My recent exchange with Stephan Kinsella (see here, here, and here) got me to thinking about the semantics of thick libertarianism. Specifically, is “libertarianism” the right word for what I am talking about?

I think that political philosophy is broader than just the NAP and homesteading principle and their deductions; to put it into Aristotelian liberal terms, I think that preserving personal and social autonomy are important to political philosophy in addition to political autonomy. Granting that, however, does it make sense to call the whole “libertarianism”? I’m not sure.

Now, I’m not saying that my political philosophy isn’t libertarian; it most certainly is. Nor am I saying that I am not a thick libertarian; I think that various other values/norms are implied and entailed by libertarianism. I am just not sure that it is accurate to call the whole thing “libertarianism”, given that the word has been traditionally been used to refer to a position on the proper use of force. The same thing applies to other concerns as well; I don’t call my whole political philosophy “feminism” or “anti-racism” either, even though it is feminist and anti-racist.

So, what is the proper term? As of now, I am not sure. Geoff Plauche’s term, “Aristotelian liberalism”, is a close fit, but I take a more leftist view of things than he, and I also see my political philosophy as being more of a synthesis of classical liberalism and classical anarchism than purely liberal. No other term really seems to fit, or has already been taken (“autonomism”, for example). Perhaps “eudaimonist anarchist”? It is descriptive, but a little long…

Individualism is one of those terms which a great many people use in a great many different ways, so it has been with interest that I’ve been reading Individualism and Economic Order by F. A. Hayek. The book is a collection of essays dealing the individualism, its definition and its place in the economic order.

From the first essay, “Individualism: True and False” comes an interesting thought:

Here I may perhaps mention that only because men are in fact unequal can we treat them equally. If all men were completely equal in their gifts and inclinations, we should have to treat them differently in order to achieve any sort of social organization. Fortunately, they are not equal; and it is only owing to this that the differentiation of functions needs not be determined by the arbitrary decision of some organizing will but that, after creating formal equality of the rules applying in the same manner to all, we can leave each individual to find his own level.

There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means, as De Tocqueville described it, “a new form of servitude.”
(Individualism and the Economic Order p. 14-15)

This strikes me as touching on the sense in which classical liberals in the tradition of Burke and Smith can still be considered “conservative” in the old sense of the term. Although Burke is commonly accepted by those who argue that classical liberalism is not “truly conservative” as being conservative in his outlook because of his reaction to the French Revolution, he was (like Smith) Whig, though they were Old Whigs, not True Whigs or Country Whigs. Prior to the French Revolution, Burke had been generally supportive of the cause of the colonists in the American Revolution.

Taking Hayek’s point, classical liberals in the tradition of Burke and Smith do not reject the necessary hierarchy of society. Nor do they embrace sudden, transformative social change. As such, they can certainly be seen as conservative. However, they do seek sufficient freedom within society to allow people to “find their own level”, believing that there is a natural hierarchy of ability which will thus result in an ordered society, and a more desirable one than one in which hierarchy comes strictly from birth and rank.

In this sense, the freedom of a classical liberal society creates social order, and a more stable one than the sort that an ancien regime conservatism maintains. Indeed, arguably, at this point in history, it is only this Whig-ish conservatism which is commonly found within society. Ancien regime conservatism has virtually died out.

Entirely different are notions of politics or the human person in which it is held which all people are truly and fully equal — in ability and inclination as well as in human dignity. Such systems would indeed seem to lead quickly to a most undesirable oppression.

Daily Agitator

The Right has been using socialism as an attack on all things Obama….from health care to volunteerism to energy to……they try to lather up the people into fearing the presidency as something from a Stalinist nightmare…..we and I mean the thinking public is it for what it is…..fear mongering and pure manure….but unfortunately their are some that believe the hype and believe that the US is heading for another “socialist” revolution….as Ron White says, “you cannot fix stupid”!

I just what to let the Radical Right know they have NOTHING to fear…..it will be awhile before the US moves into the “Socialist” column or camp….why do I say this?

One of the godfathers of socialism once said:

“If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.”
Vladimir Lenin

What this really mean…it means that the people have to be informed and educated enough to see the need for real change….as it is the US the educational system  is sliding in the wrong direction because of too many programs that emphasis BS over learning….we are more worried about the teachers union than whether the children are learning.  The slide in scores in several areas that puts the US behind a third world country like Kazakhstan is a pretty good indication that the programs that the government focuses on are not the ones that generate learning….

