Ben Hughes

12 Mar 2012

Creeping Libertarianism

Is it just me, or is there a growing support for broadly Libertarian ideals? I don’t mean that people are self-identifying as Libertarians (why would you? Libertarians are horrible and mean), but that Libertarian-compatible views are creeping their way into the mainstream.

Clay Johnson, author of The Information Diet looks to be a rusted-on Lefty, having managed Democratic Party fund raising and happily taking pot-shots and crazy Libertarians on Twitter. There’s a lot of interesting, and essentially apolitical, ideas in his book. But his advice to concentrate on local news and local issues, because they are both more relevant and something we can act on, has a fundamentally Libertarian flavour to it. It is in essence “think local, act local”, with the implication being that if we each concentrate on improving our local areas we will in aggregate, improve things everywhere.

Clay’s preference for source data, rather than trusting aggregates, also has a Libertarian feel to it.

Then there is the Occupy movement and the wider group of “anti-Capitalists” (who I would argue are actually anti-Corporatists). One of the fundamental shifts I see here is a growing mistrust of the government, and the recognition that Big Business and Big Government are rather closely related. There seems to be a move away from the idea that government can come in and save us from the evil corporations. And while the die-hard socialist and anarchist elements still exist, there seems to be a growing support for sustainable, distributed business. And although they rarely mention it, that idea is fundamentally compatible with free markets.

I don’t think the Occupy movement has a particularly clear or coherent political philosophy, and that’s part of its charm. But from an outside perspective it seems that a lot of the broad goals and concerns are compatible with Libertarianism. In particular, the distrust of concentrations of power and the recognition that, regardless of its source, these power concentrations tend to collude against the rest of society.

This may sound a bit confusing – I mean, don’t Libertarians love big business? While within the broad range of Libertarianism there are certainly some elements that fit that bill, I think on the whole it’s a misconception. Libertarians distrust all concentrations of power, and they do tend to distrust government power a bit more than corporate power. That’s because government is a very specific and unique form of monopoly: it makes and enforces laws, with force where necessary. From a Libertarian perspective, corporations should also be treated with suspicion, but the belief is that competition from other firms in a free market is more of a check than democracy is on government. I certainly don’t think that free market competition is a perfect foil for corporate power, or perhaps even a good one. But it is certainly better than the current Corporatist arrangement, where government uses its lawmaking power to protect and entrench corporate power, and continuing the vicious cycle, corporate power is used to get compliant politicians re-elected.

The Internet’s sprawling, decentralised, unregulated chaos has produced both amazing and terrible things, but on the whole I think most people would say that it has been a very beneficial addition to society. And by and large, people seem to be extremely worried by the idea of government coming in and messing things up. I’m not trying to say that the Internet proves the validity of Libertarianism: there are fundamental differences, in, say, the cost of moving between communities in a physical vs online society. But I do think that some of the Wild West freedom of the Internet is affecting how people think about the physical world.

Libertarians and the Left have lot in common in terms of progressive societal goals; the main point of contention is how to achieve them. The Left thinks government intervention will get us there; Libertarians worry that when you give government more power, they eventually use it against us. Personally, I’m somewhere in the middle: I think neither completely free markets nor government are perfect solutions, but, in general, that markets are less corruptible than governments.

There are certainly plenty of people on the Left who acknowledge the problems with government and who think the answer is either better oversight or choosing better politicians. But if I’m right, and on the whole the Left are slowly losing their faith in government, where does that leave us?

20 May 2011

A tale of two puppies

Two of my Facebook friends are having a rough time with their dogs; paying a lot of vet bills and worrying themselve sick over the wellbeing of their pet. But they’re handling it completely differently.

One friend is from a decently well off family, is University educated and from the look of her Facebook updates, lives pretty comfortably.

The other friend left school early and is currently a house cleaner. She is spending pretty well everything she has trying to give her terminally ill dog as nice an exit from this world as she can. When she really has to, she relies on the kindness of the vet to waive or reduce their fees.

To the bemusement of a few of us, my well-off friend has started asking for donations to cover her vet bills.

This is not a “rich kids are brats with a sense of entitlement” rant. A few of the friends who were shocked by the dog-donation-fund also grew up fairly well off.

But I think you have to have grown up with money to be able to ask for a handout

I grew up poor. My parents lost everything they had when the small family business folded, and soon after Dad was put on to a disabilty pension, which he remained on until he died. He needed Mum around to care for him, so we lived solely on a poverty-line pension for most of my school years. Although he often resented the relentless need to prove his disability to Centrelink, I don’t think Dad ever thought we were entitled to the pension. He was grateful for it. He knew that without it we wouldn’t survive.

The child care rebate cut-off discussion has made me realise something that I find a bit embarassing: our household is in the top 10% (give or take 5%, depending who you read) of incomes in the country. And that’s true for most of our friends, too. Given that the poverty-line in Australia would be upper-class in ¾ of the world, it really is hubmling, shocking and as I said, a little embarassing.

So I have some experience at a lot of points along the Australian income scale.

I’ve never known someone who was poor who would ask their friends for money unless it was literally life and death. I’ve never known someone who was poor who thought they deserved Centrelink payments.

