The very much established - just to get that out of the way - field of evolutionary biology has already found its way into libertarian political thinking (see Michael Shermer: Mind of the Market), and there is quite rightly so an affinity between the ideas of Darwin’s self-regulatory nature and Smith’s self-regulatory market system. Even religion has lately come under scrutiny by evolutionary thinkers (see Daniel Dennett: Breaking the Spell); and for some time now the wonderful theories of Maxine Sheets-Johnstone on the evolution of Thinking and Experiencing have been out there (see Sheets-Johnstone: The Roots of Thinking and Sheets-Johnstone: The Primacy of Movement).
An idea behind libertarian thinking (originating in writing with Adam Smith) is that human interaction naturally falls into certain - often beneficial - patterns so that our societies and our markets tend to be the result of the coalescence of diverse, sometimes antagonistic, interests. Libertarians (and I am such) tend to believe that this proces produces just, happy and productive societies and individuals if just simply left alone; that societies form properly from the bottom-up, and that they are more often than not disturbed or even destroyed from the top-down.
There is a parallel to the creationists of modern day. They, like socialist politicians, believe that because they cannot fathom the complex bottom-up operations that create the equilibria of organic and economic systems, it must have then been created by a outside agent operating for the good of all. The fundamentalist religious people view god as the great creator of order and good in the world, just like socialists view the state as the creator of organised society. No such thing, they postulate - be it about organisms, markets, or societies - could just have happened without some supreme guidance.
Now, there is somewhat of a challenge in this way of thinking - that we as a species tend to organise ourselves and our interactions from the bottom-up. The challenge is that I simply don’t believe that free societies arise naturally. Judging from history, it seems to take a great deal of effort. Historically, it has involved writing constitutions and contracts between free men (sorry, not between free women), establishing non-partisan courts and arbitration system, dismantling the men (again, not women) in power and often dismantling their heads as well. Free societies - or the constitutional approximations that we see today - have taken the courage of a million soldiers and the minds of a thousand thinkers. That, to my mind, seems to be the case, anyway. Societies, left by their own devices at the mercy of the ignorance of men, develop horribly seen from the vantage point of individual freedom: They become riddled with dictators, pharaohs, kings, lords, shoguns, and caliphs. Freedom takes an effort. Right?
Here’s my problem: If it takes an effort to create (approximations of) free societies, does it not also take an effort to maintain free societies? And what shape does this effort take if not that particularly ghastly top-down popularity contest called parliamentarism with all its lobbying, all its interpretations, all its laws and adjudications? All its modern America, and Britain, and Europe.
Anyone?