So all the flash and smoke about socialism is just that….pure MANURE…..it would require intelligence and learning, not blind obedience….the country needs to focus on teachers that can get students to want to learn and stop worrying about which organization they belong to…after all it is their right to join any group they want…I believe that is yet another right given in the Constitution….

My humble blog post on why I’m a left-libertarian drew the attention of the always-insightful Stephan Kinsella, who replied to me here. He catches me in a couple of errors (one of these days I’m going to start proofreading), and gives a good case for his view. I’m going to reply to the points that I think are important to the thrust of my post.

Still, I loosely agree with him so far, though I don’t think in my 25 or so years as a libertarian that I have ever thought of libertarianism as “a movement of the Right”–or even as a “movement,” really, since I don’t think it’s the same as politics or activism. It’s a political philosophy. But I will concede I for a while did believe, and it’s commonly believed, that we have more in common with some on the right. But even from the beginning, from Nolan Chart days, I thought of it as orthogonal to both left and right.

What I meant was that libertarianism appears, in my eyes, to be seen as a philosophy or movement of the Right to many, both libertarian and otherwise. For example, the Cato Institute and Ludwig von Mises Institute are often included in lists of “right-wing think tanks”, and many libertarian positions, such as being anti-tax, are seen as being “extreme right”. On a personal note, many social liberal acquaintances of mine hold the same view; that libertarianism is an inherently conservative or rightist position. All of this is rather secondary, though.

The Left is those who are for “peace, justice, and prosperity”? But that’s what libertarians are for (see my discussion of almost exactly this on p. 50 of my Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law, reviewing one of Randy Barnett’s libertarian books). I don’t agree that “leftists” are for prosperity, to be honest; or even for justice, unless you contort it to refer to “social justice” which is a misnomer; nor are they really for peace, since they are all breaking a few eggs to make an omelet. But this is just a semantical game at this point. If you define “Left” be include those for peace, prosperity, and justice, then all libertarians are left-libertarians, and the term loses its distinguishing capacity.

Here, Kinsella does catch me in a mistake. In my original post, I conflated 2 senses of “left”; the original sense that emerged in 18th Century France, and the sense in which libertarian socialists and the revolutionary Left uses it. In the first, “left” referred to the classical liberal and socialist elements that were opposed to the Ancien Regime, and “right” referred to royalists and conservatives (this is the sense used by Rothbard in his excellent “Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty”. In the second, “left” refers to an admittedly fuzzy group of values, a rough list of which would include opposition to patriarchy, racism, and economic exploitation, and an emphasis on mutual aid and working outside of electoral politics. I think that the 2 senses are ultimately related, but they are distinct.

I don’t think this changes the thrust of my argument, though. Using left in the first sense, I was trying to illustrate that libertarianism should be seen as a leftist philosophy; in the second, I am saying that libertarians should advocate leftist norms and values. I see modern day libertarianism and leftism (2nd sense, although I think that there is at least some to be learned from mainstream social liberalism, in addition to the radical leftists) as being 2 parts of a unified “Left” philosophy that were separated by historical accident, and I think that both libertarians and leftists have a lot to learn from each other.

Anyway, later on Wombatron speaks of “the ‘leftist’ values of anti-authoritarianism, mutuality, and equality”: Now this sounds more like it. But this is not the same at all as being in favor of peace and prosperity. To favor peace, prosperity, and justice all you have to favor is private property rights and free markets. They do not imply these leftist values. So I’m a left-libertarian if left-means peace, prosperity…. but that does not mean I am necessarily for mutuality and equality and anti-authority. I think these “values” are frankly incompatible with libertarianism, and with peace, prosperity, and justice. Prosperity requires a free market and freedom to engage in capitalist acts among consenting adults. This leads to inequality (remember Nozick’s Wilt Chamberlain inequality example). There is nothing wrong whatsoever with inequality. Now if they merely mean “equality before the law,” then this is trivial and collapses into justice; but this is not what they mean.

What I mean by “equality” (and I think I speak for most LLs here) is “equality of authority”, as expounded by Roderick T. Long in “Equality: The Unknown Ideal”.

Mutualism is also unlibertarian, in my view, as it supports the taking of property from valid owners by mere possessors (see my A Critique of Mutualist Occupancy).

I see mutualist and Lockean property rules as being on a spectrum of possibilities, rather than being mutually exclusive, but this argument has been had before, and isn’t essential to the discussion at hand.

As for anti-authoritarianism: the left is not anti-authoritarian; they flock to the state to use it to impose their authority on society, to pay for others’ healthcare, and so on.

