Libertarianism as the Handmaiden to Socialism

[JagerIV]

This seemed to be the final conclusion of a series of two videos made by Academic Agent, Issues with Libertarian arguments against Socialism, part 1 and part 2.

This seems to be best framed as a continuation of the argument in the right of if liberalism and Socialism are opposing forces, or merely different stages in the same process. This video is a furtherance of the arguments that they are part of the same process, though with a much more narrowly defined liberal side as libertarian, though the libertarian arguments against socialism seem somewhat indistinct from broader liberal arguments.

The videos are structured in a very, unnatural way because he's trying to boil everything into strict logical syllogisms. This produces stilted speech, but hopefully gains clarity of the points put forward. Plus, since he's working on a logic course, this also seems a way to exercise those muscles. He Structures a couple of core Libertarian arguments as such.

Libertarian Argument from Utility

If increasing Material Prosperity is our aim, then free markets is the best means to achieve it.
Material Prosperity is our aim.
Therefore, we should pursue free markets.

Libertarian Argument from Equality

Socialism always increases Inequality
Inequality is Bad
Therefore, socialism is bad.

Libertarian Argument from Morality

If maximizing freedom is our aim, then free markets is the best method of achieving it.
Maximizing Freedom is our aim.
Therefore, we should pursue free markets.
​

He runs through some additional variations, and direct counters in the first video, to come to a conclusion that Libertarians and socialists are coming from very similar base moral foundations, that the critical ethical directives are to increase Material Prosperity, increase Equality, and Increase freedom. From this, he determines they both come from very similar metaphysical understanding of the world, both being enlightenment philosophies. Thus, they mostly merely disagree about the means, but both work towards the same theoretical ends.

In the second video, he explores how, since they share similar world views and metaphysics, and thus moral intuitions, and thus a similar end state of the world, how the two are self reinforcing, shaping the world to the same end. Academic Agent summarizes it as thus:

1) When they want to relax a law for their (hedonistic) vision of society they call on their libertarian friends and support.
2) When they want to impose a law, typically to banish traditional morality, they call on their socialist friends for support.

Or, to summarize his argument a different way:

1) Libertarians come in to implement a liberal law
2) Which paves the way for the socialists to take things further and implement an illiberal law.

And, since the Libertarians and Socialists share a world visions, the libertarians likewise will never fight the socialist illiberal law all that hard, unlike a conservative illiberal law. The two given example are transgenderism and desegregation.

1) Libertarians fight for a liberal law to allow sex changes
2) This creates the space for socialists to implement the illiberal laws against misgendering.

1) Ending Jim Crow was Liberal.
2) state mandated desegregation was an illiberal (socialist) law.

Both the socialist and the Libertarian supported the first step of both programs, and while the libertarian may have some misgivings about the second, step, because they agree with the objectives, will not fight the socialists on them. Thus, through the implicit agreement on core beliefs between the Socialist and Libertarians, they work together to make sure that

1) Conservative losses are permanent
2) Socialist gains are permanent.

The second half of the video is then dedicated to why he thinks this set up is beneficial to the powers that be, and why, which strikes me as a less interesting part and much more simple wild speculation.

Overall, I think its an interesting point, and I think it does describe somewhat well the situation now, even if it doesn't describe a necessary situation. Hoppian libertarian for example does exist, and doesn't strike me as having nearly as much overlap with socialism as mainstream libertarianism does. However, the above overlap between socialists and libertarians as fellow travelers on different paths to the same destination, and libertarianisms unwillingness to go against most socialist power grabs does seem to line up with reality.

If nothing else, and I'm sure I fell into this during my libertarian phase as well, there seems to be a definite belief that one can have one's cake and eat it too. For example on the LBGT front, since that is currently on my mind, there are many libertarians on this site who seem to believe that they can destroy the Right's moral authority to allow gay marriage, but that the right can then assert its moral authority to stop pedophilia or infidelity's in marriage, or end single motherhood.

That, after killing something to get what they want on one issue, they can then bring it back to life to stop it on another issue. Which I'm afraid is generally not how things work.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Liberaltarianism and Dialectical Materialism (commonly referred to as 'socialism' in the common tongue, although I would argue this is technically incorrect from a point of view of the technical vocabulary of political philosophy and political economy) are in fact two sides of the same Enlightenment Nominalist and Humanistic Materialist coin.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I'm not a bleeding heart libertarian (indeed, I reckon I've got High Tory leanings), but this is a tad bit unfair. When liberals say "equality", they mean "equality before the law" which is a world away from socialism's "equality of outcome." This is, in part, what I think the matter of gay marriage does come down to, which was an inequality before the law.

