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April 13, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
24:49
1329 True News 31 - Naughty Libertarianism!

Rebutting an an article with a typical hate-on for Libertarianism.

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Good afternoon, everybody.
I hope you're doing very well. It's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
And I'm going to read a little article which critiques libertarianism in, I think, a pretty intelligent and subtle way.
And we will talk a little bit about some of these rebuttals.
This is an article that came out recently from a fellow named Lee Hampton.
I will put the link to the right, and it goes like this.
A couple of weeks ago, it says Monsieur Le Hampton, I wrote an article criticizing certain points of a lecture on anarcho-capitalism that Barry Belmont, president of the University of Navarro, Reno Students for Liberty Club, presented.
He responded with a compelling case for libertarianism in general.
This is my case against it.
Now see if you have ever, ever, I've experienced these arguments before.
He says, Mr. Hampton, I fully agree with both of these premises, he writes.
I believe, like libertarians, that individuals will most of the time find it to their benefit to act cooperatively and in a way that tends to benefit society as a whole.
I also believe that the elimination of the freedom of choice and liberty from any sector is generally a dangerous idea, both from an ethical and practical standpoint.
Where, then, does the conflict lie?
Not in the philosophy, which is rigorous enough, but in the politics.
Libertarianism appears solid in the academic vacuum of rationality, but when exposed to the utter irrationality of the human experience, it doesn't just fracture, it shatters.
Libertarians frequently utilize the U.S. Constitution as a rhetorical tool, citing Thomas Jefferson's statement that all humans are endowed with, quote, certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the right to be raped by your master.
I'm sorry, that was penciled in later by the facts.
What they frequently forget to mention is Jefferson's next equally vital sentence, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, which I have obviously great issues with, but he goes on to write, that sentence is what shifts the Constitution from a piece of idealism to a practical political document.
Government exists to bring accountability.
Accountability to criminals.
Accountability to those in positions of power, economic, political or otherwise.
And accountability to citizens in general when their actions are intolerably detrimental to other citizens.
Belmore makes an interesting point in his article.
Questioning why the government should be trusted to bring accountability to individuals, he asks, Who are these angels of benevolence that would be in charge of the government?
What he implies is wholly correct.
Government is no more clean, pure, and intelligent than any other group of individuals.
However, it is the principle of accountability that is vital here.
Is it ever carried out perfectly?
Of course not. But it needs to exist.
Not so that it can restrain liberty, but so that it can protect it.
So that individuals have some formal and relatively rigid guidelines to turn to when their liberty is threatened.
This is doubly true in terms of the market, because actions in the market carry with them not only implications of individual liberty, but also the growth of society as a whole.
I believe in capitalism, he writes, but I do not flock to the oasis of the free market, because, paradoxically, I see a completely...
You know, it's funny how people say because, paradoxically, as if that...
It resolves the paradox, right?
You come up with an equation that produces two different answers, and you hand that in to your math teacher and say, paradoxically, this equation produces two different answers.
Can I get an A? I believe in capitalism, he writes, but I do not flock to the oasis of the free market because, paradoxically, I see a completely free market deeply restraining the freedom of individuals.
I believe that it is individual entrepreneurism that makes market grow.
Indeed, that is what characterizes the United States at its economic best.
Unfortunately, markets do not naturally allow entrepreneurs to thrive.
Instead, most markets gravitate towards natural monopolies, large businesses that are complacent, not innovative and inefficient.
I don't advocate government control of any sector of the market.
Issues of security, law and health are altogether different.
But I do advocate government regulation to prevent the unfree and unjust growth of monopolies and unrestrained market power.
This is the basic madness of, I'm frightened of monopolies, so I'm going to give one monopoly nuclear weapons and the power to imprison at will.
I'm back. I'll close, he writes, with a current example.
The libertarian owl. I think that's going to leave a mark.
Libertarian ideology would love to see our financial sector fail and start anew as if it would without the aid of the government.
Is this liberty though? Individual entrepreneurs would for generations be hard-pressed to find capital.
Which is actually factually not true.
Entrepreneurs have no trouble getting capital at the moment.
The market would shrink immeasurably, making our recession look benign.