The mainstream left is definitely statist, as well as the Marxists and other state-socialists. The same can’t be said of libertarian socialism or classical social anarchism; these philosophies are anti-authoritarian. Even if they aren’t entirely consistent in their views, the same can be said of many libertarians (say, Objectivists or minarchists).

And as for opposing natural authority: libertarianism does not compel this at all. If anything, the “thick” view would say that to have a thriving society we need natural authority, hierarchies, and so on–from families, respected thinkers and religious and business leaders, churches, culture, and so on–in the absence of the state (see, e.g., Hoppe’s Natural Elites, Intellectuals, and the State).

Here we are using 2 different senses of the word authority. In the way that Kinsella and Hoppe uses it, I would agree, although I think the idea of hereditary natural elites is flawed and a rightist deviation. I think this Bakunin quote is a good demonstration of this view:

Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognise no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.

If I bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed on me by no one, neither by men nor by God. Otherwise I would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me.

I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed on me by my own reason. I am conscious of my own inability to grasp, in all its detail, and positive development, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labour. I receive and I give – such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination.

I have no problem with “authority” in this sense of the word. What I have a problem with is when authority is used in an elitist sense; when someone presumes to know how someone else should live their lives, without it being the person’s decision. This includes aggression, but also other forms of hierarchy and oppression, variously propped up by the state and/or irrational collectivism. In his dissertation, Geoffrey Plauche distinguishes between different forms of autonomy, all of which are constitutive of an individual’s flourishing. Political autonomy, which corresponds to the libertarian and classical liberal idea of “liberty” is one; social autonomy, the freedom from constraints imposed by others in ways other than the use or the threat of the use of force:

There are any number of social influences that can lead a person astray from the life
appropriate for him. Some social influences are more pervasive and powerful than others. Some
such influences are in and of themselves malignant, but others are for the most part neutral or
benign. Among the more malignant are certain sorts of behaviors and institutions that discourage
or actively seek to suppress rationality, individuality, self-responsibility, productivity, and other
virtues. Cultures that encourage unquestioning obedience to authority and subordination of the
individual to the collective are prime examples. Other problematic cultural institutions are
paternalism, racism, and sexism.

I take a more leftist view than Plauche, but my approach is essentially the same. Authority, even voluntary authority, is not necessarily a neutral thing.

To be honest I am not sure what this even means. I am not sure that anyone is or can be a “thin” libertarian; and thus it is a mystery what it adds to call yourself a “thick” libertarian. It seems to me to be nothing but stating trite and obvious things and giving it a label, as if this is some significant, systematic, rigorous new field of study. We are not “only” libertarians. Yeah. Yawn. We do not live in isolation. Check. Ideas of libertarianism are interrelated with other ideas. Duh. You know, there are relations between philosophy and mathematics, but they are still distinct disciplines. As far as I can tell, “thickism” just names the obvious, and then acts as if it’s more profound than it is

I agree that it is probably impossible to be a consistent thin libertarian; if I recall correctly, even Walter Block, its greatest exponent, has since backed off from the position. However, I think that it is still useful to talk about thick libertarianism, because the connections between liberty and other values is often not explored.

Well, any social norms that are not aggressive are, well, not aggressive, and do not violate rights. But you can imagine any number of possible societies and associated norms that would not be good “from the libertarian point of view”–say, one dominated by ignoramuses or (private) censorship–after all, libertarianism is based on ideas discerned by reason; most people who are libertarian would be stultified and not lead a good life in such a society. And we could not expect it to last long either, because liberty does require reason to be free to defend it. But this does not mean that libertarianism–the idea that aggression is unjustified–automatically says anything about any given set of cultural norms. Not that this is not a field worth studying: meta-libertarianism, or libertarians with outside or related interests, might well want to study not only want interpersonal force-related norms are justifiable, but what societal preconditions are necessary to preserve it or likely to accompany it, just as others might specialize in researching tactics and strategy–just as some lawyers specialize in knowing an area of law really well, while others study legal theory itself.

Here I disagree; I think that the social preconditions for a free society are an essential part of libertarianism. Perhaps we are just using libertarianism in different ways; while Kinsella is calling libertarianism a “political philosophy defined by our opposition to the use of aggression in social interaction”, I see it as being my complete political philosophy. We may even be using “political philosophy” in a different way: fundamentally, I think that politics is the joint pursuit of eudaimonia by equals (to use Plauche’s phrasing). Liberty is not my highest political value; flourishing is. Should this view be called “libertarianism”, then? I am not sure. It is definitely “libertarian”, though.

