Contra Right-Wing Libertarianism

In my previous three posts, I have discussed the problems with left-wing libertarian philosphy. I now discuss the other end of the spectrum, and its problems.

Hans Hoppe

Conservatives:
According to Hoppe: "… conservatives today must be anti-statist libertarians and equally important, … libertarians must be conservatives."

I have no real objection to the first part of this statement. Indeed, I warmly support the idea that conservatives convert to anti-statist libertarianism. However, I cannot agree with the latter contention: that libertarians become conservatives. Indeed, to do so would be anathema to libertarianism. Surely, Hoppe cannot literally mean that libertarians should give up their philosophy and embrace that of present-day conservatives. The only way to reconcile the latter part of this statement with the body of his other work is to say that libertarians should align themselves only with those conservatives who have themselves become libertarians, as per the first part of this statement. But this is just a highly convoluted way of saying that libertarians should be true to their own philosophy, a viewpoint I also enthusiastically support.

Immigration:
I regard Hoppe's view on immigration as a retreat from libertarianism, and an embrace of conservative principles. I will not discuss this issue here as there is already not a small literature on this matter.

Homosexuality
Consider the following statement from Hoppe where he calls for homosexuals and others to be banned from polite society:

"Naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and removed from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They—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 be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order."

Say what you will in support of this statement—it is stark, it is well written, it is radical, it gives a well-deserved intellectual kick to the teeth to some groups who richly deserve it—it is still exceedingly difficult to reconcile it with libertarianism. For, in the free society, there will always be the likelihood that different groups will tend to amalgamate in certain geographical areas, and even have restrictive covenants that enforce just requirements, and limitations on free speech. In places like parts of Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, for example, there is little doubt that such sentiments will be the order of the day. But there will likely be other areas of the country, for example, the People's Republics of Santa Monica, Ann Arbor, Cambridge, Mass, Greenwich Village in New York City, heck, the entire Big Apple for that matter, where pretty much the opposite outlook will legally prevail. That is, in these latter places, positive mention of free enterprise, capitalism, profits, etc., will be severely punished by law. Why libertarianism should be equated with the former views and not the latter is a mystery. Surely, the libertarian philosophy would support the rights of both groups to act in such manners.

As for homosexuality, it is entirely possible that some areas of the country, parts of Gotham and San Francisco for example, will require this practice, and ban, entirely, heterosexuality. If this is done through contract, private property rights, restrictive covenants, it will be entirely compatible with the libertarian legal code.

Prohibiting the advocacy of ideas that are harmful to society, moreover, comes under the heading of laws against incitement. I fully agree with Hoppe that the views of democrats, communists, queer studies theorists, etc., are very harmful for civilization. They do indeed amount to incitement. But here is what Rothbard said about the prohibition of incitement:

"Should it be illegal …. to ‘incite to riot'? Suppose that Green exhorts a crowd: ‘Go! Burn! Loot! Kill!' and the mob proceeds to do just that, with Green having nothing further to do with these criminal activities. Since every man is free to adopt or not adopt any course of action he wishes, we cannot say that in some way Green determined the members of the mob to their criminal activities; we cannot make him, because of his exhortation, at all responsible for their crimes. ‘Inciting to riot,' therefore, is a pure exercise of a man's right to speak without being thereby implicated in crime. On the other hand, it is obvious that if Green happened to be involved in a plan or conspiracy with others to commit various crimes, and that then Green told them to proceed, he would then be just as implicated in the crimes as are the others—more so, if he were the mastermind who headed the criminal gang. This is a seemingly subtle distinction which in practice is clearcut—there is a world of difference between the head of a criminal gang and a soap-box orator during a riot; the former is not, properly to be charged simply with ‘incitement.'"

This is not to say that certain statements cannot be banned by contract, restrictive covenants, condominium agreements, etc., in a private property regime. But physically removing some people from society to "maintain a libertarian order" sounds very far away from such a concept, and is therefore erroneous, at least in my view, from the perspective of correct libertarian theory.

