So a Liberal statesman leaves the stage.

Miscellaneous General
1

http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/04/german_politics

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-66451.html

Guido Westerwelle, the closest among mainstream politicians to the old classical liberal statesmen that we once saw in the 1800s British Liberal Party, has burnt out his political capital forever.

As his last act, he determinedly worked to keep Germany out of foreign military intervention and out of bailing out foreign governments.

Perhaps he is like Nixon in 1961 right now, just waiting for a comeback after many years, but his political future seems effectively over for now.

With him gone, it seems the true believing Liberals among today’s statesmen will no longer be seen in Western Europe. Many European Liberals had already fallen to American style neoconservatism, with their support for war on terror and desire to ban sinful goods and entertainment media. One supposed liberal is Geert Wilders who was elected in purely xenophobic grounds and who even calls himself by the American word, “libertarian”.

What was impressive was that a Liberal managed to lead his party with nearly 15% of the seats in a Parliament. In any other country, especially United States, he should consider himself lucky to get even 1%. He got the position in the ruling coalition as the Chancellor’s right hand man, which is an unthinkable achievement - akin to Ron Paul becoming Vice President. Westerwelle was one of the rare few Liberals today who dared to change the system from within and even came close to succeeding. Now, he leaves as Germany’s most hated politician. Some thoughts and reflections on this failure:

  • Theatrics. Westerwelle did a lot of publicity-garnering nonsense, which only reinforced an impression of him as an ultramarginal distraction meant purely for press amusement. Perhaps he was exactly that.

  • Coalitionism. Like the Cameron Tories, the German FDP liberals seem to have the impression that by hugging the middle of the road and moderating their views, they will get more support. And yet, coalitionism and centrism for Cameron gained his party a whopping 3-5% increase in the number of seats he had, and for Westerwelle, it only gained him an ally who did not agree one bit with him.

-Concern for irrelevant issues. Today’s diminished groups of liberals hope to make their impression in politics by starting small and attacking the pettiest issues that have the least relevance in today’s world. They hope to leave the hardest issues last, and rush at them when it is too late. Westerwelle should have worked on matters of budget and state pension schemes from day one, instead of trying to be a bait-and-switcher who hits on those issues out of nowhere.

Only by cutting out these three dirty moves will today’s liberals have any chance to change the system. And if they can’t make it in politics without doing the above, it is better that they stay out of politics altogether and simply work on public education and debate. Where there was no solution, there was no problem.

2

I think this has more to do with the different natures of representation between Germany and the United States. Germany has a system of proportional representation, where the percentage of votes given to a political party determines the percentage of seats in the legislature. The United States, on the other hand, has a system of plurality representation, where the party or candidate with the most votes in a district gets to represent that district in the legislature. Plurality representation leads strongly to “strategic voting”, which favors a minimum of political parties (typically two). Proportional representation does not have this “feature”.

The question is, had Herr Westerwelle focused on the biggest/hardest issues to begin with, would he have gotten elected at all? Even Ron Paul doesn’t propose ending Social Security and Medicare immediately - ASAP, perhaps, but that could still take a while.

3

If Westerwelle was an example of old classical liberal statesmen, I’m glad they’re gone.

Seriously, the guy was at best a liberal in the American sense of the term with some understanding of why fiscal conservatism might be beneficial. His party gained 15% of the votes in the last federal election because they pulled their usual anti-tax rant on campaign trail and enough voters were dissatisfied to try something different. As expected, they did nothing to change the system after the election had been won.

Seriously, Westerwelle? He’s a jumping jack that talked big and took no action. There are one or two classical liberals in his party’s upper cadre, but all in all, they’re just another bunch of social democrats with some anti-tax rhetoric. No need to mourn their demise.

4

I know, Sphairon, that Westerwelle is a populist and a flipflopper.

I merely chose him as an example of the kind of second-bests we have left today, and how modest and small their efforts are and how unambitious is the direction they take.

Westerwelle’s failure was a necessary failure, because it reminds us that this middle-of-the-road game has not made today’s liberals more successful, but rather less. It is time for other genuine liberals to consider whether being honest about their reformist intentions and sticking to their guns throughout is a better option.

Westerwelle still, however, was right in opposing the no-fly zone and other crack-brained interventions.

PS: And yes, many of the older classical liberal statesmen actually were as middle of the road as Westerwelle was and one Liberal statesman betrayed basic liberal principles by bombing Alexandria in order recover dues of British creditors. Interestingly, even these middle-of-the-roaders would probably be shocked at today’s etatism.

5

Prateek, your mistake is thinking that statesmen have anything to contribute to liberalism.

It has always been the entrepreneur and not the politician who is the vanguard and defender of liberal ideas.

6

LS, I have had the same thought, but there’s another trick here.

As an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur does defend the order and flow of liberal society. But it’s not the man, but the nature of his work. Business is the ideal of freedom and capitalism, because of what business forces you to do, not because of character of the businessman.