This is a problem I have with leftism: it uses vague, nonrigorous statements like this–which are okay as far as they go–and then builds on them as if they are rigorous, operationa, and profound. They are not. They are just fairly obvious, unenlightening observations. Sure, liberty is “fundamentally intertwined” with other “concerns”. I guess. My libertarianism is fundamentally intertwined with the concern of clear and concise communication, but maybe that’s just me. So if this statement is construed in a normal way, it doesn’t say that much, and once again, “thick” adds nothing since by this uncontroversial standard all libertarians are “thick.” What libertarian can deny that liberty (I assume he doesn’t mean liberty itself, but rather libertarian philsophy, or libertarians themselves?) is “fundamentally intertwined with other concerns”?

I think that thick libertarianism is a useful term because the intertwining of concerns isn’t always as obvious or trivial as the communication example Kinsella gives. It is not necessarily obvious that libertarians should also be feminists or anti-racists, for example, but upon further examination, one might indeed (and I do) conclude so.

I think what happens is we have a disagreement over what those concerns are. The leftists get frustrated that libertarians dismiss their incessant, vague complaining about “hierarchies” and so on, so they try to argue something like this: look, Mr. Libertarian, surely you don’t deny that we should, “qua libertarian,” hold “other values,” do you? Answer: “uh, no, I guess not–after all I think honesty is important; if I didn’t believe in honesty I would not be a libertarian.” Right. And you don’t like aggression do you? Because it’s wrong to push people around, right? “Uh, okayyy”. So, you see that we are really not about aggression, but we are “against pushing people around.” But there’s many ways to push people around, right? You don’t think it’s nice to be abusive to your employees, do you? Isn’t that pushing them around, hmm? Isn’t that liek aggression, then, really? So if you are a libertarian, you should be against bossing people around. Libertarianism is about so much more than just opposing mere crime, silly!

I think this is very slippery and disingenuous. Look, the leftists should argue like this, in my view. If they are talking to a libertarian, and you want to persuade him to oppose (in some moral sense?) a given institution like … wage slavery or “pushing people around” or whatever, just come up with a reason. Appeal to shared values. Analogize it to common libertarian ones. Fine. Try to find mutual shared values you are likely to (or even necessarily) hold by virtue of being a libertarian. There is nothing wrong with this. But it doesn’t require any goofy appeal to something officially labeled “thick libertarianism” (or “thick humanism”) or pretending that all these other things are “really part of” libertarianism. I might argue against some racism I detect in a the private views of a libertarian friend, say, by observing that racism is incompatible with individualism, fairness, decency, “due process,” whatever–some of which I know he holds because he pretty much has to hold them to be a libertarian. In other words: we are complex humans, with a variety of interactions, relationships, interests, activities, and values. And we interact with each other. Newsflash.

I think that Kinsella is essentially arguing the thick libertarian case for me, without calling it “thick libertarianism”. The values that he mentions (individualism, fairness, decency) are indeed essential to a successful free and just society, which I think should be of vast concern to libertarians qua libertarians. As Kinsella stated earlier, we don’t live a vacuum. Our political philosophy should not be disconnected from the rest of our lives, or from the real world. Charles Johnson argues at length the case for thick libertarianism, as well as distinguishing between different kinds of thickness, in Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin. Instead of quoting him, I will just refer anyone who wants to see a deeper and more rigorous case for thick libertarianism to him.

Well if justice is “more than” non-aggression, then we are talking about justice in a broader sense than justice in terms of rights. Now we are going with some idea of unfairness or immorality or wrongness, where aggression is just a subset of this. But libertarians have from time immemorial recognized that just because you have a right to do something, it does not mean you should do it or that it is moral to do it. This is implied by our view that the only way to violate rights is to use force. To try to blur this opens the door to the use of force against not only aggression, but other forms of “injustice” or unfairness. That is the statist view of things. Not the libertarian one.

I am talking about justice in a broader sense than in terms of rights. By justice, I mean the sum of the expressions of the virtue of justice, which is, roughly, given everyone what they are due, whether in a legal sense or a more personal moral sense. Now, rights are the only norms that can be backed by legitimate force. But that does not mean that other norms are not associated with justice.

If you want to argue against “patriarchy” and “being subject to the arbitrary whims of others” (whatever that means), you are going to have to do more than just assert that if you are for peace, you already favor these things. You need to carefully define these things, and offer coherent reasons for them. I think that’s what traditional leftists have tried to do, and they have failed–in part, because they mix these things in with statist-socialist means, so corrupt their message. I do not doubt that a libertarian, with clean politics, and with a better understanding of sound economics, can make a far more coherent argument for why decent people, and those interested in liberty, should be opposed to patriarchy etc. But just make it. Don’t be so frustrated by your failure to win adherents to leftism that you try to pretend that it’s all a built-in, natural part of libertarianism, to try to twist liberarians’ arms to make them come along.