Edward Feser

Homosexuality and Other Victimless Crimes
In the view of Feser:

"Suppose for purposes of illustration … that the members of a local governmental body believe that fornication, pornography, homosexuality, etc., are immoral, and that their promotion in public activities inevitably witnessed by the young will be as potentially corrupting to their moral character as would, say, a march by the KKK or Nazi party in a town where racial tensions are already high. Then it would have grounds, given the self-ownership principle for banning any such public activity—which would include explicit ‘sex ed' materials in the local schools, a ‘pornography fair' at the local university, ‘gay pride' parades down Main Street, lewd billboard advertisements and displays of pornographic materials on magazine racks, and so forth. These all quite obviously contribute to an atmosphere tending to undermine a child's ability to develop character traits consistent with sexual virtue, given the extreme difficulty young people have in keeping sexual feelings under control—especially when constantly bombarded by messages insisting in effect that they not be kept under control. Along the same lines, the local government could prohibit the adoption of children by persons whose choice of sexual ‘lifestyle' it had reason to consider immoral, so as to prevent the moral corruption of those children. It could also prevent the formation of institutions, such as ‘same-sex marriage,' that it has reason to think would have a dramatic negative impact on the general public understanding of and commitment to basic moral norms, for such a result would profoundly, if indirectly, affect the ability of children to form a sound moral sensibility. Private vices generally recognized to be vices, and kept private, cannot justifiably be outlawed, but the public legitimization of such vices can and must be."

States Gordon:

"Feser still saw himself as a libertarian, but his libertarianism was, to say the least, idiosyncratic. There might be a libertarian case, he claimed, for restricting homosexual conduct, drug use, and other activities at odds with conservative morality. These vices, if allowed, might impede children's character development. As Feser interpreted the self-ownership principle, children were entitled by it to a clean moral environment. Hence morals legislation usually taken to be quintessentially anti-libertarian was in fact fully libertarian."

I beg to differ from Gordon's assessment of Feser's libertarianism in this regard as "idiosyncratic." Unfortunately, it is not. Rather, it is well within the framework of what I have been characterizing as conservative libertarianism. Feser's views on homosexuality, for example, are certainly within striking distance of Hoppe's with which we have just dealt.

There are grave problems, at least for the libertarian, with Feser's call to drive underground what he is pleased to call "vices."

First of all, the vices he chooses for illustrative purposes may all be characterized as "left wing" ones. But what about right-wing ones? They, too, can lead the youth astray. For example, bull fighting, boxing, football and cock fighting on the part of adults can instill cruelty in those too young not to be negatively impacted by them. Guns, even used sensibly by adults, can harm children too young to be able to use them responsibly. How about heterosexuality itself? Cannot the sight of a man and woman holding hands while walking down the street cause grave psychological harm to young homosexuals unsure of their sexual identity? Even adult heterosexuality is off-putting to children. The Feser of the above quote would not allow two males to walk down the street holding hands; why should this case be any different? Does it depend, solely, upon whose ox is being gored?

Secondly, let us attempt a reductio ad absurdum. There are more quasi-homosexual acts around than fit into Feser's philosophy. I have in mind the habit of professional athletes to pat each other on the butt after accomplishing some task or other; the practice of basketball players to jump up in the air and touch each other's stomachs with this same portion of their own anatomies; the little dance that football players do in the end zone after scoring a touchdown; football players grabbing each other in the huddle; and don't get me started on the too close proximity, in football, considering which parts of the different players' anatomies come into contact with each other, when the center "hikes" the ball to the quarterback. All disgusting, I say. Lest the youth be corrupted, these perverse acts must all be driven underground, too.

Third, Feser is inconsistent. He says this: "Any community, of whatever size, if free to impose any restrictions on its members that it likes, provided that all members of the community consent to the restrictions. It is fully consistent with libertarianism that, for example, a group of Puritans decide together to settle a territory and institute a religious commonwealth, or that a group of communists set up a socialist republic. What is ruled out is Puritans or communists imposing such a system on everyone else, on a community not all of whose members consent to it."

This is eloquently compatible with plumb-line libertarianism. Let everyone do "their thing" and all that. But what happened to this laissez faire attitude when Feser was banning homosexuality, pornography, etc., from society in order to protect children? The correct libertarian view on this is that each community should be able to bring up its children as it wishes In the free society, left-wing condominium associations will be able to subject their youngsters to homosexuality, pornography, etc. but not football, boxing, etc., and right-wing restrictive covenants not be prohibited by law from following the opposite practice. In the truly libertarian society, no one will impose his will on others, using children as an excuse forsooth, as does Feser.

Private Property Rights
Feser, too, comes out against private property rights, superficially over the human person, but actually over much more. This would qualify him as a left-wing libertarian, but for the fact that this particular stance is better characterized as "rightish." Why? Because he is using this stance as a means of forcing conservative morality on all of us, on mirable ductu, libertarian grounds. According to Feser:

"… if I own myself, doesn't it follow that I can … do anything I want with myself, since it's my own property I'm using—including engaging in certain sexual and other behaviors frowned upon by conservative moralists?.... The answer … is a firm No."

