Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Libertarian Democraphobia

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

terry_freeman — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:12:21 -0000

If a modern rational liberal must support democracy, one must at least acknowledge the "public choice" research which shows that democracy is not very good at delivering what people really want. One need not be very libertarian to believe that the government is too big, too intrusive, and too inefficient - and that's the way democracy tends to work; it tends to reward "rent seekers" and to punish those who just want to be left alone.

We should admit that democracy is not a perfect ideal; it was merely the best effort to replace the previous "best practice" form of government, which was monarchy.

We should be extremely wary of "public choice" arguments for government to usurp goods and services which can be and have been provided by voluntary arrangements. The interests of the government are seldom coincident with the interests of the individual.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

CatoTheYounger — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:31:07 -0000

Good lord, Mencius owned you badly.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Nicole Tedesco — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:03:14 -0000

A "disaster?" How do you tease out the "bad" effects of women's suffrage from the fact that, on the whole, our individual lives just keep on improving decade after decade as a function of health, avoidance of need, and general self-reported happiness?

Don't get me wrong, I am a Rand-leaning libertarian/skeptic at heart and always have been but I would like to know that I am being as honest as possible about my conclusions

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

nobody.really — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:34:21 -0000

I suspect Thiel and Wilkinson are both looking at the same elephant, but describing different ends.

Democracy is not the same thing as libertarianism, and at the margin it makes sense that the expansion of any one system may coincide with the contraction of the other. That said, Thiel argues that expanding democracy to include women coincided with the decline of the appeal of libertarian policies. Wilkinson rejects the idea that expanding democracy would cause the decline of libertarianism.

In the abstract, I see no reason to think that libertarianism would be less popular with a voting population of 100 million than with a voting population of 50 million. But when we look at things less abstractly, I think I see a pattern. And no, gender is not the explanatory variable; power is. There are two unstated dynamics at play here: Powerful people already vote, and libertarianism is a superior good.

1. Powerful people already vote. Ever since Magna Carta, we observe that the next group to gain the franchise is the next most powerful group that didn’t already have the franchise. That is, within any population, the franchise is skewed toward the powerful. The choice to expand access to the ballot is not merely a choice to add names to the voting rolls, therefore; it’s a choice to dilute the voting strength of the powerful.

2. Libertarianism is a superior good. I mean that in the economic sense – within broad limits, libertarianism becomes more appealing to people as they get richer. Poor immigrants have tended to embrace collectivist policies; as they have grown richer, they and their children have grown less attached to such policies. In the abstract, expanding the voting rolls should have no bearing on the relative appeal of libertarian policies to the voting public at large. But expanding the voting rolls in a manner that dilutes the voting strength of the rich WOULD reduce the appeal of libertarian policies to the voting public at large.

Bottom line: Wilkinson is right. There’s nothing necessarily inconsistent with expanding the franchise and libertarianism. The inconsistency is with POVERTY/WEAKNESS and libertarianism. To the extent that we can adopt policies that bolster the wealth and power of people of all demographics, then people of all demographics will be better positioned to appreciate what libertarianism has to offer.

But Thiel is also right. If your goal is to promote libertarianism through democratic means, you have a strategic interest in keeping the vote in the hands of the relatively rich and powerful. Consider international institutions. The World Bank and IMF tend to be controlled by affluent nations, and (in recent years) these institutions have tended to clamp down on the behavior of recipient nations, imposing structural reforms and promoting transparency. The UN is arguably a more “democratic” institution, but hasn’t seemed quite as interested in promoting such reforms.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

nicklaw — Fri, 08 May 2009 03:57:26 -0000

WW writes: "Extending the franchise to women is, in my estimation, one of the great triumphs of the American classical liberal tradition."

WW has a fetish for voting that is beyond all rationality. Women's property laws were and are a far greater source of liberty for women than the almost useless right to vote.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

uknowbetter — Fri, 08 May 2009 02:42:59 -0000

Most of the libertarians I know are middle-class or their parents were. They had to work for their money and want to keep more of it. Those I know who are wealthier tend to be limousine liberals...they don't care about higher taxes because they have so much money it doesn't matter to them anyways.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

T'Rul — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:52:12 -0000

I agree that the problem is cultural. I'm not going to lie, I'm personally open to the ideas of libertarianism, but it's not approachable at all as an organization, even though it would seem the opposite. I think the last paragraph of this article is golden. I have yet to meet a libertarian who didn't convey an arrogant, super-white, affluent, suburban male vibe, complete with the pie-in-the-sky impression that he's made all his daddy's money himself and he'll be damned if the government is going to tax him and not let him smoke his hydro in the open. I'm not saying all libertarians are like that, but those have been the kind of encounters I have had.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

No — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:51:42 -0000

If you think collectivism is good for women.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Vaishyatva — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:41:47 -0000

"If libertarians are going to shift the politics of the countries we live in, we’ve got to get it through our thick skulls that many people have considered libertarian ideas and have rejected them for all sorts of decent reasons."

