Memo to Michael Tomasky: Libertarianism is not Anarchism
Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast:
I’ve never understood the allure of libertarianism. You may want a big state, you may want a smaller state. The idea of virtually no state is just silly. Does Ron Paul think the state grew because a bunch of liberal busybodies woke up one day in 1795 and said to one another, “Gee, we’d better impose some taxes and regulations here. These people are too free!” He probably does. The fact, of course, is that the state grew because dishonest and immoral and cheap and corner-cutting shysters in the private sector did things that ripped people off, made them sick, killed them, rendered them unequal citizens, and someone had to step in.
“The idea of virtually no state” is not Libertarianism. We might as well let Wikipedia serve as the dictionary.
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful,[1][2] or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Proponents of anarchism (known as “anarchists”) advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical[3][9][10] voluntary associations.[11][12]
Try Libertarianism on for size now:
Libertarianism has been variously defined by sources. In the strictest sense, it is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view. Libertarianism includes diverse beliefs, all advocating strict limits to government activity and sharing the goal of maximizing individual liberty and political freedom.[1]
Philosopher Roderick T. Long defines libertarianism as “any political position that advocates a radical redistribution of power from the coercive state to voluntary associations of free individuals”, whether “voluntary association” takes the form of the free market or of communal co-operatives.[2] According to the U.S. Libertarian Party, libertarianism is the advocacy of a government that is funded voluntarily and limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.[3]
Everybody got it? Anarchism = no government. Libertarianism = a government limited in its powers, doing as little as is necessary to make sure individual rights are protected.
Of course Tomasky is only partly to blame for this misunderstanding. As I laid out in my Tatler post yesterday, Paul’s primary intellectual mentor was a man who advocated for anarcho-capitalism, not classical liberalism.
Commenter Eric Dondero did a good job of summarizing things in the comments:
Ron Paul does not represent the mainstream of the libertarian movement. Rather he, Raimdondo and Lew Rockwell are on the far-left fringe of our movement. Be better if they called themselves something rather than “libertarian.” But there’s not much we can do about it. Libertarian has become a vogue term as of late.
Mainstream libertarians are pro-defense, pro-military and stridently anti-Islamist. Think Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Dennis Miller, Boortz, Glenn Beck Ted Nugent, Pamela Geller and Tammy Bruce.
Eric Dondero, Publisher
LibertarianRepublican.net
Mainstream libertarians are pro-defense, pro-military and stridently anti-Islamist.
I don’t think so, at least to the extent this describes a pro-intervention, pro-foreign entanglements foreign and military policy.
Most libertarians, while they recognize that defense and the military are indeed essential government functions even in libertopia, disagree that a minimalist state would have military bases all over the world, and would spend blood and treasure on the sort of largely futile nation-building that we are currently engaged with in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Somebody missed the whole point of the article. A lot of so-called libertarians today are actually anarchists.
I thought that the point was that a lot of libertarians today are smeared as anarchists. Easier for the Big Government fans under both the Red and Blue labels to dismiss libertarians with cheap name-calling than to engage with them.
Of course, there are also anarchists who are pleased to pass themselves off under the libertarian label. That doesn’t make them libertarians, though. It makes them anarchists trying to pull a fast one.
But, if you think being a minarchist is no different than being an anarchist (and I can’t tell from your comment if you do), then you are sadly mistaken.
“Of course, there are also anarchists who are pleased to pass themselves off under the libertarian label. That doesn’t make them libertarians, though. It makes them anarchists trying to pull a fast one.”
Was Paul’s hero Murray Rothbard more anarchist or libertarian?
Every political ideology shifts and changes with the influx of people that it attracts.
Pretty easy to see why an anarchist would be attracted to libertarianism as a very comfortable and welcoming stepping stone to his own ends.
Complaining about anarchists entering the fold is like a hip-hop show complaining when there’s a gang shooting in the audience. “We just wanted to glorify it, not have it actually occur!”
Ron Paul is 76 years old, a truther, has some very disturbing views on race and ethnicity in America, is a lunatic fringe candidate on foreign policy, and is a libertarian, conservative, Republican in the same way that Sasquatch is a nudist, sunbathing tourist from Copenhagen.
Ok…if you say so…it MUST be true..Paulbots.
The left LOVES having him continue on in the primary. He is the poster child for the racist, anti-Semite, crazy, dangerous, lunatic fringe…that they don’t have to invent…they simply have to give faint praise to…and keep him propped up. Hell, I suspect that Soros and the Kos Kidz are half his base.
Andrew Sullivan may soon say he fathered Trig Palin.
“Ron Paul is a serious candidate for YOU guys…right?” says the leftist spider to the fly.
HE’S the guy who is in second or third place in all YOUR polls, right?”
“HE could…like win….YOUR GUYS nomination, right?” The truther, Jew-hating, black-baiting, no troops are necessary, close the Fed guy.
And why would any serious adult take us seriously after that? Right?
Paul has been the go-to guy since the press found Buchanan too old/too much in agreement with them to serve as the boogeyman.
Modern libertarians may not be anarchists but they are certainly anti-constitutionalists who look fondly upon era of the Articles of Confederation as a model of good government.
The roots of modern libertarianism are the same as those of the sixties counterculture. Unlike practical libertarians like Hayek and von Mises, Twenty First Century libertarians look to Rousseau for inspiration instead of Hobbes, Hume and Locke. They are essentially Utopians. I blame Milton Friedman as much as anybody else for the transformation of Madisonian libertarianism found in the Constitution to the distorted vision we see today.
If the Utopia of the Occupy movement ends up looking like North Korea, the Utopian dreams of libertarians ends up looking like Somalia.
Modern libertarians are about the only Constitutionalists left anywhere. Certainly more so than the Big Gov proponents in both parties.
The Constitution is a minarchist document, and you would be hard pressed to find a libertarian who wouldn’t be pleased as punch if our government complied with it “as written” (not to be confused with “as ‘interpreted’ by the courts”).
Your post clearly shows a libertarian myth about the Constitution. The Constitution is not minarchest document. It is a limited government document and provides very strong powers in the areas of federal authority. For example see this link:
http://www.smallgovtimes.com/2010/07/restore-the-articles-of-confederation-in-d-c/
Libertarians live in the same fantasy world as the Occupy Wall Street movement.