And why not, pray tell?

Responds Feser:

"The deeper harmony of self-ownership and moral conservatism can only fully be seen … by attending to a distinction between what we might call formal vs. substantive self-ownership. Suppose Bob is sitting on a park bench, peacefully watching squirrels scamper about, and Fred sneaks up behind him and strangles him to death. Clearly, Fred has violated Bob's rights of self-ownership, invading as he has Bob's personal space without his consent and directly inflicting damage on his self-owned windpipe. But suppose that Fred goes nowhere near Bob, and instead, from a block away, activates a device which sucks away all the air in Bob's vicinity, leaving Bob in a vacuum in which he passes out and quickly dies. Has Fred violated Bob's rights of self-ownership in this case?

"Fred might plead innocent on the ground that the never laid hands on Bob. Further, he might insist quite sincerely that he had not particular desire to kill Bob, but wanted instead only to take all the air—Bob's death was simply a … side effect. And Fred might also claim that Bob's self-ownership rights have, in any case, not been violated: Fred has not deprived Bob of anything Bob owned by virtue of being a self-owner. He never took, inflicted damage upon, or even so much as touched Bob's neck or windpipe, nor his lungs, arms, legs, or any other part of his body. It just so happens that those things don't keep working when there's no air around, but that's not Fred's fault.

"Surely we can be forgiven for regarding Fred's defense as less than compelling, however casuistically ingenious. It is true that he has not deprived Bob of any formal rights of self-ownership; he's left Bob and his self-owned body parts, abilities, etc., unmolested, for all the good this does poor Bob. Clearly, thought, he's deprived Bob of any substantive rights of self-ownership. He has put Bob in a situation that makes him utterly unable to exercise his self-owned powers, abilities and so forth, rendering them as useless as if Bob had not owned them at all."

But his is not the end of the story. Not only, for Feser, does this substantive rights doctrine cast doubt on formal self-ownership of the human body, it applies as well to all sorts of other things. States Feser:

"Even non-invasive use of one's property and powers can violate another's self-ownership if it effectively nullifies or disables the other's ability to bring his self-owned powers to bear on the world, that is, if it renders another's ownership purely formal, not substantive. Choking Bob invasively violates his self-ownership, but removing all the air from his vicinity also violates it, however non-invasively. Cutting off your hand invasively violates your self-ownership, but your self-ownership is also violated, non-invasively, if instead … I activate a device that causes to disappear everything you ever try to reach for with your hand."

From these considerations Feser wants to derive the right, nay, the obligation, and on libertarian grounds, to prohibit by law prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, in that these latter acts deprive children of their substantive rights to grow up happily and healthily: "… respecting self-ownership requires taking a decidedly conservative position concerning … the rights of children."

Gordon responds to Feser's sally: "Fred has killed Charles, in a perfectly straightforward sense. It is true that he has not touched Charles, but why is this relevant? Libertarians maintain, like almost everyone else, that persons have a right not to be killed. There isn't a special libertarian view of what killing someone involves: if you kill someone, even without touching him or his property, you have violated his "formal" right to self-ownership. In like fashion, suppose that Fred poisons some unowned water that he has good reason to believe Charles is about to drink. Fred has, in an ordinary understanding of law, attempted to murder Charles. Libertarians should not hold otherwise; and there is no need to modify the self-ownership principle to take account of such cases."

Gordon's is a good answer. Here is another one: Ordinarily, when Charles is sitting quietly, breathing, we cannot say that he is homesteading the air, since this commodity is not a scarce item, and one can only homestead, or, indeed, own, scarce goods. However, when Fred' s machine sucks away all the air from the proximity of Charles, oxygen all of a sudden becomes scarce for the latter, very scarce indeed. But, Fred is thus guilty, under the libertarian legal code, of interfering with the peaceful homesteading by Charles of vital air, thus killing him. This invasion, or oxygen theft, certainly rises to the level of murder. Imagine were Fred to encounter Charles deep beneath the sea, where both were breathing air from their respective tanks. Whereupon Fred seizes, e.g., steals, Charles' air supply, leaving him to drown. There would be no question but that this would be murder, nor, should there be any issue about such a verdict in the very clever parallel case posed by Feser.