I found this passage especially interesting. To a point, I agree. However, I see various other concerns as being logically implied by libertarianism. Similar to Hoppe’s claim that ideal argumentation implies that one is committed to a libertarian view of rights, on pain of contradiction, I think that libertarians are committed to opposition to forms of oppression other than aggression.

I think that Kinsella made some good points. But, I still think it is useful to talk about thick libertarianism, and that a libertarian qua libertarian should recognize that various norms and values that are thought of as “leftist” are essential to libertarianism.

feel free to say who you picked and why in the comments section. i’ll be posting a follow up pending some decent results.

votes can be based on any combination of looks, wealth, power, intelligence, rebelliousness, relevance, wit, intrepidness, inventiveness and any other attribute

this is part 1.1 of me studying for my exams. vote away:

(poll closed, click below for results)

thanks to everyone who voted. we had an magnificent turnout of close to 17 votes (of which at least 12 were mine)

Machiavelli won, with Nietzsche and Strauss coming in a close second. outstanding results everyone. let democracy continue to thrive on the beautiful world in which we are so privileged to rule (and be ruled.) let the story live on!

(it was a bright cold day in april…)

In political theory, a big deal is often made about critizing liberalism (small “l”) for not being the neutral, value-free, set up it allegedly pretends to be. Liberalism, of course, is the idea of a society set up so that the government refrains from the business of telling us how to live and leaves people free to pursue goals as they wish, short of harming others. Critics point out that liberalism still is not value neutral: it constrains certain things from being done (certain anti-liberal practices like refusing to send a child to school) and debate to be conducted in a certain way (in a secular way that leaves personal religious views at the door).

But here is a question: so what? What if liberalism draws lines that will inevitably restrict some from acting in ways they wish? Show me a social vision that doesn’t. (This, of course, is never done because it can’t be done. The only social vision without rules is anarchism which, as anarchists tell us, is not a system but the antithesis of one.)

Michael Sandel and Stanley Fish, two thinkers with little in common, have both seperately argued this criticism against liberalism: it pretends to be a value-free system whereby individuals can pursue their own visions but, at some point, it has to take a stand. As it is a vision of justice, it must take a stand and by taking a stand it must presuppose that certain values are superior to others. (What about the people that DON’T want to be left alone by the government? Supposing that non-interference is the highest good is to choose one good above all others.)

But the obvious retort to this is one seldom heard, and that is to affirm what is at issue. Yes, liberalism is not value-free. Yes, some people may be marginalized by its rules because as wide and inclusive as its rules are, rules have exceptions. But this is a problem not with liberalism, but with rules. And as any society has to have rules (unless it is an anarchic one, which ceases to be a society), there seems to be no social vision possible that does not run the risk of marginalizing some people.

Interestingly, this is one of the criticisms of American constitutionallism: as it was a  contract signed on behalf of future Americans who did not choose it, therefore, it is invalid as a contract.

And this argument is appealing if we assume that this is in some way avoidable. But as far as I can see, this criticism only holds water if there is the possibility of a society where folks are not forced to live under rules established before they had a say. That is simply not possible, for several reasons. First, children of a young age are not often recognized as having the mental wherewithall to consent to laws, but it would be strange indeed to suggest that this means that setting rules for them is always unjust. Second, if each individual were free to opt out of societal rules with which they disagreed, it would not take long for society to become anarchic and unworkable (imagine a citizen refusing to follow laws against rape because he did not agree to them, or citizens refusing to follow laws against murder because he was not there to debate the original law?).

All of this is to say that too often, we find it easy to criticize a societal system becasue of downsides without realizing that this implies a system with fewer or no downsides. Generally, when liberalism is criticized as a not-value-free system, that is the end of the matter, when in reality, the obligation is now on the criticizer to offer a more fair or more just system in its place that has fewer downsides. That is seldom done (in my view because it cannot be done).

So, let’s reframe liberalism in this way. Instead of pretending that it is a value-neutral system – it is not, as ‘value-neutral system’ is a contradiction in terms – let’s suggest that is the theory that strives to be as inclusive as any system can realistically be. Even though specifying that government will refrain from interfering with people’s ability to live as they see fit is actually a value itself, it is the value – a metavalue? – that allows for the most “breathing room” inside it; that is, in keeping the stae out of as many substantive value judgments as possible, the value of liberalism tries to cast the net of inclusion as wide as possible, only “cutting people out of it” if they refuse to obey a very miniam rule set.

