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Why Liberals are Not Libertarians
By Ernest Partridge (about the author) Page 4 of 5 page(s)
And so we have the well-known "free rider problem," whereby an individual gains unearned and cost-free advantage from the labor of others. A profound injustice on the face of it. The solution? What else than to coerce a contribution to the common effort, either by labor or, failing that, cash assessments.
In other words, taxes.
So it comes to this: The only way for the Randvillians to deal with "the free riders" is to coerce labor on the levees, or assess taxes in lieu of labor. They must do so in behalf (are you ready for this?) of the "common good" of the community-as-a-whole. Just as the Rawlsburgers are doing across the river.
The Randville and Rawlsburg example is a fictitious thought-experiment. If it seems far-fetched, then forget Randville and think New Orleans, August, 2005.
Here's another case that is quite real, and even personal:
In April, 2003, California Governor Gray Davis requested $430 million in federal funds to reduce the fire hazard in the southern California forests. The request was ignored until, on October 24, George Bush formally rejected it. The very next day, "the Old Fire" broke out in the San Bernardino mountains, followed by several more fires, eventually consuming three quarter of a million acres and 3577 homes, and causing 22 fatalities.
This particular disaster struck close to home precisely 150 feet close to my home, where the fire was stopped at my property line. "The Old Fire" almost surrounded the cluster of houses in our neighborhood, and only the combined, coordinated and professional effort of the US forest Service and the state and local firefighters saved our homes. Several days earlier the county Sheriff ordered us off the mountain while these "big government bureaucracies" did their work magnificently.
Perhaps some libertarians would have preferred to de-fund the government fire-control agencies and then to leave it to each of us individual property owners to take a valiant stand by our individual homes, garden hoses in hand. Who can doubt that had we tried that, all our houses would have been reduced to ashes and many of us would have ended up as "crispy critters."
In his 2000 debate with Al Gore, George Bush said "I think you can spend your money more wisely than the federal government can." In November, 2003, all of us San Bernardino mountaineers democrats, republican, independents were convinced, contrary to George Bush, that "the government" spent our tax money better than we could.
Libertarianism in Theory and Practice.
Libertarians routinely trot out horror stories about government waste, fraud, and abuse, and measure these troublesome anecdotes alongside an unrealizable ideal of a "perfectly functioning market." However, this argument commits the fallacy of disparate comparison by comparing what the perfect market would do in theory with what imperfect governmental agencies, at their worst, have done in fact. No thoughtful liberal defender of public regulation of the environment in liberal democracies will pretend that this approach is perfect. In fact, as everyone knows, regulatory agencies are under constant assault and their public service is constantly compromised, usually by the very free market forces and private interests that are celebrated by the libertarians. But if the libertarians have a better alternative, then it must be shown to be preferable in practice, rather than in ideal theory. However, history shows that the unconstrained free market, privatization and the absence of "government interference" has given us opium in cough medicine, spoiled meat, child labor, mine disasters, black lung disease, air and water pollution, depletion of natural resources, and now the collapse of the financial markets.
"The free market," that cornerstone of libertarian theory, cannot survive without a governmental referee, for the unconstrained and unregulated "free market" contains the seeds of its own destruction. Though free market theorists are reluctant to admit it, capitalists are not fond of free markets, since open and fair competition forces them to invest in product development while they cut their prices. Monopoly and the elimination of competition is the ideal condition for the entrepreneur, and he will strive to achieve it unless restrained not by conscience but by an outside agency enforcing "anti-trust" laws. That agency, necessary for the maintenance of the free market is, of course, the "government," so despised by the libertarians. Evidence? Look to history. Then it was John D. Rockefeller, now it is Bill Gates
When, during a football game, a referee makes a call against the home team, the fans are often heard to shout: "Kill the Ref!" -- forgetting, for that moment, that without referees, the game could not continue.
Similarly, "abolish government" is another cry that issues from frustration. Without a doubt, governments can be damned nuisances. They require us to pay taxes, often for services that do not benefit us or for benefits which we take for granted. Governments tell us that we can't build homes and factories on public lands, that we can't throw junk into the air and rivers, that we can't drive at any speed we wish, and that we can't sell medicines without first testing their safety and efficacy. All this curtails the freedom and the wealth of some. But at the same time, such "government interference" promotes the welfare of the others: of consumers, travelers, ordinary citizens and, yes, property owners. Among the liberal democracies, the constraints of "big government" tend to burden the wealthy and powerful, while those same constraints protect the poor and the weak, all of whom, in a just polity, are equal citizens before the law.
In short, libertarianism fails, not because it is wrong, but because it is insufficiently and over-simplistically right. It correctly celebrates the rights of life, liberty and property, and then fails to deal with the conflicts and paradoxes that issue from the exercise of these rights. Moreover, the libertarian fails to appreciate that a just system of adjudication of these rights and claims of presumably equal citizens would necessarily restore much of the very governmental structure that the libertarians would abolish and that the liberals defend.
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