When that entrepreneur gets political, he is often anything but liberal. Warren Buffett, for example, is a mercantilist, protectionist, and autarkist. On the other hand, some of the aristocratic politicians of the old days, such as Edmund Burke, could have appreciated the works of businessmen and the benefits of capitalism, without being businessmen themselves, and they had the courage to avoid government benefits and interventions that tempted pragmatist businessmen did not. It was purely virtue and character in such Burkeans, and not the fact that they knew how to keep their books out of the red.

Of course, neither businessmen nor aristocrats are a perfect solution. Liberal ideas come from liberal people, and they span a wide variety of backgrounds, be them politicians or businessmen.

DISCLOSURE: Both my parents are self-employed entrepreneurs, and they both have had sympathies towards those who sterilized the mentally ill in Sweden in the 1950s, and they both have appreciated the work of crusading bureaucrats who fight big business and conduct trust-busting. I disagree with them, of course.

7

The only honourable path for a liberal is the market. The career choice isn’t accidental.

How many Warren Buffets are there in the world?

I am for liberalism but I am also for my own rational self-interest. In a world where most are not Misesian or libertarian, I can better understand the wealthy using the state to protect themselves from the masses. In fact, after reading about how some here think they are entitled to take pennies from me, I am more determined than ever to protect my wealth than to spend time proslytezing the market to people who will take the convenience of the state in a heartbeat.

That’s why the argument against grants and welfare is so important. If it is ok to get welfare for a student loan, then it is ok to get welfare for my business. And we’re in a race to the bottom I think many business people are tempted to win.

8

Surely the only way to win this endlessly spiralling zero-sum game is to not play at all?

Else, we all end up bloodied and mutilated in this fight.

Suppose I were an airline business owner, and some other airline company starts lobbying for legislation that will favour their air routes and hurt mine. I damn well know that if I fight back, lobby harder, or use some other unscrupulous means, I will have to face lawsuits, endless harassment by the press, slander, and eventually a Parliamentary/Congressional hearing. Of course, if I were clever, I could get my vengeance and have the same experience borne by my enemy. And my business could still get away without having been cut out of the market. But at what cost? The personal cost, the customer’s cost, and the business cost all seem too high.

The much better alternative for the businessman is to be apolitical. He must not bother fighting restrictions but work within their constraints. But he must not lobby for benefits either, knowing that other wolves are watching and waiting to leap at him if he dares lobby for favours towards him.

9

Better for whom?

10

For everybody. Prisoner’s dillemma and whatnot.

Why be the first mover in a chain reaction that leads to more noses bloodied on the ground? Eventually, that will include yours.

11

Winner take all effects. That’s why.

12

The whole point of capitalism was that we don’t have to make that choice.

There is no serious anger or dispute between PC and Mac users. I myself use both comfortably. Any consumer can buy either a PC or a Mac or both. This is not winner-take-all because everyone wins.

But between supporters of Obamacare and the supporters of the Republican healthcare plan, there is a vicious hatred. Eventually, there can be one or the other but not both. And the best compromised solution will alienate both sides and leave both worse off than before.

Politics is a zero-sum game.

Capitalism is not.

And for the entrepreneur and the capitalist, there is a world of gain to be made from the latter. In the end, the source of most of his prosperity is customers and not the government, which can merely legislate in his favour. The gains of politics for the entrepreneur are limited.

13

Oh Prateek. Nature is all about winner take all effects. Losers die, winners breed. Winning ideas become the foundation of society. The victor writes the histories and all that. Yes in capitalism everyone gets what they want, until they have to bear the consequences of those choices. Then people want socialism so they can recover from their bad decisions under capitalism. This is not exclusive to the too big to fail firms, indeed social democracy is the theory that even the most sick, poor and ignorant beggar is too big to fail in a modern society.

There is a huge advantage to seizing as much power as possible and wielding it as quickly as possible. One can define the conversation when they have the biggest club and the greatest reputation (for honor or for fear). Surely you know your Hoppeanism. The aristocracy rise by their merits and maintain their position through their ruthlessness.

We’re not all wired to think for the species. We’re self interested rational actors, and many of us get enormous pleasure from high time preference behavior if the days of reckoning can be delayed.

14

How would you know what we are all wired to think?

von Mises started off Theory and History by saying that the chasm between mind and matter is not easily bridged, and in thinking about social life, we can’t use deterministic scientific ideas, as if human beings are atoms and planets.

Why did so many Italian and Jewish immigrants in New York deliberately slum away so they could collect huge savings, just so that they could pass it all on to their children who would go live in more spacious luxurious homes in New Jersey? Why was being Jewish considered a sign of poverty in young Milton Friedman’s and Larry King’s days and then become a sign of American social mobility long before they reached their middle ages?

Why was the Brooklyn Bridge built to last beyond the lifetimes of those who built it?

Somehow we are not as rationally self-interested and high time preference as we often assume.

15

You misunderstood my point. Would you like to try again?

I don’t. I know how I think. Thats why my claim was true.

16

He did not say what rational individuals think, he said how they think.

And as he mentions in his post that is before mine

I don’t. I know how I think. Thats why my claim was true.

He knows this based on his knowledge about himself. I believe I.Ryan had a comprehensive thread about this matter (the mind, inner knowledge and etc.)