Next advances in Libertarian theory - predictions

Economics Political Theory
1

Obviously we all want a free society to develop somewhere on earth. However meanwhile we can take solace in theorizing about how such society could or should function.

Here are my predictions about the most important directions in which Libertarian theories will take us in the future.

  1. The idea that you are an aggressor only if you physically harmed someone (paying a hitman is not a crime) will catch on just like the anti-IP stance caught on in the last 10 years among libertarians.

  2. An important book about NAP-consistent warfare will be written. Finally libertarians will be able to pursuade people that you can defend yourself against aggression without hurting civilians or their property.

  3. Homesteading will be researched. How do you homestead a natural reserve? How large an area can you homestead? Is fencing enough or you need to mix your labor with the land? How much labor, what kind of labor?

What are your predictions?

2

While stuff like this is impossible to really predict, here’s what I would like to see and what I think we’ll see.

What I’d like to see:

  1. A huge resurgence in Austrian Economics which begins to makes at least intermediate courses throughout academia thoroughly cover AE and which begins to make academia itself more libertarian

  2. A new major Austrian Treatise, or multiple treatises hopefully leaning towards a reconciliation of Austrian economics and public choice theory, financial literacy, expositions of how regulation and moral hazard affects the economy, public goods, and broad attacks on Keynesianism. There was never a seminal Austrian work which acted as a really extensive critique enough upon modern/neo Keynesianism and monetarism, because that is exactly what drives public policy and the FED

  3. A reconciliation of nihilism, existentialism, and liber

  4. (along the lines of 3) An expansion of praxeology to the area of sociology and a more thorough application of praxeology to history

  5. A more personal philosophy of diversity in lifestyles and a much prouder sense of life develop in libertarian circles, somewhat similar to objectivism in terms of pride, not actual philosophy

  6. An increased emphasis upon internationalism

  7. An expansion of, and more eloquent statement of anarcho-capitalist theory

What I think we will see

  1. A large resurgence in Austrian Economics which will tend to make the entire science more Austrian and pro free market

  2. Libertarian circles will become increasingly racialistic, threatening the whole ideology and program, both in application and in retaining its libertarian theories

  3. Libertarianism will become increasingly anti-IP and IP theory will become straightened out

  4. Libertarianism will develop more theories of how to bring about a more libertarian world. Seasteading will either really take off or it will die as a viable theory. States governments and nullification will be seen as increasingly important

  5. Personal liberties will take much more of a center stage, as will the benefits of free markets. You will hear much less of “economic freedom” as such and much more about how markets bring about true prosperity, even thought NAP will in no way fall out of favor. I feel that this will occur as America becomes increasingly liberal in attitude.

3

What I want to see is a principled, economically efficient analysis of deregulation, because deregulation can be a very tricky business. I would especially like political realities to be taken into account.

4

People act based on the ideas they hold and the expectations they have about the society around them. And individuals want to be free, but individuals in societies don’t have the incentive to devote effort into making sure A) everyone else is free or even B) that the individual himself is free so long as he feels free enough. So I’m looking for a shift in technology that unifies mankind to a degree where individuals percieve their society as though it was them. This means unprecedented expansion of information technologies, especially of the social media kind, including genetic modifications and implants. Things like perfect bodies, bodies that are immune to sickness and disease, the ability to download books into your brain, to download the experiences of others into your brain, perfect memory and recall.

We will have a free society when it’s forced upon us by the natural progression and tendencies of homo sapiens, and no sooner. Since the tendency of homo sapiens is to perpetually expand power over the world around them, and for each individual to want to be free (as opposed to collectives always tending to not be free), then I’m looking for a time when we’ve acquired such control over technology that we are essentially unified as one individual composed of billions of individuals, and therefore have the incentive and capacity to maintain a free society without the need for institutionalized violence—indeed, one where institutionalized violence is unnecessary and unacceptable.

I think if homo sapiens wanted institutionalized violence, they’ve already settled on statism. Institutionalized violence under the banner of “freedom” might be the evolution of statism, so we won’t really have a free society until it’s forced on us by social information technologies.

5

More females shall become libertarian aligned.

6

@Kelvin Silva

Correct Answer

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Remember; as long as it’s voluntary

7

That was a very productive scroll-down.

8

I won’t make any predictions beyond saying that I think the LvMI and its sister organizations will continue to make unprecedented inroads into the ideological and even political sphere.