For most people, that reason is rational ignorance. What's irrational is to treat that ignorance as if represented an intelligent opinion. I believe the RZA said it best, "March of the wooden soldiers / C-cypher punks couldn't hold us / A thousand men rushing in, not one ninja was sober".

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

nicklaw — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:55:16 -0000

If a legal procedure produces consistently bad substantive results, there is something wrong with that procedure. Liberty has been eroding for so many decades now in Western democracies that there must be something profoundly wrong with those democracies themselves. There must be something wrong in their basic procedures, in the way they make and enforce laws. The problem may be allowing laws to be made by the voting of ignorant masses who pay few or no taxes. Or the problem might lie in some other characteristic of modern democracies. But to not question the basic aspects of our governments after so much decay of liberty is not a libertarian position. You cannot "like democracy just fine", at least not democracy as we know it, and be a libertarian.

There are a wide vast variety of alternatives to modern democracies other than pure anarcho-capitalism -- Wilkinson's false choice between just these two alternatives is a red herring.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

uknowbetter — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:42:51 -0000

"...the incentives in our democracy will lead our representatives to grow the government, regardless of what the people vote for."

I don't think that's stated often enough and I don't think Will has addressed that point.

Libertarians have a huge problem when all other parties say 'we are going to give you all these goodies' and libs say 'we are going to take away goodies you already have'.

There needs to be a better argument than 'no'. Call it the 'big-pie' argument. All these other parties want to limit the size of the economy and all the wonderful inventions and innovations it brings; they want you to have a little pie that they control. Libertarians want all those inventions and innovations; we want a big pie which the people control.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

uknowbetter — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:37:11 -0000

Sounds good to me. Can we sic some hot chicks on Bill Gates to make this happen?

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Barry — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:04:09 -0000

CVD: "Just in case this doesn't work out, I'd point out that Thiel and Friedman don't have to get a large number of people to leave the US to make their plans work. The US and other old democracies rely increasingly on fewer and fewer people to provide more and more of their revenue. If alternative countries could get just enough of these people to leave, the ability of current governments to maintain their financial viability would be severely limited."

So far, the government which seems to be winning that competition is the USA. After that, it'd probably be the EU.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Barry — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:02:18 -0000

Will: "It is to reject the terms of the local democratic game by exercising the exit option. It’s what the Pilgrims did. It’s what the Mormons did. The difference is that there’s no more ready-made frontier left to settle. And I truly wish them the best of luck." Note that (from memory), half of the first group of Pilgrims died in the first winter in Plymouth, and that was with some scavenging of food from freshly plague-killed Indians. And the only reason that they got through the next year was more help from Indians, and reinforcements from overseas. And after that, they proceeded to take land from local Indians, relying on large numbers of fighters, superior technology and disease to gain that land.

I don't know what the death rate among Mormons during their trek to Utah was, but I've heard enough to shudder (handcarts for ~1,000 miles?).

So simillar things would be doable now; a group of libertarians could probably go someplace with little government and get ahold of some land. They'd probably suffer quite a bit in the first few years, but....

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Stewart Browne — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:42:32 -0000

Libertarians have made fantastic strides in the ideological struggle. It's likely that America right now has more people who understand the value of freedom and limited government than any society at any time in history.

Yet, even as more and more people come to our side, government continues to grow, and at an accelerating rate.

Reagan, Gingrich, Bush and his Republican majority from 2000 - 2006 -- these folks were all elected by pandering to libertarian ideals. They didn't get us any closer to our goals; Bush in particular moved us quite a bit farther away.

Willkinson's strategy of convincing others of the value of freedom and limited government is fine and good, but the rest of us need to convince Willkinson and his converts of a truth that should already be so outrageously clear to us all: the incentives in our democracy will lead our representatives to grow the government, regardless of what the people vote for.

It will only be when a large group of Americans fully secede from Washington's control that we can begin to move towards freedom at large. The legitimate threat of secession is the greatest counter to the ugliest incentives in a democracy. Without it, we don't stand a chance.

http://www.strike-the-root....

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

shem — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:02:16 -0000

How so, Greg? What is there that individuals shouldn't be able to do even though it doesn't violate the liberty of anyone else? Is there something wrong about the non-aggression principle?

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Michael Ryan — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:38:17 -0000

First and foremost, anyone who believes that a population as large and desegregated as ours can tolerate the existance of even small pockets of anarchy is a fool. Secondly if Libertarians want to be a viable party they need to come together or split. Finally, for majority rule to operate effectively and free of the threat of tyranny, a viable third party or the permanent dissoulution of ALL political parties is needed. A two party system is in direct conflict with the seperation of powers established by our constitution (a document that I firmly believe, if followed, would restore this nation to greatness).