In comparison, individual citizens would suffer unimaginably more because of the actions of a select few foolhardy individuals.
Like Jefferson, I would much rather add some pragmatism to the definition of freedom than see liberty compromised on such a scale.
And I mean, where do you even begin with something like this?
It is fascinating.
And to me, it's always as fascinating psychologically as it is in terms of the supernatural fantasy camp of his positions.
But so what people always say is, yes, violence is a bad thing to do.
The initiation of force is bad in society.
And he says that here. It's elimination of freedom of choice and liberty from any sector is generally a dangerous idea.
And then, basically, they say that the elimination of liberty, you see, is really bad, and therefore we need to eliminate liberty in order to protect liberty.
Do you sort of see how mad this is?
Not breathing oxygen is a really bad idea, so we need to take all of the oxygen out of the room in order to protect your right to breathe oxygen.
It's... I mean, it makes a pretzel look like a straight line.
That's what I'm saying.
But it's very common, right? You run into this all, all, all the time.
People will say, yes, we need liberty, and to secure liberty, we need a government.
Yes, monopolies are bad, so to secure a freedom of trade, we need to institute a massive monopoly and give it the right to print money and jail at will and start wars and harass citizens and so on.
This is the general argument that you will see over it.
Over again, every single time you debate someone, freedom is good, they say, and at least we can be happy about that, that we've vaulted out of the Middle Ages.
Freedom is good, they say, and that's why we need to eliminate it in critical sectors in order to preserve it.
This is Orwellian brain pretzel, lower intestine map of the London subway logic, which is fundamentally mental.
No one would ever say that the health of your leg is good And in order to preserve the health of your leg, we need to cut it off.
Your leg is healthy, and in order to preserve the health of your leg, we're going to cut it off.
I mean, any doctor who said that would be considered insane, but thinkers say it all the time with a straight face.
And it really is quite magical in its thinking.
It is completely deranged.
So, when he says, libertarianism appears solid in the academic vacuum of rationality, but when exposed to the utter irrationality of the human experience, it doesn't just fracture, it shatters.
And, again, you'll sort of see this all the time.
Oh, it's great in theory, but in practice, you know...
And only in the social sciences can anyone take this with any supposed seriousness.
I mean... Just try it in the sciences.
Try in the physical sciences proposing a completely self-contradictory theory that matter both attracts and repels at the same time under the same circumstances.
That gases both expand and contract when heated at the same time under the same circumstances.
Try and put that forward and see whether anybody will say, sure, come on down, give us a presentation, you tinfoil hat wearing...
Shopping cart push and unshaven madman?
No, they would laugh at you.
They'd say, look, I mean, if you don't even understand that, then you're not able to speak coherently in any way, shape, or form.
So, of course, to say that things are rational in the abstract, but in practicality, he says, the utter irrationality of the human experience, which is basically to say that people are rational.
Fundamentally irrational. And I don't believe that's true.
I think that human beings are fundamentally adaptive, and in an irrational environment, they will adapt to that.
And, you know, it's like saying, looking at Inuit or Eskimos and saying that fundamentally human beings live in igloos.
It's like, no, when they're in the Arctic, they live in igloos.
They don't live in the igloos when they're at the equator.
But it's like...
Anyway, so... When he says humans are fundamentally irrational, let's say it's true.
So human beings are fundamentally irrational, and therefore those who run the government will be fundamentally irrational, and therefore they will not do anything to protect the citizens.
Every color you paint a human being and say fundamentally, you paint all human beings with the same brush.
Right? Because this is what people want to do, right?
They want to sort of say, well, human beings don't respect freedom.
They want to gather together in power and use monopolies in an unjust way in the free market.
And human beings are rational and predatory and violent and dangerous and this and blah, blah, blah.
Right? All that kind of Lord of the Flies crap.
Like they've never driven down a suburban street, which has decided not...
A resemblance to, you know, Beyond the Thunderdome.
And of course, people say, well, that's because there's a government, but that's all complete nonsense.
That's all complete nonsense.
Anybody who says the government is good at resolving disputes has never tried to take someone to court.
Never. We already exist.
I mean, I live in anarchy with regards to my neighbors.
We negotiate about fencing.
We negotiate about noise.
