Have we been going about it all wrong?

[wombatron]

Some replies to your concerns, Speckles:

@Speckles

1. Arguments like "that criticism doesn’t apply because there’s a sect of Libertarianism that says X!” This is incredibly annoying, and actually makes libertarianism look weaker in my eyes. I’m aware that there is a diversity of views, but making a claim then trying to dodge the rebuttal by throwing up this Red Herring doesn’t help your case, it just makes you look wishy-washy. Unless you are saying something like "your point has merit; maybe I should consider modifying my views to match sect X of Libertarianism that tries to accommodate your concern,” I don’t care. I’ve heard this often enough that I just start tuning out when I hear it.

Are you talking about appeals to authority? If so, that is true with every school of thought, and is hardly a criticism of libertarianism, per se.

@Speckles

2. Not admitting to past failures or to the successes of other systems. I don’t want to talk to someone who dismisses Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” as socialist propaganda without actually bothering to read it or check its sources, or keeps dodging around the fact that per capita Canadians pay just over half as much on healthcare as Americans, yet are on average healthier (if you leave out Americans with no health insurance then both countries are approximately as healthy apparently, but Americans are still paying twice as much for the same product). (Source: OECD Health Data 2006)

“The Shock Doctrine” and Americans spending more on healthcare (?) are properly critiques of corporatism/state-capitalism, not the free market. They are thus strawmen when applied to libertarianism, which may explain what you have seen.

@Speckles

3. Plutocratic bias. I commonly see contempt among libertarians for the poor, outright hostility towards unions, and praise and advocacy for corporations and the wealthy. I find the fact that some people don’t see why this would bother people mind-boggling. I know not every libertarian is like this, but enough are to make the philosophy a tough sell. The bias also leads to libertarians arguing for policies that, as far as I can tell, are the complete opposite from what would actually be needed to create a libertarian society.

Unfortunately, that is part of the tendency known as vulgar libertarianism. Fortunately, it is pretty rare on this forum. Cato and Reason and the like are far more guilty of plutocratic bias, to say nothing of “free-market” conservatives.

@Speckles

4. Refusal to accept that altruism is just as fundamental a drive as libido. Just like some people have greater sex drives, some people have a greater ‘altruism drive’. There are clear evolutionary advantages to being altruistic; given my audience, I’m not sure if I really need to go into it. Anyways, expecting people to be perfectly selfish and inquisitive is just as much a mistake as communism’s expectation that people be perfectly altruistic and accepting.

The reason I bring this up is that it’s important to realize that for some people, like me, the Social Darwinist leanings of libertarianism are repulsive. There is no faster way to turn me off then dismissing the needs of others as unimportant, saying that people are suffering because they aren’t ‘motivated’ enough to deal with their problems, or that maybe the stupid should just die if they can’t cut it. This IS me being selfish, as I find trying to not be a bleeding heart unnatural and a bit painful. My altruistic drive is just too strong for me to easily ignore, even if I am aware that not everyone can be helped.

Your confusion here may arise from the differing use of “altruism”. Rand used altruism to mean a philosophical doctrine that held that “the good” means doing things for others, while “the bad” means doing things for yourself. Obviously, there are serious problems for this idea, even if one is not an Aristotelian or Objectivist. On the other hand, “altruism” as “concern for others” is rarely argued against (unless you’re a Stirnerite, a rare animal indeed).

Of course, some may conflate these two definitions in the opposite way, leading to what you called “Social Darwinism” (a strawman in itself, but I digress). Objectivists (especially those of the ARI faction) are sometimes guilty of this.

@Speckles

5. Dismissing the danger of altruism; saying that rational greed will always triumph. If that were true, there would be a lot fewer wars. Being a soldier is a very altruistic decision. Recruitment advertising is basically designed to inflame people’s altruistic lust if you think about it - ‘teamwork’, ‘part of something bigger’, ‘serving your country’. I mean, how much would I have to pay you for you to agree to have, say, a 5% chance of dying, a 30% chance of being seriously injured, and a 50% chance of suffering severe mental trauma (i.e. stuff like PTSD, not just a bad experience)? Probably more then a soldier is paid (in Iraq mercenary contractors are paid between 2 to 5 times as much if I recall correctly, and usually aren’t put in the worst situations).