It is the same thing as far as causing "to disappear everything you ever try to reach for with your hand" is concerned. We have a word for this in the English language. It is called "theft." Thus, there is no need to drive a wedge between so-called formal and substantive rights, whether to human persons or to their property, and to promote the latter at the expense of the former. The two are in this case at least one and the same, if the relevant concepts are properly understood. But, if so, then this distinction cannot be used, either, to drive a wedge between libertarian theory, which supports the rights of free individuals to engage in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, etc., and the presumed substantive rights of children to be free of possibly witnessing these acts. Feser's mistake is to claim, in effect, that libertarian rights can conflict. They cannot. If there is a seeming conflict, one or the other (or possibly both) must be in error.

According to Rothbard: "The whole point of natural rights is that they are eternal and absolute, and the every man's rights are compossible with the rights of every other man. In every situation of a seeming conflict of rights, the libertarian political philosopher must search to eliminate the supposed conflict, and to identify whose rights are to prevail, to find out who is the victim and who is the aggressor.

Ron Paul

According to libertarian congressman Ron Paul, the fact that immigration will lower wages constitutes a reason to oppose it. He counters an open immigration policy on the ground that "… in many instances illegal immigrants simply increase the supply of labor in a community, which lowers wages."

This may or may not be the case, but assume it is. Still, it constitutes no legitimate libertarian reason for opposing open borders. For, in this philosophy, one can only own one's person and property, one cannot own the value thereof. Just because immigrants are stipulated to decrease wages does not mean that a rights violation occurred, and this would be the only legitimate reason for opposing their entrance into the country.

Vuk criticizes Paul on similar grounds, stating: "Ron Paul is blatantly supporting about (sic) protectionism, the bane of a free economic society. Plenty of Chinese are offering us lower prices which out compete domestic industry…"

Well, no one can be perfect. Ron Paul's libertarian credentials are otherwise virtually exemplary. Everyone is entitled to a small number of mistakes.

Conclusion

The view of Rockwell on conservatives is, I think, definitive:

"The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one's soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.

I'm speaking now of the variety of conservatism created by William Buckley, not the Old Right of Albert Jay Nock, John T. Flynn, Garett Garrett, H.L. Mencken, and company, though these people would have all rejected the name conservative as ridiculous. After Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR, what's to conserve of the government? The revolutionaries who tossed off a milder British rule would never have put up with it."

For my part, I'm hoping that the whole conservative movement will go down in flames with the decline and fall of the Bush administration. The red-state fascists have had their day and instead of liberty, they gave us the most raw and stupid form of imperial big government one can imagine. They have given America a bad name around the world. They have bamboozled millions. They have looted and bankrupted the country."

However, Rockwell is correctly an opponent not only of conservatives, but of liberals too:

"I don't mean to pick on the right exclusively. The left often … believe that the government can't but unleash Hell when it is waging war and spending on military machinery. But when it comes to domestic policy, they believe the same government can cure the sick, comfort the afflicted, teach the unlearned, and bring hope and happiness to all.

"Each side presumes that it potentially enjoys full control over the government it instructs to do this thing as versus that thing. What happens in real life, of course, is that the public sector—always and everywhere seeking more power—responds to the demands of both by granting each party's positive agenda while eschewing its negative one. Thus is the left given its welfare, and the right given its warfare, and we end up with a state that grows ever more vast and intrusive at home and abroad.

"What neither side understands is that the critique they offer of the programs they do not like applies also to the programs they do like. The same state that robs you and me, ties business in knots, and wrecks the schools also does the same—and worse —to countries that the US government invades. From the point of view of the taxed, the destination of the money doesn't matter; it is all taken by coercion and all of it saps the productive capacity of society. Similarly, the state that uses military power to impose its imperial will on foreign regimes—destroying property and lives, and making endless enemies—is the one the left proposes to put in charge of our economic lives."

It is easy to see how libertarianism stems from conservative roots. There are members of the Old Right mentioned by Rockwell such as Albert Jay Nock, John T. Flynn, Garet Garrett, H.L. Mencken. There is also Ayn Rand. But Gabriel Kolko, W.A. Williams, Ronald Radosh, on the left, too, have made major contributions to libertarianism.

I can't read anyone out of the libertarian movement. That has not been my purpose in this essay, nor is it within my power to do any such thing. However, in my assessment, both right-wing and left-wing libertarianism are missing the essence of this philosophy.

I end with a plea to both my right- and left-wing libertarian colleagues: In Oliver Cromwell's elegant words, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken...." I do not mean mistaken in some jot or tittle of what I have criticized above. As far as these things go, I am as likely to be mistaken about any of these specifics as are those I criticize. What I am talking about is what I see as a burgeoning schism within the libertarian movement, between left and right-wing libertarians. Each is moving toward the position, as I see it, of excluding the other, or removing themselves from the other. That would be a tragic mistake. Both are in error in this regard.