The only alternatives to this are anarchism (which doesn’t marginalize anyone because it doesn’t impose rules) or allowing the state to get involved with writing more rules (generally done in the name of community, solidarity, or some other excuse to tighten the net of inclusion so that more people are excluded). If there is another way beyond this, I haven’t heard it argued.

So, it is simply bogus to argue against liberalism by pointing out cases whereby its values result in marginalizing those who refuse to ascribe to them. It is bogus because marginalizations of this kind will happen under any system of rules. The question is not whether marginalizations occur, but whether we can minimize the number of them. (Generally, attempts of government to avoid marginalization of some result in marginalization of others, and this is seldom talked about.)

Earlier this month, Mr Justice Michael Burton ruled that employees holding philosophical views based on science and reason should be afforded the same legal protection from discrimination as those with religious beliefs. The case concerned Tim Nicholson, the former head of sustainability for Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential property company. Nicholson claimed that he had been sacked due to his environmental beliefs. But Grainger’s lawyers contended that environmental views are political and a “lifestyle choice” which cannot be compared to religion or philosophy.

Mr Burton ruled that Nicholson’s views were entitled to the same protection as religious views and that the case should go before an employment tribunal. The written ruling, which looked at whether philosophy could be underpinned by a scientific belief, quoted from Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy and ultimately concluded that a belief in climate change, while a political view about science, can also be a philosophical one. Interestingly, Mr Burton ruled last year that Al Gore’s environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth was political and partisan as he assessed whether it should be shown to schools. (You can read about the case here and here.)

Camilla Palmer, of the legal firm Leigh Day and Co, suggested that the ruling opened the doors for an even wider category of deeply held beliefs, such as feminism, vegetarianism or humanism. Palmer commented: “It’s a great decision. Why should it only be religions which are protected?” However, perhaps not everyone will be so pleased by the ruling. Trade unionists campaigning for BNP members to be banned from public sector employment might fear that this ruling will also serve to protect far-right extremists. Indeed, might this fear also be what lies behind the government’s decision to remove protection for “political beliefs and beliefs in scientific theories” in it’s new equality bill, currently before parliament? Paragraph 10 of the new bill states:

“Communism, Darwinism, Fascism and Socialism are not beliefs that fall within the definition; nor is adherence to a particular football team. However, beliefs such as atheism and humanism would be covered.”

You can read the entire bill here.

Related articles: Teaching & Learning Guide for Business Ethics: An Overview
By Jeffrey Moriarty, Bowling Green State University
(Philosophy Compass 2009, May 2009)
Philosophy Compass
Related articles: Precedent
By Grant Lamond , Balliol College, University of Oxford
(Vol. 2, July 2007)
Philosophy Compass

Most readers will probably have by now that Switzerland has passed a referendum to ban the building of minarets anywhere in the country. This has prompted many musings, in particular on the relationship between democracy and liberty.

This looks, after all, like an example of an illiberal but democratic measure. This prompts Chris to say

“We have, therefore, a simple conflict of fundamental values, a vindication of Isaiah Berlin: …Some among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.”

By contrast, Left Outside tries to harmonise the two (and hence judge this decision undemocratic) by saying

“I don’t think it must be inherently democratic simply because it was a decision returned by a referendum. There are some things in a democracy more fundamental than simply voting for representatives or in referenda…equality before the law is essential, as is…freedom of conscience”

Dave argues for a similar sort of conclusion along different lines:

“If democracy is merely about the relationship of individuals to authority then [this ban is democratic], but if democracy is about associative relationships and how we collectively relate to authority, then the Swiss have weakened that associative relationship and its collective relationship with the Swiss state…

[D]emocracy is weakened, because democracy can only really proceed from a correct understanding of, for want of a better phrase, how things work.”

All of these are valid points, but I’m not sure they would convince Chrisiah Berlin (a composite personality insisting that ’some among the great goods cannot live together’). Isn’t this just a redefining of the word ‘democracy’ to include various more substantive notions of freedom?

If we define ’schmemocracy’ as ‘the will of the majority being effected’, regardless of whether that will is well-informed, or cohesive, or correct, then have we just replaced an apparent conflict between liberty and democracy with one between ‘democracy’ and ’schmemocracy’?

To my mind, though, there’s a more basic argument for thinking that this event doesn’t show us a conflict between liberty and democracy/schmemocracy. Namely, that even if we define ‘democracy’ as ‘the will of the majority being effected’, this definition is still technically ill-formed.

