Marxism of the Right      
By Robert Locke
(with final comment by C. Porter)

Free spirits, the ambitious, ex-socialists, drug users, and sexual eccentrics often find an attractive political philosophy in libertarianism, the idea that individual freedom should be the sole rule of ethics and government. Libertarianism offers its believers a clear conscience to do things society presently restrains, like make more money, have more sex, or take more drugs. It promises a consistent formula for ethics, a rigorous framework for policy analysis, a foundation in American history, and the application of capitalist efficiencies to the whole of society. But while it contains substantial grains of truth, as a whole it is a seductive mistake.

There are many varieties of libertarianism, from natural-law libertarianism (the least crazy) to anarcho-capitalism (the most), and some varieties avoid some of the criticisms below. But many are still subject to most of them, and some of the more successful varieties—I recently heard a respected pundit insist that classical liberalism is libertarianism—enter a gray area where it is not really clear that they are libertarians at all. But because 95 percent of the libertarianism one encounters at cocktail parties, on editorial pages, and on Capitol Hill is a kind of commonplace “street” libertarianism, I decline to allow libertarians the sophistical trick of using a vulgar libertarianism to agitate for what they want by defending a refined version of their doctrine when challenged philosophically. We’ve seen Marxists pull that before.

This is no surprise, as libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society.

The most fundamental problem with libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. Simple physical security, which even a prisoner can possess, is not freedom, but one cannot live without it. Prosperity is connected to freedom, in that it makes us free to consume, but it is not the same thing, in that one can be rich but as unfree as a Victorian tycoon’s wife. A family is in fact one of the least free things imaginable, as the emotional satisfactions of it derive from relations that we are either born into without choice or, once they are chosen, entail obligations that we cannot walk away from with ease or justice. But security, prosperity, and family are in fact the bulk of happiness for most real people and the principal issues that concern governments.

Libertarians try to get around this fact that freedom is not the only good thing by trying to reduce all other goods to it through the concept of choice, claiming that everything that is good is so because we choose to partake of it. Therefore freedom, by giving us choice, supposedly embraces all other goods. But this violates common sense by denying that anything is good by nature, independently of whether we choose it. Nourishing foods are good for us by nature, not because we choose to eat them. Taken to its logical conclusion, the reduction of the good to the freely chosen means there are no inherently good or bad choices at all, but that a man who chose to spend his life playing tiddlywinks has lived as worthy a life as a Washington or a Churchill.

Furthermore, the reduction of all goods to individual choices presupposes that all goods are individual. But some, like national security, clean air, or a healthy culture, are inherently collective. It may be possible to privatize some, but only some, and the efforts can be comically inefficient. Do you really want to trace every pollutant in the air back to the factory that emitted it and sue?

Libertarians rightly concede that one’s freedom must end at the point at which it starts to impinge upon another person’s, but they radically underestimate how easily this happens. So even if the libertarian principle of “an it harm none, do as thou wilt,” is true, it does not license the behavior libertarians claim. Consider pornography: libertarians say it should be permitted because if someone doesn’t like it, he can choose not to view it. But what he can’t do is choose not to live in a culture that has been vulgarized by it.

Libertarians in real life rarely live up to their own theory but tend to indulge in the pleasant parts while declining to live up to the difficult portions. They flout the drug laws but continue to collect government benefits they consider illegitimate. This is not just an accidental failing of libertarianism’s believers but an intrinsic temptation of the doctrine that sets it up to fail whenever tried, just like Marxism.

Libertarians need to be asked some hard questions. What if a free society needed to draft its citizens in order to remain free? What if it needed to limit oil imports to protect the economic freedom of its citizens from unfriendly foreigners? What if it needed to force its citizens to become sufficiently educated to sustain a free society? What if it needed to deprive landowners of the freedom to refuse to sell their property as a precondition for giving everyone freedom of movement on highways? What if it needed to deprive citizens of the freedom to import cheap foreign labor in order to keep out poor foreigners who would vote for socialistic wealth redistribution?

