Inevitability of Libertarian Success?

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

This is an interesting idea I considered. Note that the views expressed aren’t mine, but I think they are worth voicing. I will try to remain as neutral as possible.

Many libertarians seem to be under the impression that action on our part is necessary so as to curb the growing influence of statism among people. Every intervention by the state into the economy is seen as another defeat, every riot of socialist parasites is seen as a threat to liberty, etc. People fear big bankers, backed by big government, will form a new world order of some kind and use the collapse of the US dollar as a chance to create a world currency.

However, is there any reason for us to get involved? The system, as it currently is, is completely dysfunctional. It relies on fiat and it all comes crashing down sooner or later (depending on how extreme the state’s power is). Okay, so the already bad economy is intervened into by a government, delaying and worsening the eventual reckoning. Big government is on the rise! But what difference does in make in the long run (where Austrians always ultimately benefit)? They can’t maintain the facade forever, and each time they intervene to “save” things they set themselves up for a worse scenario down the road. Eventually, they will hit a roadblock where manipulation simply doesn’t work anymore, or otherwise they find themselves stuck between two options that screw them over (it might have actually reached that point now: the US Federal Reserve is basically keeping the US economy, which hasn’t properly flushed the malinvestment out the system, on life support with Quantitative Easing and other tricks. But the US dollar is rapidly losing value. If they keep things going, they will lose complete control of the situation as the dollar becomes worthless and hyperinflation kicks in, while if they raise rates to stave off inflation their “recovery” will collapse utterly. They can’t even get foreign countries to buy their bonds and delay it, since Europe is in a crisis of its own, Japan is in terrible shape due to natural disaster, and China’s housing bubble would appear to have just popped). In other words, they reach a point where no amount of lying, refusals to make cuts, and yelling about how those in favour of allowing the market to take its course “hate the poor” will save them.

So in some places (case in point, Greece) the “opposition” to the powers that be comes from angry socialists who want their welfare money and will chuck Molotov cocktails at cops to get it. Maybe they will even eventually go for open revolution and try to establish a communist nation. Again, so what? First of all, they are destablizing the corporatist establishment, which is good. Second, assuming they actually succeed, they will only speed up the eventual economic collapse from which recovery will be nigh impossible. We already know Communism, or even Socialism, are completely impossible to maintain. The Soviet Union was probably the best chance Communism had to prove itself; they had enough natural resources to make autarky actually feasible, a big enough population and industrial base to be able to manage impressive things with production, and lots of subsidies coming in from the US (Especially food) from WW2 onwards. This isn’t mentioning all of the other Communist nations they took after 1945 for them to loot. But ultimately, they collapsed altogether. Had a decent free market economy been in place without the rampant corruption that “New Russia” faces, they could have easily surpassed the US economy. Do you seriously think a tiny country like Greece could survive Communism for more than a decade or so without a giant nation like the USSR to prop them up? Especially considering most countries nearing that point are mismanaged to the point that the industrial base they could take would be miniscule and leave them worse than with the crooked, insolvent Eurozone countries anway.

Finally, occasionally (from the more conspiracy-theorist minded) there is fear of big banks and governments making a move for a world currency, a new world order, etc. I think you already know what I have to ask about this; so what? The Euro has shown that a large scale currency used over a large area over varying economic systems and with varying strengths will last a very short time. The Euro has only been around for ten years and it is already in great danger. A world currency would be lucky to last a single year. Plus, in the current economic climate, it just wouldn’t start with any strength.

On another note regarding conspiracy theories, why do so many make urgent noises about this sort of thing? It is always “The Jews did 9/11” this and “the economy is being manipulated by conspirators to take over the world” that. Has anyone ever considered that the big power players right now are completely incompetent? Sure, they have lots of money, but they can’t manage economies with any degree of effectiveness. They continually screw things up despite even overt attempts at intervention, they use every potential trick and still find themselves losing, etc. What is the end game for these “conspirators”? World domination over a world drained of economic value, with no ability to enforce their control? What can they hope to gain by delaying the inevitable? They have practically nothing to gain. Even assuming there IS a monolithic organization out controlling the world, there isn’t anything we need to do to stop it because it is collapsing from its own weight. We don’t need to give it a push, and we don’t need to worry about it. The NWO will defeat itself, and anything we do will be a waste of time and will make us look dumb to the general populace in the meantime.

Thoughts?

2

The Great Depression is an example of how government failure continued for years. Understanding how a free society would work is not easy. Government offers a blueprint, a central plan which shows how it will plan. That can put people at ease. Moreover, the idea of the market must exist as a scapegoat or else who will the government blame? Saboteurs? Government is considered as normal as gravity to people. Tell them it is not necessary and be prepared for a 1000 counterarguments, many poorly thought out or factually flawed, but sincerely believed.

Regarding the conspiracy version of current events (bad people are making bad things happen), just look at 9/11. Major attack on United States. U.S. government failure is rewarded with immense power than does not eliminate terrorism against the U.S., but exacerbates it. In crisis, many people turn to an authority figure (government) to fix it.