However, I do think we need something even more than the wonderful work that the LvMI has sparked, and that is I think we need to:

a) Revive the Higher Criticism, particularly as embodied by Francis Baur and the Tübingen School. Like it or not, Christianity is here to stay and will continue to be a dominant shaping force of society - particularly government - for a long, long time. However, traditional Christianity has major, major problems both in its historicity and rationality, as well as in its “implied” theories of ethics and metaphysics. These need to be challenged on their own terms which is precisely what the Higher Criticism was doing.

b) Revive Epicurean philosophy as a dominant force within philosophy. The teachings of Epicurus were so widespread in the early Roman era that he was a household name. Yet the Jewish word for “heretic” in the Mishnah is “epikoros”; Dante assigns Epicureans to the sixth circle of hell; the English word “epicurean” means wanton gluttony and orgiastic excess… the diametric opposite of Epicurus’s actual teachings. And while the influence of Epicureanism is often mentioned, the actual teachings of Epicurus are given short shrift in any introductory textbook on ancient philosophy. And while dozens of new books are written each year about the ideas of Aristotle or Plato, precious few books are published per decade on the teachings of Epicurus.

c) Revive moral philosophy as a subject of academic (and scientific) study. David Friedman says in MoF: “A … reason to use practical rather than ethical arguments is that I know a great deal more about what works than about what is just… I think more is known about the consequences of institutions than about what is or is not just–that economics is a much better developed science than moral philosophy.” [Emphasis mine] Moral philosophy has been virtually dead-on-arrival for the last century at least. The orthodox view of moral philosophy today is half-way between moral nihilism and moral agnosticism. The damage done by this ideological gridlock over such a foundational subject is inestimable. Would two world wars involving mass extinctions of entire cities have been possible in a society that was not gridlocked over whether there even exist any moral truths at all?

d) Research practical alternatives to existing religious orders, along the lines of this and this and/or actually build them. The hyperventilated, Enlightenment-style criticisms of religion as an evil-in-itself are only negative, often overstate their case, and do not provide positive guidance on what “fills the void”. After all, it turns out that people aren’t born knowing what is right and wrong in the refined sense required for a flourishing social order, so they need moral instruction. Families need structured environments for social interaction. Parents need reference networks to assist their children in finding spouses. And so on.

e) Research family structures and provide “blueprints” for durable, inter-generational families. This is important because it has to do with rationalizing (privatizing) the social order, particularly population growth (family planning), house law (enforcement of moral standards) and propagation of ideologies (i.e. squashing redistributive ideologies before they can metastasize). While LvMI is providing the “R&D” for this, something more along the lines of Hoppe’s Property & Freedom Society is what is needed.

f) Continue to challenge the law monopoly head-on. Why should there be only one forum for people to take their disputes to? Tools for binding arbitration need to be liberalized, in particular, the performance bond needs to be revived. Entry to the law profession needs to be unbarred. The prosecutor’s office is wholly unnecessary and should be defunded, along with public investigators. National governments need to be amended to allow individuals who lose appeals in so-called “supreme” courts to move their dispute to another recognized judicial system (i.e. to an agreed-upon, neutral foreign court) rather than having their rights thrown overboard and trumped by “interests of State”.

Tu ne cede malis

Clayton -

9

The orthodox view of moral philosophy today is half-way between moral nihilism and moral agnosticism.

Does it really matter, though? The vast majority of the masses still believe in morality.

10

“Moral philosophy has been virtually dead-on-arrival for the last century at least. The orthodox view of moral philosophy today is half-way between moral nihilism and moral agnosticism.”

I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. It would seem to me that morality is pretty alive and well, even if it is in a very sikly state, everywhere that matters, in the halls of academia, government, and the houses of the common man. Also, when you call for a revival of Epicurean/general moral philosophy, what do you mean by that? Do you intend for these moralities to be objective and sacred duties, or just general and reasoned values.

“Research family structures and provide “blueprints” for durable, inter-generational families.”

What do you mean by this? Could you give me a mock example of what this would look like?

11

I was particularly addressing academia (moral philosophers) in context. Sure, the common man has some moral philosophy or other but the quote of Keynes regarding the influence of defunct economists comes to mind: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

I think he is almost right… but I think moral philosophers actually wield much more influence. Implicit within the adoption of any particular economic philosophy (e.g. utilitarian economics) is some moral philosophy or other. Economics itself may be value-free but its application to the social order necessarily cannot be. But without a thriving groundwork of moral philosophy on which to build, most academics, most politicians, most religious leaders, most individuals of any type are usually “the slaves of some defunct moral philosopher.”

By essentially putting moral philosophy on ice for at least a century, we have been doomed to groping about in the dark. No one doubts that murder is wrong because nobody has ever concocted a convincing argument why murder should be considered moral behavior. But the power interests have concocted armies of, at least superficially, convincing arguments to justify their unjustifiable agendas and have deployed them into the public mind with little or no serious challenge. And the consequences of that (mass murder and mass property destruction and confiscation, aka war) has been the true cost of neglecting moral philosophy.

