Libertarian For A Day

There has been a lot of talk about Libertarianism lately, and it's so catchy: Liberty! Freedom! So, I decided that I would be Libertarian for a day.

Now, the first thing one learns about Libertarianism is that its definition is negative: Freedom from government interference. Liberty is gained when the government is not interfering with your life.

So, I thought about how the government interferes with my life, my freedom, my liberty. Of course! The biggest government wrought interference with my life is that government bolstered, government sanctioned antithesis of Democracy: the Corporation! With its embedded hierarchy, its entrenched forms of domination, its ability to act without concern for those around it, its ability to silence my voice and my desires through campaign funding, its concentration of power in the hands of a few (what we previously called oligarchy), there is nothing that so daily interferes and deprives us of our good liberty as that enormous government created entity known as a corporation.

Working in concert with our government through the auspices of eminent domain do those corporations deprive us of property that was previously ours. Whispering promises in officials ears do corporations gain unfair tax advantages, and shift the social burden onto our backs while they extract resources and leave behind messes we must provide the means and the money to clean, restricting our freedom to pursue our own happiness with the money lost. Undemocratic, we are many employed there but at the whim of those above is in the corporate hierarchy – anger a superior and you may find yourself begging other corporations for a livelihood without due process (or any processes at all!).

In what has to be the defining coup d'etat: Corporations, through their machinations within our government, have usurped what has to be the sine qua non of existence and have themselves been declared as persons, equally under the law with actual persons. There can be no equality under the law when a single individual faces a 'person' in the form of a corporation, thousands strong, in court. Only the stroke of a recorders pen and the invidious interference of government into our daily lives allows this farce to continue. Up with Libertarianism! To the End of Government Interference through the Corporate Lie!

Hold on. My phone is ringing....

“Hello?”

“This is the H. Foundation (A Libertarian Think-Tank) calling. It came to our attention that you were incorrectly understanding libertarianism...”

“I am? But I thought that libertarianism was best defined as freedom from government intervention: in the marketplace, in our society, in our daily lives?”

“It is. But you do not understand interference. Interference is when the government imposes regulations on the market, reducing the ability of economic actors to act.”

“I'm trying to understand this. We have had to place a myriad of regulations on corporations through the years to avoid their undesirable behavior, and it occurred to me that perhaps we should strike the root and eliminate the corporations, freeing the market of both the regulations and the bad actors.”

“No, no. It is the regulations that cause the bad actions: Free to act towards their own ends brings true liberty to all. Without corporations, the market would be much poorer, as strong economic actors would not be able to combine to bring you the goods, er freedoms, you desire.”

“So combining for a common goal is a libertarian principle?”

“Certainly!”

“So, if my neighbors and I combine and place our money together to fund a public school system with the common goal of educating all of our children on the principles of liberty and teach them the skills they need to think and act in our society, that's an example of realizing a libertarian principle?”

“Oh, no, no, no! That is just socialism, the antithesis of liberty and freedom. You become enslaved to the government provider...”

“But: doesn't removing ignorance and transferring skills to our progeny equip them to think critically, to avoid enslavement by the more powerful, and give them the very skills they need to seek, grasp, and hold liberty? Doesn't doing it in combination not only make us more likely to succeed, but also remove that bane of liberty, unfair advantage?”

“Advantage is the natural selection process at work! We cannot deny it, for then we deny the liberty of those selected by nature, nurture, and drive. It is natural that weaker individuals are dominated by stronger, and only through a free, libertarian society can the strong avoid interference by the weak. The strong should be free to gain all remunerations and accoutrements their skill and ability can, without interference! The weak exist to be exploited!”

“How do you know they are weak? If people begin their journey unequally, some without benefit of money or class or heredity (or education) to guide them, wouldn't that by definition decrease their liberty if they are prey to the strong? Shouldn't libertarianism apply equally to all?”

“You are nearly hopeless. Libertarianism is freedom from government interference, it doesn't posit that you'll be free from any interference. You have to make your way in the world, and if you are not strong enough to do that, then liberty is not yours to have.”

“So, libertarianism is a philosophy of the strong: You can have as much liberty as you can carve out of the societal wilderness, is that it? You are free so long as no-one stronger than you comes along, and building institutions and governments to ameliorate that is not only useless, but anti liberty?”

“Well, yes. Equality is a fool's errand. The real purpose of libertarianism is to promote the gain of wealth by those strong enough to grasp it, and to prevent you peons from using your 'democracy' to claw it back through higher taxes on the rich or successful. Public school has no place in a libertarian society because it not only prevents the extraction of wealth from the parents who want their children educated, but reduces the chances that the wealthy can continue their invisible aristocracy. Liberty is defined by the property you control, by the people you control. The bigger your corporation, the greater your liberty! You too can become powerful and infused with liberty if only you will try hard enough!”

“H., those aren't exactly the tenets of Nozick...The mistreatment of women, the oppression of many, the actual enslavement of some are direct outgrowths of societies that have employed the strategies you are endorsing. I believe your Koch is showing...”

Click.

Guess I'm not cut out to be a libertarian. I will have to return to my previous, liberal world-view where domination and suppression by any entity, whether governmental or private, is cause for concern.

Oh, darn. Massive corporations corrupting my democracy with their unlimited campaign contributions; their employees moving in and out of my government passing laws favorable to themselves (and hurtful to the rest); their money backed (and board-room vetted) candidates free to spout messages of spite, bigotry and misogyny, are still an issue.

Rats!

Is there a political or philosophical ideology I could join where those wouldn't be issues so that I would be free to pursue my happiness without concern or care for the rest of society? 

Oh! That's what the libertarian was trying to say (no, I'm not going back!)