The best hope for changing U.S. policy is a Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign. He is consistent, honest, and knows the facts. Do you have any idea how many people were introduced to libertarian ideas due to his 2008 presidential campaign? He can do so again. Moreover, he sounds different from the clone candidates who have identical positions on the welfare-warfare state: more, more, more, except for a few cosmetic changes.

Libertarianism is not inevitable. It must be fought for on the battlefield of ideas.

3

Okay, but the Great Depression era economies were not quite so doomed in the long run as the ones now, and the currencies were by and large somewhat safe. Furthermore, they didn’t have sixty years of Keynesian style government interventions to deal with.

Maybe people will look to the government for a solution. So? The government will be unable to do anything but speed up or worsen the situation. Eventually, it will collapse and somewhere, somehow a libertarian society will be formed without the need for anything to be done. The public can believe whatever it wants, the laws of economics do not bend to public opinion. They can argue against free markets all they want, their arguments for social justice etc will be useless when they are starving due to collapse.

9/11 led to increased government power, true. It also led to the Fed’s easy money coming out, leading to the housing bubble that has the system on the brink of collapse. Furthermore, it has US troops bogged down in wars it can’t win, which isn’t making them stronger.

With Ron Paul, you said it yourself: people will make a thousand arguments before ever conceding to libertarian views. If we wait, their arguments will count for absolutely nothing, and the system will fall apart on its own. Actually, we could support the leftist idiots ourselves and let them take the fall when the system goes down for a bonus.

4

Yeah, in the long run it’s all coming down. The bad news is the State has been going strong for at least 5 millenia so the long run might be a very long run indeed.

Clayton -

5

My point with the Great Depression example is that despite government failure, most people did not say, “hey they are the problem.” The Soviet Union lasted for nearly a century, consuming millions of lives from Russia, its satellites, and in its wars. The lesson most people learned: the central plan was bad, the central planners were malevolent, the Soviets needed God on their side, etcetera. Economic calculation problem? No. Just need better managers, democracy, smiley faces, and so forth.

Regarding the future Greater Depression or Great Depression II, I wonder if the Mises Institute will start selling weapons. “Defend your liberty. Buy a used AK-47. 20% off if you are a member.”

In the worst moment of the future Greater Depression, who knows what power will be exerted by the government. FDR robbed people of their gold in 1933 and cartelized the economy with his National Industrial Recovery Act. There could be more restrictions on the flow of people’s money overseas, tariff hikes, and demonization of everyone for hyperinflation. The light at the end of the tunnel you see, I believe is an oncoming train of government, not an escape into liberty land.

Maybe every single wrongheaded economic intervention has been tried and shown to have had bad to severe consequences. Is the lesson learned and applied by the political leaders? No. Election, reelection, the maintenance of power is their goal. The adulation by the gullible, the perception of importance (remember last time you were taught in school to admire entrepreneurs versus politicians?).

The political system will crash and reappear unless the ideas change. A Ron Paul campaign can help the shift in ideas. It will be gradual, not instant. Most people did not become anarcho-capitalists in 2 minutes. It was a process. “Hmm, this can be privatized. That is unnecessary.” And the point is reached where the state goes from minimal to nonexistent, from a necessary evil to an unnecessary one. The battle to change ideas may be long, hard, and frustrating (especially if you were right from the start), but it is either change your fellow citizen’s mind or watch the citizenry destroy society.

6

Yes, but the Great Depression is nothing compared to what could happen here, again because the US dollar is so weak that it could collapse, something that couldn’t have happened in the original Great Depression. If the economy collapses in grand fashion this time, the US government won’t be able to go through with seizing things again because the US government will, in all practical purposes, cease to exist. Maybe the states will become independent or something, who knows, but things will get a lot more decentralized as it all falls apart, and there will be some place, somewhere that embraces libertarianism as the centres of power split and become smaller.

7

I disagree the dollar could not have collapsed in the Great Depression. If the dollar was massively inflated in the U.S., just like the money supply was massively increased in Weimar Republic Germany, there could have been a currency crisis, followed by who knows what kind of brutal authoritarian regime.

The reason for a future dollar failure is the dollar creator (U.S. gov) has a current national debt of $14.3 trillion, annual multibillion dollar deficits, and unfunded entitlements for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security that exceed world GDP. The dollar collapse has not happened due to foreign lenders (notably China) loaning the U.S. government money. The second China and other nations realize the U.S. government is a subprime borrower and cannot ever repay its debts in full, is when the dollar will stop being the global reserve currency (the one considered most valuable/safe). Unable to tax and borrow enough the pay its bills, the U.S. government will print money to point the dollar is added to the history of dead currencies.

You could make an argument that Chinese leaders know what they are doing, but care more about export-driven job creation to maintain their political power. A massive economic problem could lead to a Chinese revolution since the Chinese government’s claim to legitimacy is we create prosperity. They are not communists, except in name. However, China cannot forever prop up the United States. An end will come either a year from now, five years from now, or later, but the end will come.