Epicurean moral philosophy is this: The good is that which is pleasurable and leads to happiness, the evil is that which is unpleasant and leads to unhappiness - and nothing else. There isn’t really anything there to dogmatize except the assertion that nothing else is good or evil, in other words, that moral philosophies that prescribe self-sacrifice as a foundational principle are mistaken. I would not want this to be a sacred duty or a dogma, of course, but I would like to see a revival of Epicurean thought, particularly on morality, vis-a-vis the big names like Plato and Aristotle.

Just read a little Epicurus. While Aristotle also gives lots of good things to think about in the Nicomachean Ethics, for example, Epicurus is so much more direct and to the point and states his overall position succinctly and precisely. The clarity of his thought is attention-grabbing.

Yes. By this, I specifically mean applying the “Power Elite analysis” described (and done) by Rothbard or Hoppe to providing concrete recommendations for family-building. For example, the Power Elite have long practiced (and the most powerful still do) male primogeniture and patriarchy. This is in contrast to the masses who generally practice proportional inheritance and where patriarchy is virtually nonexistent anymore. Clearly, the families of the Power Elite are “doing something right” when viewed without regard to how they are deriving their revenues and there is nothing immoral about how they pass on the wealth they have from generation to generation and having the household be run by a single male. Hence, there is nothing immoral about copying it and I think that those with an interest in private property rights and the flourishing of a healthy social order should adopt this form of inheritance and house rule. It should be used to a) preserve the family’s wealth (by concentrating it in the hands of a single individual, the incentives to care for the wealth are increased), b) enforce house law (that is, to enforce standards of conduct and decency within the family on pain of disinheritance) and c) provide for a minimal level of ideological conformity within the family.

Clayton -

12

I certainly hope not, as that idea is ridiculous. In most instances of aggression, which all of us would recognize as such, the aggressor is not the immediately antecedent cause of the harm. That is, there are causal chains intervening between the action of the aggressor and the harm. For example, if Bob shoots Jones in the head, Bob’s action was not the immediately antecedent cause of the harm: the bullet entering Bob’s skull was, and the action of several mechanisms within the gun intervened between Bob’s action and the bullet entering Bob’s skull. To say that Jones is therefore not liable is obviously absurd, but this is the same logic as is used to say that the employer of a hitman is not liable. The degree of causal separation between the action of the aggressor and the harm is not itself what determines liability. What determines liability is whether the alleged aggressor knew or should have known that his action would (eventually…no matter how many intervening steps) cause the harm. The action itself, as in the bodily movement, of the aggressor does not have to be a property rights violation, it only has to have been a necessary condition for the eventual property rights violation to occur, and the aggressor needs to have known, or should have known, that it would lead to that result. All attempts to define liability in terms of a specific degree of causal seperation end up being either arbitrary or absurd or both.

The free-rider problem for private provision of military defense is the real issue, not whether wars can be fought in accordance with the NAP, and I think that problem is insolvable in principle.

Libertarian ethics has nothing to say on the details of homesteading. It would be something outside of libertarian ethics to produce hard rules. Just as it would be outside of libertarian ethics to produce hard rules for trial procedures.

13

  1. Left-libertarianism is going to increase in popularity (as a theoretical position) because of its willingness and capacity to engage the academic left and speak its language. A lot of “left” ideas are going to become part of orthodox libertarian thought.

  2. The renewed interest in virtue ethics among moral philosophers will make its way into libertarian theory. The idea that libertarianism is a strictly legal philosophy will be replaced with a robust political philosophy which entails personal ethical commitments in addition to the NAP. This will provide the framework in which libertarians theorize about children and animals.

  3. Praxeology will be over-extended and misapplied to all sorts of things in an attempt to further popularize the Austrian approach. I think this will lead to either A) the term losing its meaning and becoming something of a catch-all fetish term for libertarians or B) a backlash against its misuse resulting in a diminished interest in the field as far as new research is concerned.

14

Personally I think libertarianism is going to veer further into the direction of legalistic (Kinsella’s estoppel approach)/epistemological (arg. ethics and works by de Jasay) moral arguments, because they are much easier to sustain as critiques of opposing systems than virtue ethics, deontology etc. I think virtue ethics/eudaemonism has a lot of potential as an ethical system, but it isn’t easy to make its case. Whilst a lot of the focus of libertarian legal/ethical theory has been on its more formal, overarching aspects (the NAP), I suspect future materials will focus on things like children’s rights, what in the concrete apprioriation might consist in, various lifeboat scenarios etc.

I also don’t think left-libertarianism alone will flourish; conservatives are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the state and its ability to actually preserve their values. Right-libertarians, whilst they don’t necessarily adhere to these values (which include things like racial dissociation), do present a case as to how libertarianism can better preserve them than statism. The state has contributed in innumerable ways to the destruction of the nuclear family, so I think libertarianism will be able to capitalise on this. The sort of things Clayton mentioned, i.e. how to create non-state institutional frameworks for the propagation and preservation of libertarianism are of particular interest.