In each of these cases, less freedom today is the price of more tomorrow. Total freedom today would just be a way of running down accumulated social capital and storing up problems for the future. So even if libertarianism is true in some ultimate sense, this does not prove that the libertarian policy choice is the right one today on any particular question.
Furthermore, if limiting freedom today may prolong it tomorrow, then limiting freedom tomorrow may prolong it the day after and so on, so the right amount of freedom may in fact be limited freedom in perpetuity. But if limited freedom is the right choice, then libertarianism, which makes freedom an absolute, is simply wrong. If all we want is limited freedom, then mere liberalism will do, or even better, a Burkean conservatism that reveres traditional liberties. There is no need to embrace outright libertarianism just because we want a healthy portion of freedom, and the alternative to libertarianism is not the USSR, it is America’s traditional liberties.

Libertarianism’s abstract and absolutist view of freedom leads to bizarre conclusions. Like slavery, libertarianism would have to allow one to sell oneself into it. (It has been possible at certain times in history to do just that by assuming debts one could not repay.) And libertarianism degenerates into outright idiocy when confronted with the problem of children, whom it treats like adults, supporting the abolition of compulsory education and all child-specific laws, like those against child labor and child sex. It likewise cannot handle the insane and the senile.

Libertarians argue that radical permissiveness, like legalizing drugs, would not shred a libertarian society because drug users who caused trouble would be disciplined by the threat of losing their jobs or homes if current laws that make it difficult to fire or evict people were abolished. They claim a “natural order” of reasonable behavior would emerge. But there is no actual empirical proof that this would happen. Furthermore, this means libertarianism is an all-or-nothing proposition: if society continues to protect people from the consequences of their actions in any way, libertarianism regarding specific freedoms is illegitimate. And since society does so protect people, libertarianism is an illegitimate moral position until the Great Libertarian Revolution has occurred.

And is society really wrong to protect people against the negative consequences of some of their free choices? While it is obviously fair to let people enjoy the benefits of their wise choices and suffer the costs of their stupid ones, decent societies set limits on both these outcomes. People are allowed to become millionaires, but they are taxed. They are allowed to go broke, but they are not then forced to starve. They are deprived of the most extreme benefits of freedom in order to spare us the most extreme costs. The libertopian alternative would be perhaps a more glittering society, but also a crueler one.

Empirically, most people don’t actually want absolute freedom, which is why democracies don’t elect libertarian governments. Irony of ironies, people don’t choose absolute freedom. But this refutes libertarianism by its own premise, as libertarianism defines the good as the freely chosen, yet people do not choose it. Paradoxically, people exercise their freedom not to be libertarians.

The political corollary of this is that since no electorate will support libertarianism, a libertarian government could never be achieved democratically but would have to be imposed by some kind of authoritarian state, which rather puts the lie to libertarians’ claim that under any other philosophy, busybodies who claim to know what’s best for other people impose their values on the rest of us. Libertarianism itself is based on the conviction that it is the one true political philosophy and all others are false. It entails imposing a certain kind of society, with all its attendant pluses and minuses, which the inhabitants thereof will not be free to opt out of except by leaving.

And if libertarians ever do acquire power, we may expect a farrago of bizarre policies. Many support abolition of government-issued money in favor of that minted by private banks. But this has already been tried, in various epochs, and doesn’t lead to any wonderful paradise of freedom but only to an explosion of fraud and currency debasement followed by the concentration of financial power in those few banks that survive the inevitable shaking-out. Many other libertarian schemes similarly founder on the empirical record.
A major reason for this is that libertarianism has a naïve view of economics that seems to have stopped paying attention to the actual history of capitalism around 1880. There is not the space here to refute simplistic laissez faire, but note for now that the second-richest nation in the world, Japan, has one of the most regulated economies, while nations in which government has essentially lost control over economic life, like Russia, are hardly economic paradises. Legitimate criticism of over-regulation does not entail going to the opposite extreme.

Libertarian naïveté extends to politics. They often confuse the absence of government impingement upon freedom with freedom as such. But without a sufficiently strong state, individual freedom falls prey to other more powerful individuals. A weak state and a freedom-respecting state are not the same thing, as shown by many a chaotic Third-World tyranny.

