How Libertarianism Makes People Susceptible To Huge Government
In the end, the freedom to abandon family, faith, and community is the freedom to be insecure, insignificant, and alone before the Leviathan of government.
By Nathanael Blake
NOVEMBER 6, 2019
David Marcus, The Federalist’s New York correspondent, recently tweeted that he can’t make up his mind about whether he fears “the socialists or the libertarians more.†Robert Tracinski, an author and the editor of The Tracinski Letter, responded, “LOL. God forbid we should…leave you alone.†This was a good Twitter burn, but I suspect that for many people, that is precisely what they fear about libertarianism: that they will be left alone.
They have a point, insofar as libertarianism has become less about a commitment to limited government and more a philosophy of autonomous individualism. The latter is an ideology that undermines the possibility of the former, in large part because it really does leave people alone. Cordially leaving the two gentlemen to settle their dispute, I will attempt to elucidate this point.
Practical Libertarianism Requires Strong Institutions
Astute libertarians (or classical liberals, for those who prefer that label) recognize that political liberty has cultural prerequisites. We are born neither free nor rational, but come into this world dependent and lacking in reason. Care and instruction are necessary for us to attain even some freedom and rationality, along with the virtues needed to exercise them well. As wise Americans proclaimed since the founding of our nation, only a virtuous people is capable of sustaining self-government.
The often-tenuous conservative-libertarian alliance has rested upon this truth, with conservatives recognizing the potential for large, unrestrained government to corrode a healthy culture, and libertarians aware that limited government is dependent upon cultural antecedents that promote and protect the virtues required for self-government. Practical libertarianism requires strong families, churches, and communities, which provide stability, a sense of belonging, and the moral instruction that enables self-government.
Many libertarians appear to have forgotten or never learned this insight, as they now seem eager to condemn cultural conservatism as incompatible with individual autonomy. Such libertarianism is hostile to traditional forms of community, especially the family and church, which it sees as repressive and restrictive.
For example, libertarian advocacy for legalizing drugs and prostitution seems to arise less from the prudential belief that suppressing these vices causes more harm than good than from a philosophical commitment to maximizing individual autonomy. But hard drugs and prostitution are degrading, and they lessen the human capacity for responsible self-government. In these and many other ways, today’s libertarianism allows and even encourages the destruction of the virtues and associations necessary for successful self-government.
Conservatives also recognize that many wrongs must be permitted to avoid worse ills, and we will not abandon liberty to mandate the whole of virtue. But we will not delude ourselves that the public policy of a free nation can be indifferent to the cultivation of the virtues that are required for its citizens to maintain their self-governance. Those of us who value liberty must not only promote virtue in the private sphere, but also wrestle with how government intervention is to promote it and how much intervention is necessary.
How Libertarianism Sabotages Itself
The paradox of libertarianism is that it depends upon cultural capital it cannot replenish.
In the end, the freedom to abandon family, faith, and community is the freedom to be insecure, insignificant, and alone before the Leviathan of government.
By Nathanael Blake
NOVEMBER 6, 2019
David Marcus, The Federalist’s New York correspondent, recently tweeted that he can’t make up his mind about whether he fears “the socialists or the libertarians more.†Robert Tracinski, an author and the editor of The Tracinski Letter, responded, “LOL. God forbid we should…leave you alone.†This was a good Twitter burn, but I suspect that for many people, that is precisely what they fear about libertarianism: that they will be left alone.
They have a point, insofar as libertarianism has become less about a commitment to limited government and more a philosophy of autonomous individualism. The latter is an ideology that undermines the possibility of the former, in large part because it really does leave people alone. Cordially leaving the two gentlemen to settle their dispute, I will attempt to elucidate this point.
Practical Libertarianism Requires Strong Institutions
Astute libertarians (or classical liberals, for those who prefer that label) recognize that political liberty has cultural prerequisites. We are born neither free nor rational, but come into this world dependent and lacking in reason. Care and instruction are necessary for us to attain even some freedom and rationality, along with the virtues needed to exercise them well. As wise Americans proclaimed since the founding of our nation, only a virtuous people is capable of sustaining self-government.
The often-tenuous conservative-libertarian alliance has rested upon this truth, with conservatives recognizing the potential for large, unrestrained government to corrode a healthy culture, and libertarians aware that limited government is dependent upon cultural antecedents that promote and protect the virtues required for self-government. Practical libertarianism requires strong families, churches, and communities, which provide stability, a sense of belonging, and the moral instruction that enables self-government.
Many libertarians appear to have forgotten or never learned this insight, as they now seem eager to condemn cultural conservatism as incompatible with individual autonomy. Such libertarianism is hostile to traditional forms of community, especially the family and church, which it sees as repressive and restrictive.
For example, libertarian advocacy for legalizing drugs and prostitution seems to arise less from the prudential belief that suppressing these vices causes more harm than good than from a philosophical commitment to maximizing individual autonomy. But hard drugs and prostitution are degrading, and they lessen the human capacity for responsible self-government. In these and many other ways, today’s libertarianism allows and even encourages the destruction of the virtues and associations necessary for successful self-government.
Conservatives also recognize that many wrongs must be permitted to avoid worse ills, and we will not abandon liberty to mandate the whole of virtue. But we will not delude ourselves that the public policy of a free nation can be indifferent to the cultivation of the virtues that are required for its citizens to maintain their self-governance. Those of us who value liberty must not only promote virtue in the private sphere, but also wrestle with how government intervention is to promote it and how much intervention is necessary.
How Libertarianism Sabotages Itself
The paradox of libertarianism is that it depends upon cultural capital it cannot replenish.
The Federalist
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