Because what is meant by ‘the majority’? After all, the number of people who voted ‘yes’ in this referendum is a few million, which is less than 0.1% of human beings. That’s not a majority.

So there must be some criterion of what counts as the relevant population, the ‘demos’ of whom a majority is needed. One way to define that is to assume that the relevant population is always that of the sovereign nation-state. That is what, it appears, the great majority of people nowadays do, but it looks distinctly arbitrary to me. National boundaries are largely about how successful one groups of armed men have been relative to other groups of armed men. Nationalism then is rather like deciding political issue by a boxing match between leading politicians.

To my mind, the only reasonable way to define the relevant population is by a measure something like ‘those who are affected’. Now, those who sincerely and passionately want to build minarets are substantially affected by this ban; those who just don’t like seeing them, or knowing they’re there, are affected in a much more superficial way. One is being prevented from doing something by the state, while the other retains complete freedom either way, and merely has to tolerate seeing some disliked structures as they walk past.

So in this sense, the people who might or might not build minarets are the primary ‘demos’ (in that freedom of religion is primary over the sort of diffuse right to a ‘nice-looking’ neighbourhood) and I imagine a majority of them voted ‘no’.

Indeed we could go further. If three people want to build a minaret, and aren’t hurting anyone else by doing so, they form the primary ‘people affected’ and so the ‘democratic’ thing is for them to choose whether they can build a minaret or not.

And a big part of anarchist models of society (and, I presume but don’t know for sure, of Marxist non-models after the ‘withering away’ of the state) is the idea of voluntary federation: that individuals and groups of any size should have the constant right to withdraw from larger social organisations if they feel heavily persecuted. This is not a magic bullet, but it is, I think, the most basic way to organically embody this idea of individual and minority freedom within the structure of democracy.

This isn’t always as simple as I may have made it sound, of course. Things affect lots of people to different degrees – such as by consuming resources that others could have used. But we’ve always known that – we’ve always known, in particular, that Mill’s famous ‘harm principle’ is only a rule of thumb against the complexities of the real world. But it’s still a good rule of thumb, and what’s interesting is that by paying attention to who counts as the relevant ‘majority’, we can make the harm principle (that paradigmatic claim of personal liberty) coincide and connect neatly with valuing democracy.

Also, of course, there can still be tragic conflicts – between one person’s liberty and another’s, between one groups’ democracy and another’s. But that’s not the same as a conflict between liberty and democracy in the abstract.

Which makes a certain sense: both are principles of self-rule, one individual and one collective.

Max Weber was a groundbreaking social theorist from about 100 years ago.   He is most known for his view that the “Protestant work ethic” is a major factor that drives Western economic and cultural success.   It’s complicated stuff, so I’ll list several links now, and keep this post at the top of the website all week and add other links as I find them.  I’ll also try to add some links about the basics of sociology.

Aboutsociology.com entry on Weber

Weber entry in Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia  (diffcult reading, to me)

What is Sociology?

For my part, I just read a great book on the history of the political Left in America.  It was very critical of what it says the far Left has done to social science in the past few decades, and hits sociology pretty hard.  I’ll be available to talk about that after Jim gives his presentation, but I don’t think it merits a separate presentation.

I am a left-libertarian. This is a position that seems contradictory to many, both libertarian and not; libertarianism is traditionally seen as being a movement of the Right, or even the farthest extreme of the Right, existing as an apologetic philosophy for corporatism and elitism. I believe that this is fundamentally mistaken. The Right, I think, is properly seen today as being the status quo of state-capitalism, dominated by an elite of bureaucrats and plutocrats, whose ends are power and authority at the expense of everyone else. Even modern day “liberals” and social democrats are rightist in this sense; merely reforming a fundamentally evil system is not enough, and the state-socialist means of compulsion and centralization contradict their declared “leftist” ends. Thus, the Left is properly conceived as being those whose ends are peace, justice, and prosperity, and whose means don’t conflict with those ends.

For libertarians reading this, it will probably help if I explain why I am a “thick” libertarian first, as opposed to “thin” libertarianism. Thin libertarianism is the position that politics is the ethics of the use of force; nothing more and nothing less. Political philosophy doesn’t and can’t have anything to say about society, other than that aggression is wrong. Any set of social and cultural norms is seen as being compatible with the political philosophy of liberty, as long as they are non-coercive. Thick libertarianism, on the other hand, is the position that liberty is fundamentally intertwined with other concerns. Politics is broader than statements about the permissible use of force, and justice is more than non-aggression. Note that left-libertarians are not the only thick libertarians; paleolibertarian conservatives and Objectivists also hold thick views on political philosophy.

