ALS: thoughts on freedom

12 Comments

1. But… where are the votes in doing nothing? How could a politician hope to get elected by boasting about how little they’ve done? It can always be made to sound better to DO SOMETHING. An inactive government would be accused of inertia, not wisdom. Of course, the chances of choosing the right course of action are slim, but centralisers don’t worry about that! Just let the powers-that-bedazzle have another go!
   I call the Communist-Fascist-BigGovernment idealists, ‘centralisers’, and I think of myself as an Excentric, an exceptional eccentric. ‘Libertarian’ is too close to ‘Libertine’, in other people’s minds, but eccentrics are always linked to lovable! Is this also the place to talk about my preferred symbol of freedom, a blue circle with a red ‘X’ over it? All anti-statists could use a common symbol of the struggle against big gov. This symmetrical sign, which would be easy to draw, is also easy to understand (exclude the world from my world).
   And why didn’t the LDP just call themselves the Australian Libertarian Party? Or the Australian Enterprize Party? They sound like a milder version of the Democrats, or a breakaway faction?

   Comment by nicholas gray | February 9, 2007

2. Spot on post.

   All of these things exist. Unintended consequences. Perverse incentives Distorting effects on the economy. Deadweight losses and inefficiencies. All of these things come about from governmental interference. Humans are not robots, and they each react to new circumstances according to their individual preferences.

   Its the reason why I am marginally more likely to find a work-related conference to decide if and where I should go on a tax deductible holiday, so that I can avoid huge tax obligations. Or whether I should take out huge loans for investment purposes because the interest is tax deductible.

   Or the fact that I now will hold shares for at least 12 months before selling in order to halve my CGT liability. Or perhaps hold them further into the future if I anticipate a future tax cut.

   Can’t wait to read Freakonomics next week. The entire book drives home the point of unintended consequences.

   Comment by Jono | February 9, 2007

3. Yes, good post.

   The blue circle with a red cross logo doesn’t do it for me, because by liberty I do not desire the world to keep out of my world. I want to be in the world and do lots of things. A symbol of ethically excluding force?

   I agree about the name of the Liberal Democratic Party too. Both words have become degraded in their ordinary use in political discourse. In the US, ‘liberal’ means ‘in favour of big government, big tax, welfare bureaucratic empires, a presumption of state omniscience and omnicompetence, and the restriction of individual liberty and private property’. In Australia ‘Liberal’ means ‘large unprincipled party holding to socialist and conservative policies almost all of which are hostile to both liberty and private property’. In the US, ‘Democrat’ means ‘socialist’. And in Australian politics, ‘Democrat’ means ‘nasty whining totally unprincipled political prostitutes of the most despicable kind’.

   I think the party should either be called the Libertarian Party (no need to add Australian, because unlike the socialists, we are not particularly nationalist.) Or something that describes the belief system, like “Freedom and Responsibility Party”.

   Comment by justinjefferson | February 10, 2007

4. I couple of points. First, many (perhaps most) libertarians don’t hold freedom to be the ultimate value. There is another (not necessarily contradictory) value and that is utility. These two values pertain to different questions. The first question is whether voluntary action or coerced/violent action is moral as a means. The second question is whether happiness (broadly defined) or unhappiness is an appropriate ends.

   I am a utilitarian, so I do accept the possibility that the government could act in a way that would make the world better. But in practice I don’t think they do — and so I set a high burden of proof on the statist and am therefore a libertarian.

   Second, the point you make about nobody having complete knowledge is amazingly important to understanding the utilitarian virtues of freedom and especially the free market. If you haven’t done so yet I strongly recomend reading Hayek’s “the use of knowledge in society”:

   http://www.econlib.org/Library/Essays/hykKnw1.html

   Finally, the LDP name debate is over. As much as we would like to believe that holding hands and humming will make a political difference, the first fundamental necessity in moving the political debate is to make sure we’re relevant and noticed. Otherwise we’re just talking to ourselves. Political names that try to say too much fail. The end.

