That is a good point, and it makes me think about how I was converted to liberty. If I was converted, why not others? But why aren’t they? Why so many socialists? I think Carabini says that some are inclined to liberty and some to control.
But maybe all would turn to liberty if they only were exposed to the right information. But somehow I doubt it.
But what makes me better than the billions who reject liberty? Why do I “see the light” while they don’t? Again, maybe they simply haven’t heard what I have. I don’t know.
Agreed, we’re all human here. This all sounds like basic human action to me, socialism is supported because it’s supporters believe that it will make their lives better.
I don’t think it’s simple good and evil (or, in the case of this thread, freedom v. socialism). For example, many people cannot afford health care, so they want the government to provide it to them. This, they believe will better thier lives. I don’t think all the supporters of such measures want everyone to be put in chains or have the economy detoriate, they want their lives (usually this extends to the economy as a whole) to be as good as possible, just as we do.
The fact that 90% of the people (if we can trust the statistic) or even any majority of people embrace socialism seems to suggest a flaw either in the libertarian message or in man himself. I guess there is a third alternative–that the message has simply not gotten out. But would that really change things? If libertarianism is really the best path to success, and if people really do seek the more satisfactory circumstance, one would expect a movement toward liberty, unless there is another principle at work–some tendency away from liberty.
I’m not sure if hoppe means that socialism= an instinct and I’ve heard similar biological explainations from bryan caplan. The thing is, if socialism was biological it seems likely that it would be a reflex and not at all founded on thinking. But because one can reason away from socialism quite easily without it causing any psychological/physical harm I think that you can’t just say that socialism is inborn -like hunger or lust.
In my opinion people are drawn to socialism because people only have experience of particular events in the economy while AE explains things in universal categories that are not at all limited by the experiences of time or space or any particularity. AE is to the experiences of people in the economy, as theory is to data and so this is why all the most successful opponents of AE have always been (consciously or not) historicists or “practical men” who see nothing in economics as universal and prefer “facts” to “abstract logic”.
I reject the idea that socialism is appealing per se. The people who advocate it either expect to be in charge when it happens or on the net receiving end of the loot. Does anyone seriously believe that a person would advocate a system that would subtract from his own wealth and power?
Well a lot of the people I know who are democrats and support socialist programs are rich. I mean, they’re gunning for conformity in their social lives more than anything else. Some of them are going to be superlawyers and run for office someday…
I remember when I was a democrat: it was because I didn’t want to be with george bush in high school. This was explicitly because I didn’t culturally identify with him. I actually had no idea what republicans and dems stood for, I just knew I wasn’t like bush. So there’s that reason too. People don’t always, you know, do a lot of thinking
Thanks for the comment. This is exactly the issue I’m working through. I am wondering why freedom is not inborn if it is to the advantage of man.
One could argue as follows: Sex and food are good for man, so evolution produced hunger and lust. If freedom were good for man, there would be a corresponding desire. There is no corresponding innate desire (this is debateable). Therefore, freedom is not good for man.
In order ot answer this, I think we either have to say that evolution has not had time to act in the new environment created by modern humans, or else we need to attack the analogy between sex and freedom. Maybe they are not similar categories. We could say that something about the freedom/responsibility issue is fundamentally different from food or sex. I guess it is possible that the choice between freedom and socialism must occur in the conscious mind. It is not a simple physical response. Maybe there is no way that evolution could tinker with the inclination of man one way or the other.
I think humans have a physical inclination toward freedom–resitance to being bound or tied, for example. But maybe the complex response to soicalism must be through reason and the mind.
Can evolution tinker with reason? Presumably it produced it. One would think that reason would act in accord with reality. And this raises the same issue. If evolution can tinker with reason, why wouldn’t it produce a reasoning process that would lead to freedom. And yet I think it has. At least that’s where reason led me.
So why doesn’t it lead others there? Maybe because they either have the wrong facts, or maybe they are not reasoning properly or not using reason at all. And this brongs me to what I suggested before. Men can choose to be guided by reason or by their animal appetites and instincts (and I might add emotions).
Well I think there is some credence to Walter Block’s ideas on humans being biologically determined to be against markets. In a way it explains why people act the way they do but I don’t know if it explains free-market theorists. I haven’t delved far into the theory itself.
No doubt socialists are saying the same thing about us. Education is the most powerful force in the battle of ideas. Some people don’t know what libertarianism really is, some have improper definitions, some believe in myths, some people just want to see the world burn. Don’t give into defeatism though. You mentioned Lew Rockwell’s article before, Rockwell is the lecturer who I think is perhaps the most optimistic.
