Libertarianism vs. Paternalism

It's hard to find a nastier epithet than "paternalism" in the libertarian vocabulary. That epithet describes a lot about the vast chasm between liberal and libertarian. In my ongoing effort to analyze exactly why it is that I consider libertarians wack, I thought that I ought to take a look at that word. Since different people can mean different things with the same word, especially if that word is emotionally loaded, I thought I would let the lexicographers at Merriam-Webster online do the definition.

Main Entry: pa·ter·nal·ism
Pronunciation: \pə-ˈtər-nə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1881
1 : a system under which an authority undertakes to supply needs or regulate conduct of those under its control in matters affecting them as individuals as well as in their relations to authority and to each other
2 : a policy or practice based on or characteristic of paternalism

The kernel of the dispute is the question of exactly which of those are just "matters affecting them as indviduals" and which affect "their relations to authority and each other." What liberals and libertarians mostly agree on, in contrast to theocrats, totalitarians of all stripes, and conventional American conservatives is that the government should not be in the business of regulating individual morals, beliefs, and behavior or behavior involving only consenting adult parties. The real disputes come up over relations to authority and each other.

The hardest core libertarians, like Patri Friedman and his seasteders appear to reject almost any role whatsoever for government. In their fantasy, the "free good" that makes possible their utopias is artificial land, beyond the domain of any existing nation. In such utopias, they imagine, they would be free to construct societies of their own design, based on supposedly libertarian principles.

This may seem like a hopeless fantasy (and it is), but the interesting thing is that the experiment has already been tried many times in human history. Repeatedly, bands of adventurers discovered new lands, previously unpeopled, and set up societies. The purest examples were the peopling of the Americas thirteen thousand years ago and of the Pacific islands much more recently. We can't know how these societies started, but we do know how they turned out - variations on themes well explored in the rest of the world.

The fundamental constraints of biological existence and human nature decree that competition for scarce resources will happen and that the struggle for existence will be regulated either by society or by the war of all against all. In practice, humans are social animals, so we enter into various cooperative arrangements. Such cooperative arrangements always require an element of compulsion, for the enforcement of contracts, if nothing else. Even most libertarians would concede as much.

A real and practical question is the proper scope of regulation of relations of individuals to each other and to the regulating authority. Theoretical libertarianism claims that almost no such regulation is needed. Practical libertarianism, Cato institute style, is mostly concerned with making sure that the very rich have few constraints on their actions.

Milton Friedman, the Nobel memorial economist (and grandfather of Patri), was something of a libertarian extremist. He didn't think, for example, that even surgeons should be licensed, and didn't believe in parks or any other kind of governmentally sanctioned public goods. He could argue very cleverly for the advantages of his vision, but he couldn't present any example of a society that functioned on his principles. He liked to cite the example of Hong Kong, a very freewheeling economy with excellent results, conveniently ignoring the fact that it and its economy were creations of an elaborate bit of colonial regulation.

A wise man once said that everybody loves freedom - for themselves. The problem comes when they think about letting other people have it.