Why most libertarians are missing the point
UncategorizedI just finished reading a fascinating paper about “seasteading“. This is the concept of creating towers of small communities designed live on the sea, a little like oil platforms. The ideas is that once these small communities evolve, if the members of the communities disagree with governmental policies, they can just take their seastead elsewhere, literally overnight. The switching costs for moving societies will be virtually eliminated.
This has come together from a bunch of libertarians, and is funded by Peter Thiel ($500k), who cofounded Paypal, is an early investor in Facebook and is now one of the top fund managers in the US. He’s also someone I have a tremendous amount of respect for.
Those who know me well know that I’m a huge fan of Ayn Rand and believe that Objectivism is a very important philosophy, especially for entrepreneurs. I was impressed to learn that Peter Thiel is also a big fan of Objectivism, and this may be why he is funding Seasteading.
Many libertarians I’ve met believe libertarian principles of society will truly work if they were given the chance. But since that chance never arrives, they never truly know if their system works.
Well, I’ve lived in an almost-libertarian state since 2001 - in the Caribbean, called the Dominican Republic. Here we have a weak police force, rule of law which isn’t very strong, and almost anything goes.
As a result, there are two principles which govern day to day life here:
1. how well connected you are (where your family comes from, who your friends are)
2. how much money you have
Thats it. So if you have a problem with your neighbour playing his music too loud, you can count on the two principles above if you want to sleep in peace. If you get into a car accident and kill someone, those two principles will determine your survival if the family of the deceased comes after you.
It *does* work.. to a degree.. but its scary sometimes and it means you need to stay on your toes. It also means that if you aren’t well connected and you don’t have money, then you are screwed if a bad situation that comes your way. Many would-be expats leave countries like the Dominican Republic after just a few months with lots of horror stories. Not understanding these two simple rules is the reason why.
I am sure Peter Thiel and the founders of seasteading have great intentions with the society they want to build. It will be great for them, since they will have both money, and connections (after they have the fame of building this libertarian society). But for regular people who are living in it as regular citizens and have neither, life on a seastead won’t be much fun.
Libertarians have some really interesting ideals and we should listen to them. But a fully libertarian society like seasteading will not be one that respects the rights of all its citizens, and will not reach the visions of the founders. After 6 years in the Dominican Republic, a place I do enjoy living in, I now know this first hand.
July 27th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Libertarians miss the point. It’s not a matter of will Libertarianism ‘work’ or not. It’s a matter of moral standards. If someone believes, ‘Well, you know, it’s nice and all, and I guess actually, this is the best thing for the poor… but I dunno, that Universal Health Care that Obama keeps talking about sounds really good’, then your Libertarian candidate is fucked.
America is not yet ready for a proper government. It won’t vote for it, because no matter how much the Libertarians want to talk about everyone being ‘richer’ and ‘freer’, without the proper moral backing of Objectivism, these concepts don’t mean anything to the average voter. They’re just flexible words that can be bent around your particular form of altruism.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Hi, Adrian. I stumbled upon your post and I must dispel some misconceptions about libertarianism. You don’t seem to have read up on what libertarianism actually is. No one would say that the Dominican Republic is the world’s most libertarian society– the ones most often mentioned are Hong Kong (for economic freedom) and Switzerland for a number of reasons, although neither are anywhere close to actually being libertarian. America is considered to be pretty libertarian compared to the rest of the world, as well. Certainly, the Dominican Republic is not.
First of all, a libertarian society does not necessitate a “weak police force.” In fact, there would be laws against many of the crimes we experience today– murder and anything less that is bothersome to a neighbor and interferes with his or her rights. You would not be allowed to blast your stereo at all hours, because that would interfere with your neighbor’s right to sleep and peace. There could either be a law against it or you would sue your neighbor for violating your rights. These are pretty much the options most countries have today in that same instance. There may be fewer laws than exist now, but property rights (against your person, your property, your family, etc.) would be stronger and better enforced. In other words, you’d have a better chance of getting your noisy neighbor to stop because your right to a peaceful existence would be better recognized.
No one except yourself would see the DR as a libertarian state. It is not, and a libertarian state would hold the freedom of the individual above any type of societal connection or money. Of course, we are humans so you have to figure that into the equation, but there would be laws and if they weren’t dealt with properly by the police you could sue.
Rory– I don’t see what you mean about moral standards. Most libertarians believe that everyone would be free and more covered under “universal health care” under a libertarian society than they would under a system of mandated insurance (mandated corporatism) as Obama wants to implement.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Guys, thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your intelligent thoughts.
Libertarian girl - most laws today are for protecting the individual, right? And when you have several hundred years of laws and lots of different individuals you end up with the legal system in the US/Australia today?
If libertarianism is so powerful, why don’t we have a truly libertarian state today? Over the ages these kinds of things tend to get figured out one way or another, don’t you think?
August 6th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Hi Adrian,
Most laws are done in the name of the individual, but can actually harm the individual in the end by giving a centralized government too much power. For instance, let’s look at environmental laws, which are usually enacted to protect Mother Nature, as well as often done in the name of personal safety– i.e., pollution control laws or laws to not dump chemicals, that sort of thing.
The problem with these laws is that the government allegedly enforces them, but the government doesn’t have to abide by them itself. Our biggest polluter in America is the government, and it’s the one enforcing the pollution control laws! Of course, the EPA never fines the government agencies that are our biggest polluters. In a libertarian society, the government would not be above the law or become so powerful that it was both the worst violator and the enforcer.
The key to a libertarian society is granting more rights to individuals than to the government, which can abuse it more widely and easily than individuals can and rarely gives powers back once they have been attained.
Why hasn’t it been done yet? I’m not sure. The Constitution of the United States is pretty libertarian in and of itself, but Congress doesn’t abide by it. Other places have successfully incorporated aspects of it– many places in Europe have socially liberal laws but don’t promote economic freedom, while Hong Kong is very free economically but not socially liberal. Put those two together and it would work great!
If you want to know why it hasn’t been done yet, just watch the news after any sort of news occurs. Someone was stabbed on a street, and news reporters will say, “What can the government do to stop knife crime?” Someone is a bad parent, and people will say, “What can the government do to make people better parents?” Someone makes bad investments in the stock market, and he will say, “What can the government do for me to bail me out of this?” Often the laws will be done to protect people from themselves and especially in the name of safety or protecting children.
Everyone wants to run to Congress and make a law all the time. Someone, I believe Thomas Jefferson, said that a government will always grow bigger, not smaller. He saw it as a bad thing, but a natural tendency of humans to want someone else to solve their problems for them. Jefferson’s US was very libertarian compared to our society now, but it has grown in power substantially since the Civil War and is now a behemoth.