Decentralization as a result of a future dollar collapse is possible, but it does not guarantee more libertarian outcomes. Lack of confidence is the federal government could mean people turn to their state governments, but they don’t have money to bail out the system which cannot be saved in the long-term. While a smaller state is less powerful than a bigger state, only one state enforcer is necessary to brutalize one person. Whether someone is oppressed by a federal enforcer or a state enforcer makes little difference. This is like have a right-wing government’s boot on your neck or a left-wing government’s boot on your neck. The boots may be different, but the result is the same. Yes, I know the left-right political division is oversimplified, but I just use it for a quick example.

I disagree with the idea that a total government failure will lead to an inevitable libertarianism. As long as the belief in a government-manage society persists, the government will emerge over and over until the populace believes it is a parasite, not a savior, the greatest threat to their life and property, not its protector.

8

It seems there is an item of faith amongst right wing circles (which includes libertarians) that a sudden collapse is just over the horizion that will prompt a revolutionary overthrow of the existing order and a new one will arise in its place.

This of course tends to let lazy and idle libertarians off the hook as nothing can be done before the revolution except get a few cold brewskies from the fridge and put their feet up to watch the game on TV.

9

I’m pessimistic on this one. I think that so many people are now employed directly by the state that they will allways vote for statist parties. I’d love to be proven wrong.

10

Marx believed socialism and communism were inevitable. He was wrong. I don’t think we make the same mistake. Nothing is inevitable. Even if an economic collapse does come, how can we be sure that in the resulting revolutions and violence liberty will prevail? We can’t be sure how people will act.

We need to keep fighting, I think there will need to be a conscious transition to a free society.

11

State will prevail in one form or another for as long as people will believe that such way of organizing society is the only way possible and thus desirable despite its flaws. The only way ot change future outcome is to change that belief. Simple as that.

12

I’d rather crack open a few beers and enjoy life than spend it all wrapped up in political activism.

13

If something like “inevitability” isn’t imaginable to at least some degree within a societal framework, than you probably have a dead and worthless thought. I would tend to picture it as more or less a society of trial / error with many “snafu’s”, “one step forward two steps back”, type things thrown in along the way but ultimately will gravitate towards the most practicle, effecient, peacful, and prosperous society it can foresee. If you have a pessemistic thought about a political position, or even scientific, that you say you favor, what the hell is the point of having that position?*

Also, and loopy leftist and fringe right wingers aside, this may seem like a blasphamey here: but our society isn’t that awful and is probably way better off to a libertarian world than it was 50 years ago. The arguments and opposition just seem like epic and polar incosolable arguments because we are right at the fore front exaimining them. The fact is we are essentially nitpicking how to live in an individualistic, market oriented society, with unparalleled peace and a general undesire not to commit to really really big wars.

  • I am using a lot of metaphores here just to make the point as quick and general as possible; no need to tell me efficency is a chimera , society doesn’t exist, etc - picture this as more of a poetic statement.

EDIT

14

I feel history has proven that statism doesn’t work time and time again, and people have picken up on that gradually. It’s the reason why many states have more religious freedom now then they did a few hundred years ago.

15

Technology has made life pretty good, even with all the statism around. As technology improves even more, our lives will also continually improve and hopefully people will find less of a need for a state.

16

^Basically my idea. I feel the free market will win be default, because people are always looking for easier, cheaper and better ways to do things. It’s kinda of like Marx’s idea of eventual communism but in an ironic capitalist fashion.

17

There is a degree of pessimism that comes naturally to followers of a smaller ideology. That does not mean, however, that these ideas are dead or will never be popular and widespread. Murray Rothbard wrote in a confidential letter (I forget to whom) about the need for a “hard core,” a group of tried-and-true libertarian supermen who would permeate and infiltrate organizations that have goals parallel to the movement, but not populated by members. He used the organization of the Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Income Tax as one which is filled with those who may be more receptive to pro-liberty ideas. This hard core would become officers of such organizations, and spread the knowledge and literature of liberty, bringing others to the movement. So education is perhaps the first step to forging a libertarian society.

Also, Albert Jay Nock wrote in Isaiah’s job, that, essentially, the job of the movement is to convert and teach the “Remnant,” that is, the minority who will listen to our ideas and come to our side, and to form a solid, communicating core of libertarians. Once society collapses, they will be a popular outlet of economic and political education, and members of the remnant would naturally take space in the power vacuum (correct me if I interpreted Nock’s article incorrectly).

The way I see it, the Institute has formed the core of education and the strengthening of new libertarians, and popular figures such as Ron Paul have taken to spreading the word (taking Isaiah’s metaphorical Job), directing those who will listen to him to the Institute, that they may become libertarians themselves.

18

Sounds like Lenin’s vanguard We libertarians seem to take a fair bit from Marxist ideas.

19

Ironically enough, Rothbard compared the hard core to the Leninist vanguard (save the Leninist ideology). He said that those on the left besides Lenin were either opportunists (made compromises and burnt out) or were sectarian (refused to work with any outsiders on any issue).

Infiltration would strike a sort of balance.

20

I tend to want to kick back and relax as well. The big question is whether statists will allow that.