Libertarians are also naïve about the range and perversity of human desires they propose to unleash. They can imagine nothing more threatening than a bit of Sunday-afternoon sadomasochism, followed by some recreational drug use and work on Monday. They assume that if people are given freedom, they will gravitate towards essentially bourgeois lives, but this takes for granted things like the deferral of gratification that were pounded into them as children without their being free to refuse. They forget that for much of the population, preaching maximum freedom merely results in drunkenness, drugs, failure to hold a job, and pregnancy out of wedlock. Society is dependent upon inculcated self-restraint if it is not to slide into barbarism, and libertarians attack this self-restraint. Ironically, this often results in internal restraints being replaced by the external restraints of police and prison, resulting in less freedom, not more.

This contempt for self-restraint is emblematic of a deeper problem: libertarianism has a lot to say about freedom but little about learning to handle it. Freedom without judgment is dangerous at best, useless at worst. Yet libertarianism is philosophically incapable of evolving a theory of how to use freedom well because of its root dogma that all free choices are equal, which it cannot abandon except at the cost of admitting that there are other goods than freedom. Conservatives should know better.

FINAL COMMENT BY C. PORTER:
That Objectivism (the so-called "philosophy" from which most modern libertarianism is largely derived) should be a form of "Marxism of the Right" is hardly surprising since Objectivism is itself a very pre-Soviet Russian sort of "philosophy" -- essentially a mixture of Bakunin's GOD AND THE STATE and Kropotkin's ANARCHIST MORALITY. There are sentences in Bakunin that she lifts almost word for word, plus the logic is 100% the same. Same with Kropotkin.
The most amazing thing is the name "Objectivism", since the whole philosophy is 100% subjective.
If this is not true, then where, oh where, in the vast oceans of "Objectiviist" verbal diarrhoea about "values", is there any "objective" standard according to which one makes decisions?
For example, we are told that "sacrifice" is "immoral", and that if we "value" A over B, then it is "altruitic" and "immoral" and "self-sacrifice" to choose B over A. Nevertheless we may choose B over A if we "value" C over A.
For example, if I "value" watching a boxing match on TV more than I "value" taking my son to a football game, it is "immoral" and "self-sacrificial" of me to take my son to the football game. But I can take him to the football game if I "value" my relationship with my son (C) more than I "value" watching the boxing match.
What happens if I don't give a damn about my relationship with my son? But then let's suppose that my wife wants me to take him, and I "value" my relationship with my wife (D) more than I "value" watching the boxing match. This process can continue all the way out to X,Y,Z.
Where does it stop? By what "objective" standard do "Objectivists" make these decisions? There is none. In practice, they do whatever the hell they want, and claim it is in their "rational self interest", because that is what they "choose" to do.
When pushed in a corner, they will even claim that nothing is "altruism" and "self-sacrifice" if they "choose" to do it.
But according to what "rational" standard do they make these decisions? How does their decision-making differ from that of anyone else?
The whole situation is complicated by the total lack of "objective" definitions and the typical refusal of "Objectivists" to explain anything or answer questions.
My brother wrote a book in which he claimed that it would not be "altruism" or "self-sacrifice" for John Galt (a Rand hero) to stop and help Wesley Meigs (a Rand villain) if Meig's car had broken down on a lonely road, just as long as he "chose" to do it.
But what does it mean -- "objectively" -- to say that it "doesn't matter what you do, just as long as you 'choose' to do it"?
Saying "it doesn't matter what you do as long as you choose to do it", is like saying "it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you are sincere". At that rate, what is the point of believing anything? Is that all there is to this glorious "rational" philosophy?
In fact, as we all know, stopping to help a "motorist whose car has broken down a lonely road" is a good way to get murdered. It is obviously altruistic; (just watch the film "No Country for Old Men"), but not if we "choose" to do it.
It's like the song:
"Is that all there is? If that's all there is, my friend, let's keep dancing... let's break out the booze.... and have... a ball... if that's all... there is..."
