastic and immediate shrinking of government, populist politicians will obviously deliver politics as usual with a few novel freebies tossed in.
I hope paleolibertarian-ish ex-punk Sam Goldman is right to argue the fumbling of the Republicans populist team post-Trump might yet yield a return of the delayed libertarian moment in American politics. If there are any signs of hope in that regard, though, I dont think they take the form of any politicians but rather private-sector phenomena like that shining Castello Cube made of $11.7 million worth of gold that appeared in Central Park last week (likely inspired by the 1990s sci-fi novel Cryptonomicon) heralding the launch of yet another cryptocurrency.
Im not saying this is the coin that will end humanitys reliance on governments arbitrarily-inflated fiat currencies, but governments tyrannical hold over humanity is more likely to be ended by some exogenous phenomenon like that than by any internal reforms government itself endorses or generates. Lately, all the worlds political teamsleftists, liberals, conservatives, moderates, most anarchists, even some libertariansbadmouth or at least rhetorically shy away from unregulated, laissez-faire markets.
In the 20th century, they might all at least have agreed that the USSR was terrible and promised not to replicate its errors. With European Communism gone and Chinese Communism seemingly a taboo topic among obedient Westerners, our political players are free lazily to forget what a society without market mechanisms looks like. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is free to denounce capitalism as irredeemable, as the economically ineducable and inflammatory New York politician said a few days ago on a trip to Austin, TXthe sort of liberal town where she probably hears as many youthful cheers for her extremism as she does back home in New York City, though both places owe their freedom and prosperity to markets.
But its not just quirky post-libertarian right-wingers and left-wing backbenchers who are out to destroy capitalism. Boring old President Biden and his ostensibly centrist pals can do that just fine all by themselves. Among other things, Biden plans to triple the amount of protected (that is, government-controlled and largely unused) land in the U.S. and wants half again as much federal spending as when he took office, though his agenda is notoriously sputtering. And the White House still finds time to tell Spotify it needs to go farther in silencing easygoing non-partisan conversationalist Joe Rogan (Jon Stewart, by contrast, urges people to let Rogan speak).
Make enough mediocre leaps forward like Bidens and it wont much matter if you keep claiming not to be a full-blown socialist. America will be socialist nonetheless. It wont matter one bit that libertarians and conservatives used to complain more explicitly about that threat back in the 1980s, when their principles were clearer and more consistent, back when they didnt always shift around in an embarrassed fashion looking for something else to talk about, like pot, immigration, or sex. Now, every political team of any appreciable size is either silent on econ or battling for the collectivist gold.
Todd Seavey is the author of Libertarianism for Beginners and is on Twitter at @ToddSeavey
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