Libertarian and Conservative Talk

I think that I am finally getting a handle of sorts on the political debate with Conservatives and Libertarians. That handle is this. Conservatives and Libertarians are actually idealists of a kind and they are talking about something that is so far outside of the realities of our situation that meaning is hopelessly lost. The closest theoretical political ally in the last two centuries would be the Marxists. Marx himself was a blatant humanist idealist who could weave a fine tale about the uprising of the Proletariat and the resulting Communist society in which the state would literally wither away. But even when the revolution was finally carried into a real experiment, as we all know, the reality was far different from the idealistic fantasy.

The fact is that societies change over a very long time scale and rarely, if ever, change dramatically because of an ideal destiny. Marx was probably correct in suggesting that society changes because of the "material conditions" and so long as the material conditions remain more-or-less the same our society will continue on its course. That is not a particularly happy course. I am probably no more happy with the present station of government than are Conservatives or Libertarians.

The material conditions of our society have been, for some time, something that might fairly be called "corporate feudalism." In classic feudalism, government was in the hands of the church and monarchy. Beneath them were arrayed a small host of land-owning nobles and a very tiny merchant class. By far the great horde of people were serfs who lived and worked on land owned by the nobles and paid most of their productivity to the nobles in rent. Today, the plight of most people is no different except that corporations have replaced the nobles. A representative government has replaced the monarchy while church and state have supposedly been separated (though it's hard to convince yourself of that at times). As in classic feudal times, very few individual people actually own very much; the great majority of wealth lies in the hands of corporations to whom we all pay rent (though we may like to call these "mortgages" etc.).

Over the last several decades there have been some interesting changes in the material conditions of our society and I believe that these foretell more about our future than any of the idealistic scrabbling. Corporations have become international in a massive movement we endearingly call "globalization." What is cloaked behind the scenes of globalization is the fact that corporations are no longer responsible (or responsive) to any particular society. Hence, what will the so-called nation state hold in its future? Corporations are already arranging for their own military security and they can hide their wealth in any out-of-the-way place in the world.

In reality, it seems to me, Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians, and Anarchists are caught up in a self-destructive fight against each other over something that is quietly fading from view --- civil society in its ideal form. When global corporations rule the roost, none of us will have much to say about the future.

The Problem with Language

The basic problem with language is reference. Nouns, in particular, are supposed to have reference to definite things --- real entities, relations among entities, sensations, ideas, etc. But when we use language do we always know that a reference point exists? Unfortunately, something that philosophers have demonstrated well, we can use nouns as though they have reference, when they don't, and hence make entirely vacuous statements.

I went to Sheldon Richman's article on the BP spill (http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/bp-spill/). I found myself in agreement with much of what he said. It is more than clear that corporations and other business interests are thoroughly involved in government --- everything from heavy duty lobbying to staffing crucial government agencies with their own. The US has a long (and sad) history of foreign policy (especially in the Americas) based on supporting corporate interests abroad. It is fairly clear that government spends more time protecting the property interests of corporations than of private individuals. To me, however, that is a fact of the corruption of government and not a reason for abandoning government as such. Unfortunately, with its recent decision, the Supreme Court has managed to make corporations even more powerful in their influence over government.

What interested me, in Richman's article, is the argument for an ideal "free market." Clearly, with all of this government protection (regulation and oversight, when it exists), there is no free market economy in the United States. But that makes it very difficult to argue (as Richman apparently wants to do) that free markets would be the salvation for all these problems. "Free market" has no reference; there isn't such a thing, nor has there been such a thing in centuries. It is not enough to merely call it by name as if it has reference or meaning. One needs a thorough description that would tell us actually how such a thing would work.

Short of that, we are stuck with government protection and regulation. The problem, really, is when government doesn't tend to its proper role --- appoints oil-industry people to serve on oil-industry regulatory boards and agencies, encourages agents to (literally) sleep with oil industry people, cuts off funding for regulatory and oversight activities, and turns to look in the opposite direction. (Remember back in the first year of the Bush/Cheney administration when Cheney met with his "energy team"!!!)

I do not think the problem is government oversight. I think the problem is bad, corrupt government that throws oversight out the window.

It seems clear that LongShot and I will never agree on basic issues facing our government, especially on the role of government in present society. However, the conversation has carried us into greater understanding, I think, and that's probably all to the good.