Now, I’ve heard some people go big whoop, lust can make humans do stupid things, so what? If you read up on the evolutionary logic of altruism, it’s not being a sucker that wins, it’s tit-for-tat. In other words, if someone takes advantage your generosity, find a way to punish them so that the cost of defecting is greater then the benefit. In the extreme this creates ‘scorpion players’, or individuals start valuing the chance to hurt another, in this case the defector, as much as possible over their own well being, for example suicide bombers.

Unions are a less extreme example, where a company tries to get too much productivity out of its workers at the cost of their well-being, and so the workers assemble into an entity with enough power to retaliate. While this may reduce the total pay off available to the company and the worker, it assures that the worker doesn’t get the sucker’s payoff which would be even less. Of course, unions may get corrupt and greedy after creation, and some unions may get formed for exploitative reasons, but the core logic of them in general is altruistic retaliation.

Ummm… strawman. Definitely applicable to “free-market” neoclassical economists, though

@Speckles

4. Calling altruism evil or stupid. This is contradictory for all kinds of reasons, but also beside the point. Altruism is just as fundamental a drive as greed; a libertarian arguing that humans should stop being altruistic is really just like a communist arguing that people should stop being greedy. It’s not going to happen. It doesn’t matter how nice a political theory is, if it cannot work with human nature then it isn’t going to work.

Again, differing definitions. Altruism, in the sense of self-sacrifice as the basis of morality, is evil. Altruism defined as concern for others is a matter of personal choice.

[Stranger]

@majevska

I think Speckles is right about why libertarians have such a low success rate of converting people. The core problem is that it can be very fun to tell people they are wrong and show them that they have no idea what they are talking about. I have done it many times but stopped when I realized that it alienates people. Some people can be converted in this way, but it is rare. The majority of people start to hate libertarians when they are humiliated by them. You may be 100% correct in your logic, and if so you will probably make the other person feel defeated and humiliated and all you accomplish is making yourself into an object of hatred and discomfort. I repeat that this approach may work at times and it is very fun. But be careful with it because you will alienate a lot of people.

Nobody was ever happy to learn there is no Santa Claus.

[wombatron]

@Stranger

@majevska

I think Speckles is right about why libertarians have such a low success rate of converting people. The core problem is that it can be very fun to tell people they are wrong and show them that they have no idea what they are talking about. I have done it many times but stopped when I realized that it alienates people. Some people can be converted in this way, but it is rare. The majority of people start to hate libertarians when they are humiliated by them. You may be 100% correct in your logic, and if so you will probably make the other person feel defeated and humiliated and all you accomplish is making yourself into an object of hatred and discomfort. I repeat that this approach may work at times and it is very fun. But be careful with it because you will alienate a lot of people.

Nobody was ever happy to learn there is no Santa Claus.

Indeed. Don’t you just love socialized idiot factories (I’m sorry, “public schools”)? [:P]

[Jon_Irenicus]

Well personally I do indeed find nothing problematic about plutocracy. I just find it heinous to suggest a state should enforce one. It is my mind that boggles why so many people have such an aversion to it - probably because in the current system it is divorced from meritocracy.

-Jon

[Simon_Lote]

First of all I’d suggest in the past 50 years the movement for liberty has grown and has become more organised. 50 years ago it was virtually dead now conferences exist all throughout the the world and there is reams of scolarship. Furthermore socialism has been tried and failed abysmally. Few people take seriously trotskyites and stalinists any more, trust in politics and state authority is at any all time low, fewer and fewer people vote and politicians worry that nobody is going to turn up at elections.

That said people who assume revolution would come about tomorrow if only we put $X into this crazy pet project have to manage their expectations somewhat as the prospects for liberty in our lifetime are dim and probably only our grandchildren will live long enough to see it. I think strategy like the Mises institute are excellent, they may be unglamarous for some but intellectual change happens at a glacial pace.