   Comment by John Humphreys | February 11, 2007

5. John – you wrote elsewhere that most libertarians are both… I think that’s probably right. Even if I think there’s no value superior to just being free – in nature mankind is free, might is right, etc – I’m not saying we should have anarchy. I’ve already implemented the utilitarian calculus because I do think we need the government around to carry out core functions.

   Comment by Sukrit Sabhlok | February 11, 2007

6. I should add the core functions are up for debate, even among libertarians… It’s not enough to show the market cannot perform a particular activity efficiently. It has to also be shown that the government can perform it more efficiently. Now that’s indeed very difficult to show, since if private individuals who possess all the right incentives – property rights, local information – are unable to arrive at an efficient solution, it is very difficult to see how government agents – the bureaucrats – who have no property rights and lesser amount of local information, can do so more efficiently?

   Comment by Sukrit Sabhlok | February 11, 2007

7. Sukrit — your second response to me was based on utilitarian thinking and will appeal to utilitarians. The problem with identifying “freedom” as our ultimate value is that many utilitarians will disagree and not give libertarian ideas a fair hearing.

   J.S.Mill, Milton Friedman, David Friedman, Jason Soon and plenty of other utilitarian libertarians think that the deontelogical argument for freedom (ie saying freedom is the ultimate value) is meaningless, wrong and will convince nobody.

   I think the deontelogical argument is fair and (as you point out) I believe in both freedom and utility as the correct answers to different questions. But not everybody agrees with me.

   I also note that anarchy isn’t necessarily the logical consequence from a purely deontelogical freedom-based argument. It is possible to justify an amount of violence/coercion (limited government) on the basis that it will decrease the total amount of violence/ceorcion (murder, theft etc).

   Comment by John Humphreys | February 12, 2007

8. In the US, ‘Democrat’ means ’socialist’. And in Australian politics, ‘Democrat’ means ‘nasty whining totally unprincipled political prostitutes of the most despicable kind’.

   Sounds like Australia and the US have the same definition to me.

   Comment by Jono | February 12, 2007

9. It is too late to change the name right now, but I think that attitude will change when the results come in from the various elections this year, including the Federal Election. The confusion amongst voters will be obvious, and I think that a name change will then be inevitable. So, for that future day, I now recommend the Enterprize Party, or the more straight-forward Libertarian Party.
   As an aside, I’ve come up with the term ‘COMMUNAZI’ to describe any big-government type. The similarities between right and left outweigh their superficial differences.

   Comment by nicholas gray | February 12, 2007

10. Aiyah! First, the LDP has already stood at two elections and there was insignificant name confusion. Second, if there is any confusion it will only lead to a higher vote for us, so why would we want to give that up?

    The current name (Liberal Democrats) is a vote-winner and it is inclusive, helping us to reach out to people who don’t self-identify as libertarians. It gives us credibility and it doesn’t sound like a backyard or student organisation. Not to mention the fact that our philosophy has historically been known as “liberal democracy” so our name recalls a long and distinguished intellectual tradition.

    Comment by John Humphreys | February 12, 2007

11. A name change would be a divisive waste of time. Every man and his dog has an opinion about the ideal name but ultimately rearranging the deck chairs does nothing to win support or build the brand. Changing names would in fact dilute the brand.

    In any case I think “Enterprize Party” completely misses the mark implying that the party is some sort of corporate mouth piece (which it most definitely isn’t).

    Comment by terje (say tay-a) | February 12, 2007

12. Here is another term to add to our self-descriptions- Agorophilist. ‘Agora’ means ‘market, open space’, ‘Phil-’ means ‘love’, thus an Agorophilist is someone who loves openness and open markets, and that is a good description of the libertarian philosophy. We would rather trust the open market before we would fall back on the secretive state. And we can bad-mouth our opponents by calling them agoraphobiacs! An agoraphobe hates open spaces and noisy market-places. (Perhaps we should call them ‘Spartoids’, since they have a spartan-type distrust of money and a free society, and they want a central command to tell them what to do.)

    Comment by nicholas gray | February 15, 2007

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

« Previous | Next »

Site info