Same goes for Jim Crow. Do you think those laws should have stayed in place, or were they not aberrations of justice?

That aside, they aren't quite the same thing. How much, ideologically, do you think Locke and Robespierre had in common? The answer is not very much (I mean, fuck me, Classical Liberalism is built upon the ownership of private property, whilst socialism is about state ownership). One came out of the English Enlightenment, the other came from the French Revolution. They had somewhat similar points of evolutionary origin, but so does the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Pigeon.

Classical Liberals can be alright, they just haven't got a clue how to deal with utopian socialists (neither do conservatives). It's something we as a civilisation are wrangling with at the moment.

 

[LindyAF]

When liberals say "equality", they mean "equality before the law" which is a world away from socialism's "equality of outcome."

See I think this issue exemplifies why libertarians, classical liberals, and conservatives for whom "conservativism" means "conserving liberalism" have trouble with socialism and bio-leninism. The leftist argument goes that people are equal, so since we do not have equality of outcome we must not actually have equality before the law, there must be unfairness baked into the system, hidden somehow. As far as I can tell, libertarians, classical liberals, or "conservative liberals" can't muster up a total rejection of this. Since they are unwilling to challenge the premises in any fundamental way, but they draw back from the conclusion, they skirt around the issue by arguing on matters of process.

For the reactionary though, we have no problem saying "people are unequal." And therefore it's only to be expected that people's fundamental inequality would shine through. And given people's inequality, there's no reason to play pretend that people are equal when it comes to legislating- in fact, that's likely generally harmful, as you're essentially discounting information for no reason except a confused belief that taking it into account would be somehow immoral.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

For the reactionary though, we have no problem saying "people are unequal."

The Reactionary knows that 'Quality is the opposite of Equality'. And if persons are themselves unequal (and they are) why would we expect groups of related persons to be equal, does this not violate the principle of heritability of traits?

How much, ideologically, do you think Locke and Robespierre had in common?

Rather more than you think sir. Robespierre is a student of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was himself a student of John Locke. The myth of the 'Good Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment' and the 'Bad-Evil-Wrong Continental Enlightenment' is just that, a Myth, and a pernicious one at that, that disarms one from drawing the necessary conclusions. Namely that the metaphysically materialist and nominalist foundations of Liberalism and Jacobinism make them two heads of the same vulture.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

The leftist argument goes that people are equal, so since we do not have equality of outcome we must not actually have equality before the law, there must be unfairness baked into the system, hidden somehow.

Most liberals with any stones would shoot that down in good order because equality before the law is the only real equality that can be achieved. Equality of outcome is a fantasy, and a dangerous one at that simply due to the skill set of the individual leading to unique outcomes.

Rather more than you think sir. Robespierre is a student of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who was himself a student of John Locke. The myth of the 'Good Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment' and the 'Bad-Evil-Wrong Continental Enlightenment' is just that, a Myth, and a pernicious one at that, that disarms one from drawing the necessary conclusions. Namely that the metaphysically materialist and nominalist foundations of Liberalism and Jacobinism make them two heads of the same vulture.

How, in any fucking way, does property rights and equality before the law resemble the Committee for Public Safety? Last I checked, liberals don't tend to guillotine forty thousand people. Again, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Pigeons have the same roots.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

How, in any fucking way, does property rights and equality before the law resemble the Committee for Public Safety? Last I checked, liberals don't tend to guillotine forty thousand people. Again, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Pigeons have the same roots.

How would you like your World Revolution and Enthronement of Nominalist Metaphysics sir? Fast or Slow?

Both the Liberal and the Jacobin agree that life is nominal and meaningless and purely material and the best that can be done is to extract temporary pleasure from nature by way of economic production, they just disagree about how to best go about it and start from slightly different just so stories about the fictional 'state of nature'.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

How would you like your World Revolution and Enthronement of Nominalist Metaphysics sir? Fast or Slow?

Both the Liberal and the Jacobin agree that life is nominal and meaningless and purely material and the best that can be done is to extract temporary pleasure from nature by way of economic production, they just disagree about how to best go about it and start from slightly different just so stories about the fictional 'state of nature'.

Neither. I have libertarian leanings, but I am not a point blank libertarian. I just take issue with attributes being rather unfairly ascribed to them.