We negotiate about all these things because we recognize that the government will do absolutely nothing for us should we run into any problems.
It's like saying the Mafia protection is somehow to help you from having your restaurant burnt down when it's the Mafia who burn it down if you don't pay them off.
They're not there to help you.
They're there to prey on you for their own benefit.
So, when people say, oh, human beings are fundamentally irrational, that's all human beings, right?
Everybody wants to divide human beings.
Put this carved line down the middle.
On the left, we have the blue, and on the right, we have the red, and there's a small number of blue, idealistic, platonic philosopher kings, and then there's this herd of unwashed, unthinking masses, and we've, you know, the people who are blue, the small minority, they will act, power will not corrupt them, and so on, and everyone else, well, they'll just, they need these blue people on top, because the red people are gonna fight, and it's basically a daycare.
Metaphor for humanity, and it takes some seriously bad parenting.
It takes parents who've never given you the opportunity to think and reason and negotiate for yourself, for you to end up growing up thinking that adults are a bunch of squalling children, and there are some magical blue man group philosopher kings who can organize them without being corrupted.
I mean, that's just bad parenting.
All that people are confessing is that they were not raised with any liberty or ability to think for themselves, and they've reached adulthood with this kindergarten view of the world.
Because if red is irrational and human beings are fundamentally irrational, then all human beings are fundamentally irrational.
And therefore you can't have a government, right?
Then the best you can do is hope for a balance of power and state of nature and so on.
If human beings fundamentally gravitate towards unjust and exploitive monopolies in the free market, then they will do so...
In the government, and therefore you are giving the most dangerous weapon to the most parasitical and power-hungry group, which is human beings in the government.
So you don't solve a single goddamn problem by creating a government.
Saying government solves problem is exactly the same as saying, oh, I don't know where the world come from.
God made it! I mean, it's a complete non-answer that stultifies and retards our capacity for intelligence and examination.
It's an embarrassment. Yeah, I mean, the Constitution, it's a magic bullet stopping document that takes people off a cliff every single time.
And he says, the principle of accountability is vital here.
Is it ever carried out perfectly?
He says, of course not, but it needs to exist, not so that it can restrain liberty, but so that it can protect it.
And again, this is a kindergarten mentality.
So you have very young children who, if left to their own devices, will put their hands in blenders, touch hot stoves, plunge downstairs because they're two years old and you have to get the fences for the top of your stairs and this and that.
And so the parent says, well, I have to restrain my toddler's behavior, right?
I have to stop. I may have to physically grab my toddler from running into the street because, you see, my toddler is unable to think for himself and reason out the consequences of his actions and so on.
And that's entirely true of toddlers, right?
But... Of course, this is a fundamental problem with this parasitical democracy model as well, which is if people are so goddamn stupid that they can't negotiate for their own long-term interests for the cause of freedom based on rational considerations, then they sure as shit can't be given a vote.
I mean, we don't give toddlers a vote because we do have to physically restrain them sometimes in order to protect their liberty, peace, security, and health.
But we don't give toddlers the vote because they run into traffic and may touch hot stoves and plunge downstairs.
And, of course, if human beings are fundamentally unable to negotiate for long-term interest based on mutual advantage, then there's no possibility of being able to give them a vote.
Then we should just give the Blue Man Group ultimate power.
Oh, wait. We already did that.
I believe that it is individual entrepreneurship that makes market grow.
And of course, this guy writes for a newspaper, but of course, these rules, intellectuals rules always apply only to other people.
And of course, economically, it's not true.
There are the economies of scale and blah, blah, blah.
Unfortunately, he says, markets do not naturally allow entrepreneurs to thrive.
Now, here's a tip for you when you're debating with someone, because you always look for the adjectives.
Always look for the adjectives.
Whenever you get adjectives in there, you get bullshit, right?
A equals B. Adjectives equal bullshit.
So when he says, unfortunately, markets do not naturally allow entrepreneurs to thrive.
Um... Because, you see, if you use the word unfortunately, you don't actually have to provide any proof.
It's just a, you know, unfortunately, if you throw a ball off a cliff, it falls down, right?
Well, unfortunately, markets do not naturally allow entrepreneurs to thrive.