In my view, civil society is formed through the institution of government and that government is the way in which people try to achieve their common interests. The origin of government is by unanimous consent but all other government acts after that are ruled by majority. One of the good things about our Constitution is that we have built in safe guards to protect minorities from certain abuses by majority rule. However, if the majority seeks action on a common interest and the action does not violate the protected rights of minority individuals, majority rules. As we've discussed, the moment of "unanimous consent" is long past and, instead, we grow up in this civil society, making our own commitment to it when we come of age.

LongShot refers to many of today's government activities as "extracurricular." However, in our founding documents we create government not only to protect life and liberty but also to pursue happiness or seek the general welfare. Hence, the majority has a perfect right to act collectively through government to promote these things. Going back to the issue of education, if the majority believes that good citizenship is promoted by educating the young, then it has the right to act collectively to promote education. Are rights of the minority violated in this? Not that I can see. Civil society provides for education but does not prohibit privately organized forms of education.

Now, LongShot claims that "the true business of government is force" or violence. And it is true that civil society acts with force. If the majority of citizens believe that government should be supported by collecting taxes, then taxes are collected by force if necessary. If government did not have the power of force, it would simply dissolve. Again, however, government does not have the power to force individuals where their rights are protected. We have rights of assembly, speech, association, worship (or not), etc. without forceful interference by government.

I think that where we definitely disagree is over LongShot's assertion that government's power is only for defense or for our protection. In my reading, government has power to act so long as it is duly enacted as a common interest, even if by a bare majority, and so long as its act does not violate any protected rights. It is fully within its rights to create an Interstate highway but, at the same time, prohibit people from driving faster than 70 mile per hour.

What is really behind the Conservative's need to limit government?

As LongShot suggests in his recent post on this topic, drawing the line on what government should and should not do is tough so he thinks the best idea is to limit government to a defense institution and forget the rest. That seems to be a common Conservative position. And those Conservatives who acknowledge the benefits of some government programs cover this by asserting, as LongShot does, that the rest can be accomplished by the underlying society without government's help.

This is an easy stand to take, I think, but it seems completely naive if we are really serious about doing these things on our own. My bet, in fact, is that most Conservatives never intend to actually do these other things through the underlying society and think they'd be happy enough without them. (But I'll leave that aside for the moment.) What strikes me as naive in this position is that there seems to be no realistic consideration of how much time and money it would take to organize all of these programs on a local level. In contrast, the national government offers an economy-of-scale because millions of people pay for it through their taxes and many people devote full time to thinking through what kinds of programs are needed. Have Conservatives considered what the cost to them would be if they ventured to create similar institutions locally on their own?

As we speak, FEMA is bringing aid to people who are victims of flooding in Nashville. All of us are helping to pay for this and it has been organized well in advance. Is the Conservative solution to just say, "Tough luck, Tennessee; you'll have to raise the money yourselves with bake sales"? I think that there's something fundamentally dishonest in the Conservative argument.

One of the interesting things about LongShot's most recent comment is (in his last two paragraphs) that he asks whether it is always right to obey the laws of the land.

First, I think (if I understand the reference to Kleinman and Frank) that Kleinman was living in the Netherlands which was occupied by Germany. Hence, he disobeyed laws imposed by a conquering power, not by his own government. But I may be wrong about that.

Second, (and more to the point) Locke makes it clear that a government can overstep its authority and, in effect, become a rebel against the contract itself. As Locke saw it, this automatically dissolved the contract and freed citizens to do as they must. There was good reason for Locke to argue this because at that very time England was preparing to depose James II and to invite William of Orange to assume leadership of England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution.

What is unique in our own Constitution is that it recognizes the possibility that government will overstep its authority but, at the same time, institutionalizes rebellion. That is, it gives the Supreme Court authority to judge that a law is unconstitutional and, hence, to check the power of the legislature or of the administration. The whole system of checks-and-balances is devised to prevent a situation in which the government becomes so far off course that citizens are compelled to disobey.

When we feel that government has overstepped its authority in some significant way, we can disobey (civil disobedience) and hope that our case passes through the various stages of the justice system up to the Supreme Court, where government itself is on trial as much as the disobedient person. That's rather idealistic and it makes one regret that appointments to the Supreme Court have become so political because, unfortunately, the Court (depending on its current makeup) is now likely to support a particular party rather than the Constitution itself.