OG Classical Liberals were Christians, and quite fervent about it (the founding fathers brought up god, a lot). Adam Smith, as father of "capitalism" (or the first person to really study what bartering had evolved into) wasn't exactly a fan of unfettered capitalism and greed as I understand it. If anything they didn't seem that outlandish alongside their peers, they just really liked freedom.

 

[Captain X]

Honestly I see the conflation of socialism and libertarianism to be way off base considering one is collectivist and the other individualist - they couldn't be more different. The closest they might come to each other is that they both talk an awful lot about equality, but the thing is that socialists have an extremely warped view of what that is. Actually it's readily apparent that socialists have a different definition of many words in general, because they'll quite happily explain these different definitions to anyone who tries to call them on their many hypocrisies.

And speaking of socialists, I can't help but be reminded a bit of their proclivity to lump everything they don't like together as "right-wing"/"far-right"/"alt-right"/etc. Actually, the really amusing thing is that I've also seen socialists claim libertarians were fascists.

 

[Navarro]

Nobody relevant today even believes in nominalism. Unless you have people arguing that one tree of the same species has absolutely nothing to do with another, we just find it convenient to mentally lump them together; which is what the medieval nominalists argued.

 

[Navarro]

OG Classical Liberals were Christians, and quite fervent about it (the founding fathers brought up god, a lot). Adam Smith, as father of "capitalism" (or the first person to really study what bartering had evolved into) wasn't exactly a fan of unfettered capitalism and greed as I understand it. If anything they didn't seem that outlandish alongside their peers, they just really liked freedom.

The Founders' political theories were also derived extensively from Classical thinkers:

Polybius and the Founding Fathers: the separation of powers

Polybius' influence on the Founding Fathers and separation of powers

www.mlloyd.org

Plato (Laws 693e, cf. 756e) advises that a state balance both its monarchic and democratic elements, for “a State which does not partake of these can never be rightly constituted”. He also warns (Laws 691c) against placing too much power in the hands of a single body:

If one neglects the rule of due measure, and gives things too great in power to things too small—sails to ships, food to bodies, offices of rule to souls—then everything is upset, and they run through excess of insolence, some to bodily disorders, others to that offspring of insolence, injustice.

Citing as example the Spartan constitution, with its two kings, council of elders (gerousi/a), and ephors, Plato (Laws 692) praises not only the blended form of government but those of tripartite construction.


Aristotle agrees, “the better the constitution is mixed, the more permanent it is” For him the well-ordered constitution results from the proper ordering of three factors: the deliberative body, the magistracies, and the judiciary.13

Polybius (6.3.8) also cites Sparta as the first to draw upon this principle. He elsewhere (6.18.1; cf. below, note 49) concludes:

Such being the power that each part has of hampering the others or co-operating with them, their union is adequate to all emergencies, so that it is impossible to find a better political system than this.

Referring again to the power of the three branches, “if they wish, to counteract or co-operate with the others”, Polybius (6.18.7-8) elaborates:

For when one part having grown out of proportion to the others aims at supremacy and tends to become too predominant, it is evident that, as for the reasons above given none of the three is absolute, but the purpose of the one can be counterworked and thwarted by the others, none of them will excessively outgrow the others or treat them with contempt. All in fact remains in statu quo, on the one hand, because any aggressive impulse is sure to be checked and from the outset each estate stands in dread of being interfered with by the others.

In short, Polybius insists “it is evident we must regard as the best constitution a combination of all these three varieties”.


Cicero (Rep. 1.69) also attests to the stability of a mixed constitution against the ravages of anacyclosis:

For the primary forms already mentioned degenerate easily into the corresponding perverted forms, the king being replaced by a despot, the aristocracy by an oligarchical faction, and the people by a mob and anarchy; but whereas these forms are frequently changed into new ones, this does not usually happen in the case of the mixed and evenly balanced constitution, except through great faults in the governing class.

Quod et illa prima facile in contraria vitia convertuntur, ut existat ex rege dominus, ex optimatibus factio, ex populo turba et confusio, quodque ipsa genera generibus saepe conmutantur novis, hoc in hac iuncta moderateque permixta conformatione rei publicae non ferme sine magnis principum vitiis evenit.

Cicero too declares the mixed constitution the best form of government (Rep. 2.41), “the most splendid conceivable” (Rep. 2.42: quo nihil possit esse praeclarius). He concludes, “a form of government which is an equal mixture of the three good forms is superior to any of them by itself ” (Rep. 2.66: sed id praestare singulis, quod e tribus primis esset modice temperatum).