Instead, most markets gravitate towards natural monopolies, large businesses that are complacent, not innovative, and inefficient.
And again, what does this mean?
Is there any proof for that? And there has not been a free market in the world.
You can find some examples, of course, of more free markets than less free markets.
Hong Kong versus Beijing, say.
But There has not been.
So when he says that markets do not allow entrepreneurs to thrive and markets gravitate towards large companies, what he's talking about is state capitalism or interventionist fascism.
So when he says, if he were to provide historical evidence, it would be from a statist paradigm.
And if he were to provide theoretical evidence, then he would have to take the state out of the equation and prove that monopolies accumulate in a free market.
And this fear of monopoly is just completely insane, of course.
You can't solve the problem of potential possible economic monopoly with...
The creation of a rigid, statist, permanent, well-armed, infinitely armed state.
You don't solve the problem of a stubbed toe by hacking off a limb.
You can say that you solve it, but you don't any more than you solve the problem of the evolution of species by saying, you know, God rolled plasticine into a snake and snorted some life into it.
And when he talks about accountability, businesses are infinitely more accountable to populations than governments.
And governments just lie to you. I mean, they just lie to you, right?
I mean, there was this thing Barack Obama was talking about before the election, was talking about being against NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which, of course, is not a free trade agreement, because a free trade agreement is about the elimination of regulations, and NAFTA is about 2,500 pages of regulations.
It's complete nonsense.
But he was talking to a bunch of union workers.
Oh, I'm against NAFTA, blah, blah, blah.
And they all swallowed it and gave him their vote, perhaps, right?
Probably.
That's why he said it.
And then when he was up here in Canada, the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, said, dude, what's about NAFTA?
We kind of like NAFTA.
And he's like, no, no, no.
I'm just saying that shit down there to get votes.
I'm not at all against NAFTA.
It's just a smokescreen.
I mean, this is what government is.
This is what politicians do.
They'll just tell you whatever you want to hear in order to get your vote, and then they just wander off and do whatever the hell they want.
There's no accountability there.
You can't say, a vote is not a contract.
You know, give someone a vote, and then they lie, and then you can get your vote back.
I mean, they just take whatever they want, lie to you, bribe you, take whatever you want, and then do whatever the hell they want.
So there is no accountability in politics.
I mean, he says, oh, in a theoretical vacuum, it works beautifully.
Democracy, in practical terms, is bribery, lies, corruption, and bullshit, and endless counterfeiting, of course, as all statism is.
So, there is no accountability for politicians whatsoever.
You can start wars, you can jail, you can do wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, you can approve torture, you can do international crimes, whatever.
And there's no accountability whatsoever.
I mean, that much we have to at least accept if we're going to be even remotely in the realm of reality.
So, the idea that there's accountability in democracy is...
I mean, God, just, you know, get your fucking head out of a book and look at the world.
You know, this is sort of what I'm constantly saying.
Let's work empirically. Let's work empirically.
Let's work empirically. Let's not work with some sort of magical theory of blue man, perfect philosopher king leaders, and idiot, sheep herding, scratchy citizens who somehow have the magic ability to pick things.
These wonderful man gods and female gods who run society.
Let's work in reality with what actually happens in the world, and let's take our theories from the facts, not from some medieval scholastic theological bullshit, abstract nonsense.
So I'll just sort of end here with a comment about...
Oh, sorry. Businesses are infinitely more accountable to their listeners.
And to listeners being me, right?
Infinitely more accountable to those who are their customers.
Because you have to take a positive action to buy something from someone.
You have to go out and do something.
And so if they don't service your needs or satisfy you, just don't do anything and they fail.
Or at least relative to you. Which is why everyone picks on...
Businesses rather than the government, because everyone's a cowardly bully, right?
For the most part. Except you, my friends.
This is why environmentalists never picket in front of the largest single polluter in the world, which is the U.S. Army.
They don't chain themselves to tanks or to a military bases, because they'll get really fucked up by the military if they do that, but they'll go pick on GE or whatever, right?
Because they know GE won't do any of that shit to them, right?
So they're just, you know, bullies, right?
It's just cowardly, right?
