I noticed a few interesing posts recently. One by Gene Healy noted following Thomas Sowell the tension between those with constrained and unconstrained views of the world, and specifically noted that libertarians could fall into either camp. This strikes me as the distinction between libertarians whom I find interesting and engaging–Gene Healy, Albert Jay Nock, and even Hayek–and the seemingly larger mass of pie-in-the-sky theorists for whom any deviation from pure libertarianism is mocked as a grave injustice, e.g., Rand, James Markels and Radley Balko.

Thus, I noted on Gene’s blog that so many contemporary libertarians forget their heritage and ignore the likely outcome of a truly libertarian society: a proliferation of illiberal, discriminatory, conspiratorial, and, in many cases, abjectly racist subcultures. I wrote, “Historically, the most vociferous opponents of federal power were those that wanted ’states right’ to oppress and segregate blacks. The most articulate proponents of liberty were also the oppressors of black men; Calhoun even noted that such a society defends its own liberty more passionately, as it is distinctly aware of the slave/freeman distinction. So to imagine that the libertarian dream world will be a world of wealth maximization, commerce, all night raves, parentally chaperoned keg parties, tolerance for homosexuals, and enlightened views is an aesthetic kind of argument, the chief libertarian vision, and not one that will likely result. It will just as surely conssit of Branch Davidian compounds, all white clubs, racial discrimination in most employment, and mistreament of children by their parents without legal recourse. Incidentally, that world may well be preferable to the one we live in [on balance], and I understand the von Mises/Rothbard arguments about subjective values and voluntary association. But it does seem to be a bit phoney to imagine that the libertarian world would not involve any coercion and that also people’s voluntary choices would not lead to some unpleasant, ugly, and downright immoral outcomes that even the most staunch libertarian would be a bit ashamed to defend. The painting always of a very pleasant picture and the refusal to recognize the prepolitical preferences–for race, tribe, nation, religion, modesty, chastity–that will shape such a world does evidence an ‘unconstrained’ vision.

“In other words, some notion of community, equality, and fair treatment have been important American values, going back to the discourse of ‘classical republicanism’ at the time of the founding. These [views] were often in tension with a libertarian rhetoric aimed [at defending] the right to exclude various groups and thereby undermine a coherent, just, and welcoming comunity. A truly libertarian reshaping of America would require the abandonment of this parallel American tradition. The fruition of a libertarian regime would involve, at least in part, an illiberal triumph of anti-social subcultures, unconstrained by nondiscrimination laws, obligations to generally applicable ‘morals legislation,’ and any subordination to all but the most narrow concept of the common good.”

Thus, it’s no surprise that for liberal-leaning libertarian Brooke Oberwetter, the magnetic effect of first world wages and the first world welfare state is simply an occasion to celebrate diversity and mock immigrant opponents for their nostalgia about the recent past when Americans mowed their own laws.

As I note in Brooke’s comment sections, the current result does not represent a libertarian outcome, but rather the result of a rigged system involving nondiscrimination laws, various economic entitlements, an ineffective border control, trespassing, forgery, and the illegality of any private means to express preferences on various subjects, including who we want to be neighbors with, work with, go to school with, and the like. A world where such preferences could be freely expressed would likely look much different than the current one. One wonders if the libertarians would go to bat for racially restrictive covenants in Shelly v. Kramer or the defense of local laws in the purist and racially motivated federalism of the Dixiecrats. Those positions should all flow logically from their stated passion for voluntary associations and federalism respectively. But on the libertarian blogs one notices only a deafening silence or cherry-picked examples of libertarianism flourishing, while ignoring the more unpleasant examples that are important because they actually happened. Real people when allowed did use property rights to create restrictive covenants, all white schools, religious discriminatory admissions practices, child labor, etc. Real states did clamor for states rights precisely to preserve the practices of slavery and Jim Crow.

Now these concepts–voluntary association and states’ rights–do have value outside these examples. But it’s silly only to praise libertarian or federalism outcomes that you like and rarely venture into a passionate defense of an outcome one abhors. It is particularly misleading to do so when it is deviations from federalism and libertarian theory that preserve the acceptable and moderate outcomes of the world that we live in. Fedearlism in particular is only tangentially a libertarian value; it’s just as much a self-government value, allowing localities to restrict what would be allowed at the federal level. But you rarely see libertarians defending the quintessential self-government activities of communities that would restrict interstate wine sales, crack down on drunk drivers, or teach creationism.

Naturally most libertarians would not approve these outcomes, and it would challenge their worldview to defend them. Even in the area of free speech where there is widespread consensus that we must sometimes defend what we disagree with, very few people other than extreme free speech partisans feel good knowing that Nazis can march in Skokie or that terrorist supporters can spread hatred in Filby Park. That is, most of us have a certain vision of the type of society we purport to advocate for that goes beyond procedures and legal restraints. That vision involves, more often than not, just outcomes. Libertarians purport to defend a certain set of abstract principles and policies, but a wholly utopian vision of an ideal yet-to-be-realized future society keeps them consistent, even when particular outcomes appear unseemly. They’re just speed bumps on the road to that utopian vision–at least in the case of the unconstrained ones, who are legion.

Conservatives are willing to sacrifice pure consistency to guarantee the actual just outcomes that have been realized historically. Instead of acknowleding the irreconcilability of certain good, legally-created just outcomes of the present, and their likely absence from the libertarian future, many libertarians want to wish away those bad outcomes and live in a fantasy world. They imagine that in the libertarian future more people like them can live their lives as they wish, and fewer people and institutions would exist to constrain them. The true effect of a liberal society, though, would be that various discriminations by private individuals could occur and individuals likely would experience greater net constraints than the current regime where constraints are both created and forbidden by laws, e.g., nondiscrimination laws, limitation of contract remedies, prohibitions on certain types of precommitment, limitations on states.

Aside from liberty, there are other important political values such as law and order, community, respect for the individual, stability, citizenship, and all of the little details that make up a “way of life” worth preserving. I’d rather fight to protect this world that I know–inconsistencies and all–than hope for the best in a future libertarian order that cannot even explain what it will do about the various injustices that have been remedied in history by various political interventions.

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