Were Plato and Aristotle "nominalists"? You tell me.

 

[Abhorsen]

He runs through some additional variations, and direct counters in the first video, to come to a conclusion that Libertarians and socialists are coming from very similar base moral foundations, that the critical ethical directives are to increase Material Prosperity, increase Equality, and Increase freedom.

These last two aren't shared. First, if you give me a socialist who says they want to increase freedom, I'll give you a liar or an idiot. Socialism fundamentally cannot have freedom, as socialists themselves have said.

As for Equality, it's an unfortunate cause of the English language that equal outcomes and equal before the law use the same word, but they don't mean the same thing at all.

For material prosperity, it's a weak reason to be a libertarian, but a great reason not to be a socialist.

See I think this issue exemplifies why libertarians, classical liberals, and conservatives for whom "conservativism" means "conserving liberalism" have trouble with socialism and bio-leninism. The leftist argument goes that people are equal, so since we do not have equality of outcome we must not actually have equality before the law, there must be unfairness baked into the system, hidden somehow. As far as I can tell, libertarians, classical liberals, or "conservative liberals" can't muster up a total rejection of this. Since they are unwilling to challenge the premises in any fundamental way, but they draw back from the conclusion, they skirt around the issue by arguing on matters of process.

For the reactionary though, we have no problem saying "people are unequal."

Um, we definitely can reject that by saying (and I do say) that people are born unequal in status, ability, etc, but should still have equal rights. And it's up to them to make the best of that.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Typical collectivist are such because they are too weak willed to accomplish something on their own. The problem is most of the time they let others do the heavy lifting while cheering as if they played a significant part and then demonize others for not cow towing to the mob.

 

[FriedCFour]

Typical collectivist are such because they are too weak willed to accomplish something on their own. The problem is most of the time they let others do the heavy lifting while cheering as if they played a significant part and then demonize others for not cow towing to the mob.

I mean I’d probably be called a “collectivist” but that’s because human nature is rooted in social hierarchy and I value families above individuals and more should be done for them because that’s how a society should continue. I’m also pretty big on the nation and tradition and community, and don’t like seeing all of that disintegrated. Few people really accomplish things on their own, they typically do it in like minded groups or more specifically as leaders of others.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

I mean I’d probably be called a “collectivist” but that’s because human nature is rooted in social hierarchy and I value families above individuals and more should be done for them because that’s how a society should continue. I’m also pretty big on the nation and tradition and community, and don’t like seeing all of that disintegrated. Few people really accomplish things on their own, they typically do it in like minded groups or more specifically as leaders of others.

If you have to rely on society to live your life for you then you have no spine and you will be trampled on by a bigger brain.

 

[LindyAF]

If you have to rely on society to live your life for you then you have no spine.

I have a longer response to some of the other comments here I'm writing up, but for this I'll just say- we saw how well the Benedict Option worked at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

 

[FriedCFour]

If you have to rely on society to live your life for you then you have no spine and you will be trampled on by a bigger brain.

That’s everyone lol. How the fuck are you supposed to raise yourself, after all. People forget we spend so much of our life entirely vulnerable and shaped by those around us, relying on them to raise, protect, teach and care for us, and that making sure that system does the best possible and is protected is what is best for our society, because broken homes lead to broken people, single mothers lead to criminals and the dysfunctional in men, and fatherless women end up on Onlyfans.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

That’s everyone lol. How the fuck are you supposed to raise yourself, after all.

And do you stay a child forever or do you learn to grow up and leave your mother's breast?

 

[FriedCFour]

And do you stay a child forever or do you learn to grow up and leave your mother's breast?

You do, but it sure as hell was society and your family that did a good part of molding you, and then you participate in said society, and you should ultimately have as a top priority forming and raising your own family, and doing the best job possible for your children so they can do the same for theirs. Literally the formative years that build up so much of who you are in the future rely entirely on the care of others. You screw up badly enough and congrats, you create a Dahmer. You do well and you’re likely to get a normal, well adjusted individual. You do somewhere in the middle and you get a libertarian.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

You do, but it sure as hell was society and your family that did a good part of molding you, and then you participate in said society, and you should ultimately have as a top priority forming and raising your own family, and doing the best job possible for your children so they can do the same for theirs.

Son I got to where I am in spite of society not because of it. It doesn't owe me anything and even if I did I would not trust it to pay up and if you have to rely on strangers to raise your kids that says an awful darn lot about you as a parent.