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Colin77 — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:09:43 -0000

"Libertarianism does have public relations problems, and it’s not because most people are stupid or immoral. It’s because libertarians have done a terrible job countering the widespread suspicion that it’s a uselessly abstract ahistorical ideology for socially retarded adolescent white guys."

This is correct. Libertarians need to make the ideology less abstract. When we talk about social security privatization show that it has been implemented (in limited form) in Sweden and the UK. Postal privatization has been implemented in Europe. Flat taxes have been successfully implemented. School vouchers work in DC and school choice is found in Sweden. Trains have been privatized in Holland. Air traffic control privatization works in Canada. Drug decriminalization appears to be working in Portugal. Use concrete examples.

The flip side is to show the bankruptcy of the statist approach. Social Security is going bankrupt. Ditto for Medicare/aid. Public schools are a mess. The government heavily regulates the financial sector and yet we have massive failure and a bailout. Amtrak continues to lose money. Airlines and trucks benefited when those sectors were deregulated. Ethanol is a mess. Indeed, arguably the biggest public policy success of the last 20 years was the scaling back of welfare.

Where government encroaches failure tends to result. When a pro-freedom/market approach is used the result tends to be successful.

Show the real tangible benefits of freedom and the known costs of government. A

And yes, little of what I propose is pure libertarianism, but we have to start somewhere.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Sheldon Richman — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:36:29 -0000

I agree that democracy on the whole has tended to be a progressive force. It beats aristocracy, which was usually the alternative. It certainly was no friend of freedom.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

GilM — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:35:14 -0000

Good. But, that wasn't very clear to me.

Especially when you all but called "The frustration that resonable pluralism fails to generate consensus on the right answer" illiberal. That sounded like a disagreement with the conclusion.

And, people who expect good results from democracy without adequately considering what "good results" entail, or why rational individual voters can be expected to consistently vote for "bad results," are being unreasonable IMNSHO.

I hope we can convince enough of them to slow down the loss of liberty enough to give technology, and alternative social arrangements, a chance to advance far enough for us to avoid tyranny.

It seems like a race to me, so I'm all in favor of efforts both to retard the damage from democracies, and to accelerate the development of means of avoiding that damage.

Go Will! Go Patri!

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

SRdV — Wed, 06 May 2009 02:13:37 -0000

What do you mean when you use "arbitrary" in this post? Your usage doesn't match any of the definitions that I'm familiar with.

If the rule is that a majority is needed then, by definition, 50%+1 works because 50%+1 is the smallest majority possible and is therefore not arbitrary. It was picked according to the principles that lead to approving government by the majority and the definition of majority.

100% is pretty clearly not arbitrary in that there is (theoretically) no coercion when one has 100%.

2/3, on the other hand, is pretty thoroughly arbitrary. There seems to be no reason to prefer 2/3 to 65% or 67%. Indeed, the only reason I can think of for rejecting a bare majority is to maintain the status quo, but that doesn't demand a particular number.

Maybe our government would be better run if we required 2/3 support of all laws, but I doubt there would be a noticeable effect.

Based on the history I've read and my experiences watching people the practical effect would most likely be less change in the laws. This would mean, for example, that in places with "blue" laws it would be harder to repeal them.

Given our complex system it could even result in something like oppression of the majority. An example, Prop 8 passed with 50 something %. IF California required, say, 66% to pass an amendment then it would have a legal system that is more just, but it would also involve the coercion of the majority of the people.

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Paul_G_Brown — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:56:50 -0000

*sighs*

haha you're a loser/nerd/virgin.

I seem to recall that the Rick Santelli rant was about losers, that the Obama cabinet has Stephen Chu (Nobel prize callibre nerd) and that virginity was a good thing.

Clearly I need to clear my in-tray more often than I do ....

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Paul_G_Brown — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:52:33 -0000

The Democrats favor (in practice if not in stated terms) raising taxes.

To quote Uncle Milton - to spend IS to tax. In their defense, the Democrats at least own up to both sides of that equality. They tax AND spend too much. But they're marginally more honest about it.

The Cheney/Rove GOP is dead. Finished. Buried. Done in by its own self-deception. For the reasons Will points out, I don't see a Libertarian alternative.

Seems to me that Champions of Liberty might be better spending their time reaching out to Democrats than Rush Limbaugh. Just saying. . .

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Paul_G_Brown — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:43:54 -0000

Or ... you like ... are a woman?

Re: Libertarian Democraphobia

Will Wilkinson — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:17:59 -0000

I certainly don't think democracy always yields legit or even good results, much less the right answer. I think I pretty clearly implied that democracy gives no guarantee of delivering the right answer. That's obviously why Theil finds it useless. What I said is that people who have benefited from a good result of democracy aren't unreasonable to think it has the potential to deliver even more good results.