I mean, the biggest polluter is the federal government, and you never see environmentalists At least I've never seen them chaining themselves to military or to the federal government or to the post office, which is hugely wasteful in terms of environmental stuff.
If you simply were able to check something off on the post office saying, no junk mail for me, the post office would completely collapse.
You would save all the printing costs, all the driving costs, all the delivery costs, all the processing costs, environmental costs.
But of course, environmentalists don't pick at the post office because the government has a monopoly and they know that.
So they veer towards those who are actually responsive to social pressure, which is private businesses.
So I just sort of want to mention that, right?
I mean, business is infinitely more responsive.
In a free mind, I'm not talking about this sort of state fascist corporations.
I mean, a voluntary business.
And I say this as an entrepreneur.
And I say this, look, I mean, I don't have a mic set, right?
I don't have a mic set here, and I'm trying to up the sound quality because a number of people have been nagging, and thank you so much for pushing me on this, have been nagging me to up the quality of the audio and not have, you know, some, you know, spiky-haired DJ get up, some disco bondage headgear instead to up the quality of the audio.
And so I'm responsive to you.
You all like the true news? I'm going to give you the true news, baby!
Because I am responsive to you, because I survive on your generosity, donations, and kindness.
So I'll just sort of end up by saying that it's really important to understand that power is a drug.
It produces physiological changes in the brain.
It produces endorphins. It produces cortisol.
If you get power, you get on a high.
It is an addictive substance.
This guy says, well, you know, we need a reasonable group of people at the top, or governments are just as flawed as every other segment of society, but it's completely not true.
Political power, the power of violence, is an addictive high.
It is a drug. It alters the brain chemistry.
It alters the brain structure.
So that's like saying, well, yes, there are a group of sober Rotarians over there, and there's a group of coked-up crackheads over here, but both groups are equally responsible and equally flawed and so on.
It's like, no! That's not true.
It's not even close to true.
It's quite the opposite. Of truth.
And if you want to get a sense of this, go to, I think it's prisonexp.org, and you can look at or order the DVD of the descriptions of a 1971 Stanford psychological experiment where students, average college students picked at random, were divided into, They were put into a simulated prison.
They were divided into guards and prisoners.
And it was supposed to be a two-week experiment, but it had to be stopped after a few days because people were reverting into sadomasochistic roles.
The guards were becoming sadistic and beating people and torturing them.
And the, quote, inmates were becoming depressed and apathetic and showing physiological signs of extreme stress reactions and depression.
This all occurred within a few days of this simulated power in an entirely simulated environment.
And both the guards and the prisoners could leave at any time.
They could just say, hey, I'm out of here.
I'm off the island. And they didn't.
And that's why the experiment had to be stopped.
Human beings gravitate in a physiological response addictive way towards power.
And we can all understand biologically why that would be the case during the time of our evolution when resources were scarce.
Power would help guarantee the survival of your offspring.
So we're drawn towards power in the same way that we're drawn towards sugar or other things that were scarce but helpful in our environment.
And that's why people get this incredible handshaken, sweaty-palmed rush when it comes to the exercise of power.
So those who go for political power are brain-addled, confused, manipulative, violent, evil, nasty addicts.
And to say that these people are somehow equivalent to people working in a voluntary exchange of value free market scenario is completely deranged.
And we understand that if Barack Obama was some scab-ridden cocaine addict, you know, twitching and with a parrot on his shoulder and shuffling down like some guy in the wire, that we would understand that this would be a bad thing.
But the very office itself is that!
It is that. And any study that you can do on the physiological effects or research you can do on the physiological effects of power, the addictive effects of power, well worth doing so that you can understand the dangers of giving drug addicts nuclear weapons.
This is the fundamental problem that we're facing, which is to dismantle these constructs of power.
And just to finally end, I'm sorry that my book is taking so long, but there are going to be shockingly facts, research footnotes in it, how to achieve freedom.
It's coming along, but it's slow work.
So I hope that you will be patient with me and I hope that you will enjoy it when it comes out.
It certainly will be my last book for a while because they're just too exhausting to do along with the regular show and being a new parent, which is, of course, the best thing ever.
So thank you so much for watching.
I appreciate it. Look, I came in under 25 minutes.
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