Here is my favorite lecture by him:
How States Fall and Liberty Triumphs
‘Socialism will fail. Central planning will fail. Protectionism will fail. Regulations, taxation, welfare, warfare – all these programs – will often produce the opposite of their stated aims. Economics says to the state: society does not need you.’ - Lew Rockwell
Its quite remarkable what people have been able to accompish when given a small bit of freedom, even if on a very limited basis. Look what happened in America over the short space of a couple hundred years. Look what has happened in the economic realm in China. People thrive under such an environment. - - - Freedom isn’t seen as being in the interest of the predator class which live off of others, however. Some of these blood suckers have used the very blunt instrument of a police state to squash freedom. Others have used much more sophisticated methods of social conditioning & ‘education’ & propaganda. Truly free men would see that these parasites aren’t needed, and would ignore them. - - - Imagine a place where children were raised believing in themselves and hard work & effort. Imagine a place where children were taught about freedom, personal responsibility, self reliance, and personally taking care of others (the drive behind private charities). Now what kind of country would that be ?
The reason people are willing to go along with all these social programs is because the banking system has ensured a shortage of money leaving the people at the mercy of the banking system with no way out.
Roderick Long makes a great point in his famous “ten objections” talk about the flux of ideas:
It’s easy for us who are inside our own zeitgeist to imagine the prevailing intellectual fashions are some fundamental manifestation of human nature. This isn’t necessarily so.
If we work very hard to educate people, and history happens to provide an adequate tipping point, amazing things can occur. The current economic meltdown is probably one of the better opportunities we’ll have in our lifetimes to show people where socialism leads, I hope we make good use of it.
But see that is where you are wrong. Socialism would have prevented this. The current trouble was caused the greedy capitalist trying to take all the money for themselves so the little people don’t have a chance to get any. The only hope we have for social justice is for the government to control and regulate everything and then we will get a fair distribution of wealth. Power to the people!
Ok. not really. But I hear that at work everyday.
I think socialism appeals on different levels. The evil big business took all the opportunities, and deprives us. (We forget that folks like Bill Gates starting with nothing). We all deserve the big house and nice car, but my job won’t pay for it, but the government will (the government is my friend). I trust me to do the right thing but I can’t trust you. So we need the government to protect us from each other. We are raised and trained to know that civilization can not survive without a big government to take care of us and protect us. So we let the government do what it does best (we just hope it for our best).
I was in London a few years ago visiting a friend and he lives in a nice house (better than mine), has a car (better than mine), a cell phone, and just got back from a trip to India. Not bad for 1998, and unemployed. When I asked how he afforded all that he informed me that in England they don’t attach a stigma to being poor like the Americans do. He couldn’t see himself working for another person and allowing someone else to schedule his time. So he should not be expected to work… obviously the government had to pay for the house, car, health care etc because he deserved it.
That’s is a big problem. We have been raised to feel entitled to everything. Envy, greed, lazy? Who knows. But socialism will answer all of our problems and make us all equal.
We will have to retrain a whole generation of people. I usually just think it is hopeless… but we can’t give up.
You are all over rating the problem. There’s no need for high philosophy here. People have associated “free market” with modern banks (minority partner to central banks) and Monopoly-style, government backed speculators. They see their good chum the State arresting Madoff and throwing him into jail; they see it coming to the rescue of Parmalat and plugging the holes with plenty of other people’s money. They do not care Madoff and Tanzi could never had done what they did without government intervention; Government was the knight in shiny armor which came riding to the rescue. It doesn’t matter if the Fed in New York makes Madoff look like a small time crook. Remember the sheep in Animal Farm? Four legs good, two legs bad? The average person goes that far, Orwell was spot on. Add the free lunch mentality and, as Mises rightly pointed out, lots of envy and there you have it.
As someone who considered himself a Scandinavian-style democratic socialist for a long time and only recently became a reader of libertarianism, I might be able to shed at least some light on that impulse.
Ultimately I think Bastiat nailed it when he spoke of that which is seen and that which is not seen. It’s so much easier to focus on the problems in front of your eyes, the immediate and concrete rather than the hidden and abstract. Most of the activists I´ve met that are committed anticapitalists hold that stance out of a genuine concern for their fellow man and especially those who have less. I know that I adopted the stance of socialism mainly by default - they were the only party in my country that seemed to be interested in helping people lead a better life, were thoroughly anti-war and criticized corruption and fraud in government. The only alternative was the nationalistic and corrupt as all hell Independence Party(somewhat analogous to your Republican Party) that seemed to preach individual initiative while jumping into bed with every corporate concern that threw money at them, including the United States and their constant wars on other nations. Where the hell is an idealistic youth that wants to make the world a better place to pitch his tent? There weren’t terribly many places to go. I didn’t like their authoritarian stance on moral issues in the name of feminism and such(Icelandic left-greens want to ban pornography and are committed drug warriors for instance), but I chalked that stuff up to the fact that people can’t be expected to agree on all things.
Only when I found Ron Paul, Mises etc. did I realize that there was an alternative to the corporatist right and the collectivist left, a stance where I could square my inclinations to liberty with my impulse to help people.
I still very much understand WHY people gravitate towards socialism. It’s the quick-fix solution, the path of least resistance, and it SEEMS very plausible as long as you think that what is seen is all there is to see.
Once you realize that that is not the case however, there is no going back in my opinion.
