How to Achieve and Maintain a Libertarian Order?
What do I mean by
“libertarian order”? A society that respects private property and the
non-aggression principle. As there is much more to life, the rest will be
filled-in by individuals, communities, churches, etc. Libertarian theory
has nothing to say about any of this.
While there are many different variants, it seems to me that
the most reasonable path to achieve a libertarian order is through
education. It strikes me as self-evident that the biggest growth in the
movement came via Ron Paul and supported by the foundation
built by Lew Rockwell at the Mises Institute and LRC.
But I won’t argue if you work through different means toward the same ends –
the more, the merrier.
How is a libertarian order to
be maintained? There is the rub, there is where culture comes in – and it
is here where I believe the commonly labeled “left” and “right” part ways, and
where I maintain that the “right” has it…right.
Despite the fairy-tales
floated by certain left-libertarians, in a world populated by humans there will
always be prejudices, biases, and preferences. Further, it is an inherent
characteristic of private property that it is exclusionary, and the owner has
the right to “exclude” on any basis he chooses – call this “discrimination” if
you like. For a private property order to mean anything, the property
owner’s right to discriminate must be respected.
In other words, in order to
maintain a libertarian order, it must be recognized that humans
are…human. To act on the basis that humans will ever be anything else is
to ensure future conflict – the surest path to maintaining support for state
solutions.
Despite the fairy-tales
floated by certain left-libertarians, in a world populated by humans there will
always be hierarchy and there will always be governance – governance, notgovernment (as
that term is understood today).
There will never arise a
human-populated world of a flat organizational structure – people will join
organizations voluntarily, and those same people will voluntarily submit to the
authority in these organizations.
Who – or what – provides the
governance is the only question: will it be a monopoly provider, or will it be
a decentralized and varied combination of countless voluntarily-joined,
hierarchical entities? In a libertarian order, there is only one
acceptable answer.
The most ubiquitous
governance-providing institution is the market. The market provides
governance – there is discipline necessary to effectively deliver service to
customers, with pressure to improve coming from all sides. Merely look
around you every day – the order in a grocery store, the effectiveness of a
bank transaction; consider the governance required to deliver such service.
The most important foundation
for governance is the family – the government knows this, which is why they
work constantly to destroy it. There is no theoretical possibility of a
world of 7 billion separately governing entities, but perhaps 1.5 billion (or
however many households there are in this world).
Family as an organized
governance structure is as old as recorded human history, and until it can be
demonstrated that something even more decentralized can function reasonably
well, this is as far down the decentralization path that I believe is feasible
– in theory and in practice.
Beyond this is the community,
the church, various volunteer groups, insurance companies, etc. Each
providing governance in different ways, in different spheres.
So what does this have to do
with culture? Culture is another institution that
provides governance…….
Conclusion
Libertarian theory is
thin. How to achieve and maintain a libertarian order? Culture
matters. And I believe this is why libertarians associated with the right
defend ideas of culture.
It isn’t an issue of
right vs. left. It is an issue of moving toward vs. away from a
libertarian order; it is an issue of reducing the influence of the state.
Is it an appropriate
objective to reduce the role of the state in society? On the importance
of culture, the so-called (and inappropriately labeled, for the reasons
outlined above) right libertarians are right.
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