There are also various “lifestyle” aspects of libertarianism developing, from approaches to personal finances to homeschooling/unschooling, to diets like the palaeo diet which has taken off quite well within this movement.

I agree with some of Clayton and Neodoxy’s predictions but I regard Austrian theory as separate to libertarian theory for the most part. Areas where Austrianism and libertarianism already seem to be headed are:

  1. abolition of IP in its current form and views on how companies can protect their intellectual creations absent IP

  2. fusion of Austrian theory on power with public choice, delivering more trenchant critiques of democracy

  3. A modern reconstruction of the Austrian method, bringing it up to date with modern arguments in the field of epistemology/phenomenology/logic/philosophy of science/theory of the mind; perhaps even an Austrian-influenced philosophy of science

  4. More extensive critiques of competing macroeconomic theories and even less well known heterodox schools

  5. A further refinement and elaboration of the ABCT and capital theory, e.g. how it can affect durable consumer goods due to their interest-sensitive nature

  6. Research on free societies, as well as libertarian mores within existing societies, and how they might come to be and preserve itself

  7. Deeper critiques of green subsidies, climate change control freak economics and the implications of climate change/pollution for a libertarian legal system

  8. Further research on the role of education in shaping a free society, and its contribution to recent financial scandals and the crisis

  9. Continuing research on how a free society can undertake services the state currently monopolises

  10. An Austrian sociology

  11. Defences of advertising and distinguishing it from brainwashing, as well as how the latter can be dealt with by libertarian theory

  12. Extensions of the socialist calculation argument to various ‘anarchist’ forms of collectivism as well as the non-monolithic, mixed economy state

  13. Austrian-influenced finance theory

  14. More Austrian-influenced works on history

  15. Research on supposed failures of deregulation and corporate “scandals”, as well as on corporatism and collusion between private interests and the state

  16. More extended, systematic critiques of neoclassical econ re public choice, inferior goods, Veblen goods, monopoly theory, monopsony theory, its theory of taxation etc.

So yes, perhaps we will see a few more unified treatises as there are areas of both Austrianism and libertarianism which remain nascent and which will benefit from it.

15

Here are some things I want Libertarians to take up:

  1. A Carsonian analysis of political economy, which is really just a more robust development of Rothbard’s.

  2. A realization that the money supply is not so important as the credit supply. This is something Mike Shedlock writes a lot about, as well as Steve Keen. This is simply an element of an economy with a central bank, wherein one can write out a loan to a borrower and then take out a loan from the Fed; it isn’t necessary to have the reserves on-hand prior to the loan.

  3. An exposition on the sociological effects of Keynesian and inflationary policies and their pairing with the rise of consumer culture.

Here are some things I think will happen:

  1. Supporters of Austrian conclusions become jingoistic. The intuitive conclusions turn into slogans, used to shout down opposition rather than engage it.

  2. Libertarians adopting a Hoppean position of immigratin will find homes with racialists and/or nationalists. Separation in Libertarianism along the cosmopolitan/nationalist line.

  3. Adoption of Anti-IP position.

16

“2) Libertarians adopting a Hoppean position of immigratin will find homes with racialists and/or nationalists. Separation in Libertarianism along the cosmopolitan/nationalist line.”

God I’m so afraid that this will happen. The scary thing is that it’s already happening to a certain extent.

17

Regulation always passes the cost on to the consumer. With market-driven regulation, only those affected will pay some cost but ultimately be compensated through adjudication.

18

I don’t see why lbrtns would become jingoistic at all. The NAP tends to fight that idea, as it decloaks the idea of nationalistic legitimacy in warfare.

19

@ Neo

This is a non-judgmental statement, just analysis:

Yep. The thing is, there’s a group of libertarians that want action. The far-right provides the institutions conducive to it: cultural militarism and survivalism. Some aren’t content to exist on the internet anymore and so are seeking alliances with existing sympathetic networks who actually have communities, which are, most importantly, armed.

EDIT: An optimistic scenario I can see from this is that instead of libertarians splintering off to radical groups (meaning they’ll be marginalized/ridiculed), libertarianism might swell in number with rightists, granting libertarians adopt an anti-immigrant stance. This is controversial however.

@ Anemone

I already find Libertarianism highly susceptible to jingoism precisely because of the NAP. Like with the Molyneauxvians, often whenever people present criticisms of ‘the vision’ it is rebutted with “NAP! NAP!” Meaning, Libertarianism in that vein is heading towards a state of unthought: the only analysis required is the NAP-test. No learned knowledge is really required to determine whether something is ‘correct’ by libertarian terms on these grounds.

20

I don’t see how the NAP can be applied without a reasoning process.

Can you give me an example? I don’t know what you mean by ‘the vision’ either. Maybe I haven’t experienced enough Molyneux.