One good way to understand the Objectivists is, look at all their insults and everything they are against, and then turn it around, and it fits them.
They are, or became, everything they hated. It is a fantastic Freudian projection of themselves onto others.
For example, their insults.
We are never told what "rational self-interest" consists of. There are, of course, a few caveats; we mustn't be "mindless"; we mustn't be "whim-worshipers"; we mustn't "play it deuces wild", etc. But in the absence of an "objective" defintion of "rational self-interest" that is what they are; that is what they do. How do they make their decisions? Is BASE jumping in my "rational selft-interest"? If so, how about Russian Roulette?
The way Rand manipulated her defintions is absolutely typical. Everytime she didn't get what she wanted one way, she changed her defintions.
"Deuces wild" is a perfectly legitimate game provided that you announce it before the deal. Rand changes her definitions all the time, in the middle of the game.
In "Obejctivism", every word has 3 or 4 different meanings, depending on what the "Objectivists" want to achieve for 5 minutes, and what they want to con you out of.
Let's list them.
LIFE
What is the "Objectivist" definition of "life"? "Life" is first used in its ordinary sense. It is then broadened to include "all things necessary to life", which is then broadened to include "financial status". This is used to justify abortion. If I "value" a new set of furniture or a new car over the life of my child, it is "self-sacrificial" to have the child; I am a "sacrificial animal"!
Elsewhere, to pull of a different con job, "Life" is defined as "a process of self-sustaining, self-generated action". (Shouldn't it be "self-generated, self-sustaining"? After all, "generation" comes first, doesn't it? Or have I missed something?)
What does this mean? First, nothing in this universe is "self-generated"; everything comes from something else. That includes us. Otherwise, how do we get born? Secondly, what does it mean to be "self-sustaining"? Does it mean I don't have to eat, drink or breathe? Does it mean that a foetus, a child, the disabled, the elderly, the unemployed, are not "alive" because they are not "self-sustaining"? Note how Jewish this is: if I run a hedge fund and make billions of dollars, I am "self-sustaining"; otherwise not.
Or is this pretentious formulation simply an expression of a child's realisation that a live pupply doesn't have to be wound up or pulled around on a string? If not, what does it mean?
In justifying abortion, Rand denied that abortion was killing -- more accurately, she evaded the whole question -- but simultaneously, she never denied that a foetus was alive. Using her second definition of "life", she seems to claim that they aren't even that. So which is it? Are children, the disabled, the elderly, the unemployed, really "non-living"? What does this mean?
VALUE
What is the "Objectivist" definition of "value"? Answer: "that which you act to gain or keep". Note that this is purely materialistic and acquisitive. You can "act to gain or keep" an apartment block, or a controlling interest in a company, but you cannot "act to gain or keep" something purely aesthetic and non-material. For example, I "value" the moon and stars on a beautiful night; but how do I "act to gain or keep" them? I value the whales; I do not wish them to become extinct; but how do I "act to gain or keep"a whale? I "value" the Milky Way"; but how do I "act to gain or keep" it? I "value" a painting by Titian; but how do "act to gain or keep it"? By buying it?
SACRIFICE
"Sacrifice" is giving up a "higher value" in favour of a "lower" one. If you give up a "lower value" in favour of a "higher one", you are "making a profit". Thus, as with "value", everything is purely acquisitive. Either you are making a "profit" or you are "immoral".
The same people will then tell you that joining the Army and going to Viet Nam or Afghanistan and becoming a paraplegic or multiple amputee isn't a "sacrifice" if you "choose" to do it"!
To most people, "sacrifice" means working, or waiting, or suffering, in the expectation of obtaining a "higher value" later, or in a different sphere.
For example, a standard psychological maturity test consists of asking a child (or even an adult) whether he would prefer a small candy bar right now, or a much bigger candy bar next week. But what if the kid doesn't believe you when you tell him he'll get the candy bar next week? He might figure, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If he's really skeptical, if he really doesn't trust you, or if he's really hungry, choosing the smaller candy bar right now might well be more "rational".

-C.P.
24 September 2012