There’s a shame that comes with being poor, particularly when you’re reliant on government handouts. I still feel it, although less and less. But whenever I deal with Centrelink about some form of government payment, that shame comes rushing back.

Well off people wonder why poor people support welfare for the rich. In part I think it’s because you learn to not begrudge people their wealth. The poor don’t hate the rich; they’re not even jealous of them. In a very real sense, it gives them hope that their children may have better lives.

It also feels less shameful if everyone is on welfare.

But there is something perverse about my family getting government benefits, in the same way as its perverse to ask for money for a dog when you could pay for it yourself. That money could be helping people that really need it. People who, like me as a kid, really cannot survive by modern standards without that help.

It’s easy to lose a sense of income relativity. We mostly hang out with people in a similar income bracket, and regardless of how much money you have there’s always times that seem hard. But in the same way as Australian poverty is not the same as Cambodian poverty, hard times on $150k a year are not the same as hard times on $25k a year.

If you’ve ready my blog or Twitter feed or been silly enough to talk to me about politics, you know I’m not a socialist. I firmly believe that total income equality would a terrible thing for everyone. But I do, strongly believe that as a society, as people, we have a duty to look after those that can’t look after themselves. To help them get to a point, if possible, where they can be independent. It breaks my heart to think that money that could be used to help the many, many people in genuine need is spent making me more comfortable. It breaks my heart that the welfare process shames and belittles those people that need it the most.

7 Apr 2011

The Heartless Libertarian

Most people think of Libertarians as either big-wig top-hat-wearing heartless Scrooges or militant gun-toting white supremacists. So why, as a Greens voter and generally left-leaning guy, do I consider myself a Libertarian?

Well, here’s some things libertarians believe which may surprise you. Libertarians are

anti-war
pro-immigration
pro-gay marriage
pro-democracy
pro-science
pro-free-trade
pro-drug legalisation
pro-abortion
pro-equality regardless of race, sex, sexual preference, country of birth, religion or just about anything else

Some Libertarians (like me) are also

pro welfare
pro public education
pro public health

Can you see why I vote for the Greens yet?

OK, so what is Libertarianism?

The core concept of Libertarianism is that everyone is best placed to make decisions affecting their own lives. As David Boaz puts it

Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others"

Everything else stems from that. That sounds OK, right?

There are a of a lot of strands of Libertarianism: everything from complete anarchy to social liberalism. It’s sorta hard to pin down.

So why the bad rep?

There are two big reasons that Libertarians have a bad name.

Firstly, the massive number of strands mean that it’s pretty easy to find a variation that you don’t like. The vast majority don’t do much for me at all (I’m a classically-leaning social liberal, if you must know :–) ).

On top of that, the ‘personal freedom’ thing attracts nutters who don’t want anyone interfering with their right to own WMDs, to not pay taxes, or to be racist fuckheads. These people aren’t Libertarians in the real sense of the word because they generally believe that they can and should assert their will over others.

If you’re so good, why are you pro-Capitalism?

Oh yeah. That.

There are two reasons, at least for me. Firstly, on a fundamental level who you trade with and how you do it very much falls into that “personal decision” space, so Capitalism is a particularly liberal-compatible way to organise an economy.

The other, and much less obvious reason, is because it’s the best way we know of to get people out of poverty (more on that in a sec). When societies move out of poverty they become more free, more democratic, more respectful of human rights, live longer, and are healthier.

Capitalism has its downsides, no doubt about that. But it’s the least worse system we have.

But aren’t Libertarians all greedy and soulless?

Libertarianism and Capitalism allow for selfishness and greed, but they do not require it. An individual’s best interest may very well be served by helping others – in fact it’s human nature to do so.

As I said, Libertarians believe deeply in human rights and equality. If you spend much time studying history it becomes clear very quickly that the quickest, most efficient way to get people our of poverty is to encourage Capitalistic free trade.

But that is a hard argument to make.

The Right will both point to specific groups of people (farmers, factory workers) and say that free trade is costing those people their jobs.

The Left will point to specific groups (the ultra-poor in developing Capitalist nations) and say that they are getting a massively inequitable slice of the growth while the top X% get the majority of the spoils.

Both of them are right.

But here’s the thing: despite its flaws Capitalism is still the best way to improve people’s lives over the long term. The short term costs are real and often devastating – but without them long term growth is incredibly difficult.

What the Right don’t tell you is that when the factory work moves to Mexico, the Mexicans get much more benefit in aggregate than the Americans lose. What the Left don’t tell you is that, although wealth disparity is growing, in absolute terms those ultra-poor are becoming much less poor – just at a much slower rate then their richer countrymen.

It is long term, sustained growth that in 200 years has taken the West from $5/day and a life expectancy of 40 to $100/day and a life expectancy of 75. It has taken the Chinese from $5/day to $30/day. If you haven’t already, you really should watch Hans Rosling’s 200 Years demonstration. It’s one of the most compelling, unbiased and optimistic things I’ve seen.

And so…

If you truly want to help people, you should choose the best data-backed method we have to do so. There’s a lot of things you can do to make it feel like you’re helping, but compared to the benefits flowing from a robust Capitalist society, you’re pissing in the wind at best. At worst, you’re holding back the progress that will change people’s lives at an almost unfathomable scale.