Hypothetically consider a single black mother who lives in an urban center. She has her GED and no education beyond that. She is usually able to find work, but only at relatively shitty jobs like fast food. She has been let go from one job by a boss who was very clearly racist (she overheard him making racist jokes on many occasions, including once about her). She once had to quit a job because a male boss was continually sexually harassing her. She is unable to go to school because she has to work at least 50 hours/week to support her son and herself. Usually, she is unable to make ends meet and has to seek government assistance just to keep food in the pantry and the heat and lights on in their crummy little apartment.
Now, obviously you could choose to lecture her and blame her for her current situation, or lecture her on how she has it so much better than someone in the third world and it’s all thanks to the miraculous workings of whatever sliver of free markets we allow in the USA.
However, I’m assuming that many of you would actually like to see a libertarian world, which obviously will require quite a bit more tact than that if you are going to win over the necessary number of supporters. So, what would you say to this person to convince her to become a libertarian? What would be the key points you would hit on? What objections would you anticipate and how would you respond to those? Or, would you write off such a person as not worth trying to convince? If so, do you anticipate that libertarian ideas can take hold without the support of such people?
Also, please don’t reply that this person couldn’t/doesn’t exist. Hypothetical means just that. EDIT: Obviously, you can post whatever you want. I’m just forewarning you that I won’t spend any time arguing over whether the hypothetical could exist. That’s not what I’m interested in discussing.
How do you know she’s not already a libertarian? I don’t see why you can’t have poor libertarians. Ron Paul accepts Social Security but wants to end it.
Getting married will improve her situation. Becoming a libertarian will not.
“Why would anyone want to convince her to be libertarian?”
So she’ll support libertarian causes and/or candidates.
“Does it really help her situation?”
That is certainly the question. If she is a rational, self-interested being, does she stand more to gain by voting for libertarian or “statist” candidates, supporting libertarian or “statist” causes?
I actually wouldn’t start off by trying to convince her to become a libertarian. What I’d first try to do is find out more about why she hasn’t been able to get a better job. Hopefully I could then make some helpful suggestions for her about how to improve her and her son’s living conditions.
Without any additional context, one piece of advice I’d offer right off the bat has to do with point of view. It seems to me that a lot of people don’t get (further) ahead in life because they’re constantly focused on what other people are doing. To be quite honest, I think that’s a mistake. Focusing on other people just increases the chances that opportunities will be missed. So I suggest focusing on what they themselves can do. Psychology calls this “locus of control”, where focusing on what other people are doing or could do constitutes an external locus of control and focusing on what oneself is doing or could do constitutes an internal locus of control.
to believe in a truly free market, means you have to see the bigger picture. You have to envision what the economy could be like if free markets existed. Envision how much wealthier everyone would be if governments didn’t steal it away.
Envision all the increased job opportunities there would be in a truly free market. Envision all the increased labor going to actual useful and productive means. In a truly free market, we’d have alot more people doing alot more things that would benefit the people, not government.
@ Daniel Muffinberg: your argument to her is that in a libertarian society she would be able to sell lemonade in a park or braid people’s hair in her apartment (nice racial reference, btw ) without a government permit?
@ Autolykos: what makes you think she is blaming anyone else for her situation? Plenty of working poor people are doing whatever they can to actively improve their lot by their own efforts - in the hypothetical I gave that certainly seems to be the case (based on her actions - working a lot, only taking gov’t assistance as a necessary last resort, etc.)
And in reply to your second post, what if she counters that she definitely gains by voting for candidates who promise to maintain gov’t assistance programs that have helped her out a few different times when she absolutely couldn’t make ends meet on her own?
I’m not assuming she is, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But in my experience, a lot of people who just get by in life tend to blame others for it. I wouldn’t suggest her to adopt an internal locus of control under the assumption that she doesn’t already have one. It would be more like a “Have you thought about it this way?” kind of suggestion.
How do you know that? What does “whatever they can” really mean here?
Then I think she’s deluded - but I wouldn’t put it to her that way, of course.
Well first of all, I’d try to convince this person by saying to her this - why are the poor, poor? Isn’t it the regulations of the state regarding minimum wage laws and unions that creates unemployment? And we can’t deny that taxes prevent employment creation. They do. Everybody would be a lot better off financially if the government wasn’t stealing their wealth and redistributing it. Forced equalization of wealth is completely unnatural, and I’d show this person videos of starved and poor people in the Soviet Union and Maoist China as a result of this “attempt to end poverty.” Show her that freedom and private property are the friends of the poor through history. And tell her why the society that we live in now is no where close to a “free market,” and that a true free market is actually very strict in it’s enforcement of contracts (in her case, the relationship between employer and employee).
“I’m not assuming she is, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But in my experience, a lot of people who just get by in life tend to blame others for it. I wouldn’t suggest her to adopt an internal locus of control under the assumption that she doesn’t already have one. It would be more like a “Have you thought about it this way?” kind of suggestion.”
OK. Well, assume you’ve got to know her a little bit and she doesn’t focus on other people/the environment as the source of things that happen to her. What would be your second bit of advice?
“How do you know that? What does “whatever they can” really mean here?”
She works until she is physically tired. She goes without food until she is physically hungry. She does not have the financial means to NOT work long enough to try anything (start a business, whatever) besides working. She has to keep working at low-wage jobs to support her son and herself. Occasionally, even that isn’t enough and she needs some temporary assistance.
I mean, come on - I think we all get what the phrase “whatever they can” means. It doesn’t extend to, say, becoming a prostitute. It means doing your personal best to advance your situation given the dual constraints of what activities are legal and the 24-hour day.
“Then I think she’s deluded - but I wouldn’t put it to her that way, of course.”
As other posters have suggested, she could move in with family or friends, she could get married, or her son could get a job. Wouldn’t it be crazy if she did all three?
Yes, other posters who have ignored the question of the OP (which is “how would you convince her to become a libertarian”) have suggested those things.