I went to an interesting talk today given by Stephen Davies of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a British free market think tank, in favour of the libertarian position. In the past, I have not been particularly kind to the libertarian position, both in its theory and in the practical policies that result from it. Davies did, however, present the libertarian position in an interesting fashion. Whereas usually libertarianism is derived from some foundational larger philosophical theory (some libertarians are right utilitarians, natural rights theorists, egoists, and so on), Davies wishes to divorce libertarianism from its wider philosophical context and consider it on its own, irrespective of which foundational theory it sits upon. In the past, some of my criticisms of libertarianism have been themselves criticised for over-relying on problems with foundational theories rather than considering the planks of libertarianism in isolation. Today, I shall look at libertarianism as presented by Davies and see where it leads me.
Tag: Libertarianism
Libertarian Party Platform
Some of the reaction to yesterday’s post, “Intellectual Hipsters: Libertarians” made the argument that yes, libertarianism has many defects in its theoretical intellectual foundation, but that perhaps real world libertarians are not deriving their policies strictly from that foundation, or that the policies of the Libertarian Party in America remain useful for other, non-libertarian reasons. I agree that this is a proposition worth considering, and so this post exists as a companion piece to yesterday’s–examining libertarian policy in practise to go along with yesterdays’ examination of libertarian political theory.
Intellectual Hipsters: Libertarians
There’s another upstart group of intellectual hipsters in addition to the sceptics and the lovers of Nietzsche–the libertarians. You’ve definitely met these hipsters before. They wax romantically about Ron Paul, some of them voted for Gary Johnson, they tend to like theorists like Nozick and Locke, and some of them are Ayn Rand-embracing objectivists. You know the type. Like all hipsters, their ideas are much less sophisticated and clever than they imagine, and their position is neither novel nor socially helpful. Of course, I cannot merely assert these things, I have to prove them. Let’s go.
A Critique of Property Rights
Property rights can be immensely helpful to society, increasing our collective productivity, motivating and inspiring people to work harder, and consequently augmenting our standard of living. There is however, another side to that coin–property rights can create a distribution of wealth that undercuts economic demand and leads to the replacement of wage-financed consumer demand with credit-financed consumer demand, leading to, as we recently collectively experienced, economic crises fuelled by unsustainable levels of private household debt. Clearly there is a balance with property–we need to maximise the benefits of this institution while minimising the societal costs. The trouble is that the political theory that lies at the foundation of right wing thinking in the Western world does not allow for this balancing, and these ideas continue to hold sway. Today I’d like to address where the difficulties in the right’s theory of property lie and what sort of negative consequences these difficulties have for the rest of us.
Benjamin Studebaker 