At any rate, no matter how our Constitution suggests that "systematic rebellion" is possible, it always remains possible that the system could become so corrupt and abusive of our rights and interests that actual rebellion (in terms of disobedience, etc.) was necessary.

I want to return here to the issue of our government's proper scope, conceived of as securing our rights. It is way too easy to imagine this obligation as merely protecting us from foreign powers or direct assaults by our neighbors. Having departed long ago from a thoroughly agrarian economy, we have become extremely diverse in our interests and actions. As a consequence, the ways in which one of our own can affect us negatively have multiplied in subtle ways. The current situation in the Gulf is a good example. The pursuit of wealth by certain individuals has resulted in pollution of Gulf Coastal waters and may destroy both commercial and recreational opportunities in several states. Do people "have a right" to clean coastal waters in which they can fish for shrimp etc? To what degree should government be involved in arbitrating the rights and privileges in a situation like this? And, more importantly, to what degree should government have foresight regarding situations like this and produce laws that may help to prevent situations where rights are violated?

I guess that what I am saying is that, the more complex life becomes in the underlying society, the more complex acts of government have to become in order to foresee and prevent disastrous situations where individuals intrude upon others.

Some time back, earlier in April, I wrote a piece asking exactly what it is that Conservatives want. What we have in our country is neither pure Capitalism nor pure Socialism but a mix of some kind. Maybe we should call it a socially tempered Capitalism. LongShot, of Pennsylvania, responded with some comments and a discussion ensued.

I've had some time to reflect on that discussion and I have to confess that I am surprised by where it went. My original question assumed that Conservatives want to work within the system of government to achieve their ends, even if I do not know what those ends are. On the other hand, LongShot seems to object to government and wants to argue for some legitimate way to opt out. While I know that Conservatives are a diverse group, LongShot's position seems awfully similar to what I seem to be hearing from people in the Tea Party Movement and, for that matter, from Sarah Palin. I will try to address the issue of opting out, but I have a feeling that it will not satisfy anyone.

Much of the discussion revolved around Social Contract Theory and that was probably a mistake. This classic political theory is fine for treating the origins of government as we know it in the Modern Era, but we are all born into nation states, today, involving quite different problems and issues. The real question being discussed here is "political obligation," that is, why any citizen should feel obligated to continue obedience or participation in the nation of his/her birth. There are many interesting philosophical approaches to this issue in contemporary thinking --- John Rawls' "A Theory of Justice" being one of the most important. I want to examine a more pragmatic approach.

The contemporary situation is that almost all of us are born into a nation state --- unlike, say, Afganistan where the country is really divided up into tribal regions dominated by coercive war lords. The pragmatic issue is that, while no one asks to be born in any particular place, no newly born individual has the intelligence or power to do anything about it. Therefore, it is a pragmatic truth that each person is raised by the society in which he/she was born up to some point where the obligation/obedience issue can surface. We formalize that coming-of-age at roughly 18 or 21 years but it doesn't really matter when we say it occurs. The issue is that, when one has come-of-age, a political choice must be made; that becomes one's personal experience of the Social Contract. In a pragmatic sense, one's personal contract is either to accept the resources within which you have grown up and been nurtured or to reject them and seek political company elsewhere. (During the Vietnam fiasco many young men decided that Canada was a better place to live and they backed up their decision with their feet.) The pragmatic issue of "political choice" rests on a simple truth, it seems to me; you cannot take advantage of the benefits of a political society unless you are willing to perform the responsibilities attached to that society. What I seem to hear today is a largish number of people who don't want to pay taxes and who don't want to be controlled by government regulations but, at the same time, don't mind living in the country and enjoying its many advantages. But there are only three paths open to people of this persuasion (in my opinion).

1) Leave the country and find one that suits you better.

2) Work within the political system of the country to make it more to your liking.

3) Engage in revolution to overthrow the government, hoping to form a new sovereign nation state. [I seem to hear more and more of this sentiment, these days, and the irony attached to this is that it's closest relative seems to be the Communist revolution predicted by Marx in which "the state will wither away." But this seems precisely what these people would not like to be associated with!]

So, I guess that what I would like in the way of an explanation is why people of this sympathy feel that they can take advantage of the benefits and resources of our country and still not be responsible to obey it. In my opinion, the argument that the government is violating their rights will not work. If indeed their rights are being violated, this can be pursued through the system's legal channels where rights are protected. Meanwhile, they owe obedience to the country that has nurtured them.