I am a left-libertarian, because I am a thick libertarian who sees that the “leftist” values of anti-authoritarianism, mutuality, and equality are fundamentally entailed by the same principles that make me anti-statist. A society built on authority and hierarchy, where social evils such as patriarchy and xenophobia are widely accepted cultural norms, is not a just society, even if it is non-coercive. A just society is one where every individual’s flourishing is not subject to the arbitrary whims of others, one where people are not held back by society, but instead encouraged to become the best person that they can be.

Today I was appraised of a rumor about my political leanings/extracurricular involvement that has been circulating as of late.  It certainly wasn’t a vicious one, but something I wish to nip in the bud right now as I do not want my readers believing me to be something I’m clearly not.  That, my friends, is a libertarian.

The best way to start a discussion on my political beliefs is to show where they fit in the historical arc of conservatism.  After WWII the New Right emerged as a coalition of philosophical allies banding against the onslaut of progressivism embodied in the New Deal, Fair Deal, and other various pushes to a complete state takeover of our Republic.   Some were traditionalists, pining for a return to the charm of the Old World.  Others were Cold Warriors who, under the threat of communism, realized the liberal ideology proved entirely inadequate in stopping the advance of the Soviet Union.  And of course there were the libertarians who simply put themselves at odds with any political doctrine that interfered with their laissez-faire economic principles.  Many will stop me here and say this is a gross oversimplification of each group, a sentiment with which I agree but for purposes of time must leave in the most basic terms possible. 

To make a long story short, under the leadership of William F. Buckley, Frank Meyer, and others at National Review this unlikely band of brothers coalesced to form the conservative movement we all know and  love today.  A winning formula of defense conservatism, fiscal conservatism, and social conservatism, now known as Reagan’s three legged stool.

Your beloved commentator likes to say he sits on the seat of that three legged stool.  Obviously I’m human and my emotional passions will at times lead me to embrace a certain leg more than the others.  And until recently (by recently I mean mid-senior year of high school), the libertarian leg was the one I favored most.

My abandonment of libertarianism as my central political doctrine started when I read Russell Kirk’s “A Dispassionate Assessment of  Libertarians” in which he explains how some parts of the libertarian movement are indeed anticonservative, focusing mainly on their materialism, impracticality in the realm of foreign policy, and philosophical lurch toward a species of anarchy.   He went too far in his negative review of them, but his illumination of libertarianism’s weaknesses certainly ring true with most Christians.

Eventhough you will never see me brandish a Ron Paul sign or declare V for Vendeta as my favorite political allegory, I still think libertarianism has it’s place in the movment.  People who lean traditionalist, like me,need that voice of conscience in the back telling us that morality can only be enforced so much, that in the end freedom should be the ultimate goal in any political system,  and libertarianism is itself part of the American tradition.

But in the end the ultimate aim of  governing is to bring order.  How can we recognize the rights of man in practical situations if we neglect to halt foreign enemies or preserve time tested institutions?  Yes libertarianism provides a spark of imagination that conservatism often lacks, but it strays from practicality as the other forms of purist political philosophy so often do when left alone.

With that I leave you and pray that the libertarians on campus do not stone me.  I suspect many of you will find, as I did, that you are really not full blooded libertarians if you read Kirk’s article.  See for yourself, I posted the link at the bottom of the post.

-The Burkean

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/HL158.cfm

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi briefed lefty bloggers on the need for job creation and war funding.

From the Politico

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s weekly tele-chat with liberal bloggers is usually a low-news affair, but Tuesday’s pre-Thanksgiving installment had the speaker throwing down the gauntlet all over the place — especially on the need for job creation.

The speaker — beset by nasty poll data showing congressional Democrats 7 points down in the generic midterm ballot — is acutely aware of the need to turn the economy around, even if it means punting on deficit reduction, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s post-health-reform agenda.

And she claims the economy can “absorb” a larger deficit if it means more jobs — a turn of phrase coming to a GOP attack ad near you.

IT’S THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE, STUPID. Unveiling a strategy likely to define the Democratic ’10 agenda, Pelosi evoked the specter of the 1937-1938 “Roosevelt Recession,” which many historians believe resulted from too quick a pullback in New Deal spending. The speaker, via Think Progress:

“We’re never going to decrease the deficit until we create jobs, bring revenue into the Treasury, stimulate the economy so we have growth. We have to shed any weakness that anybody may have about not wanting to be confrontational on this subject for fear that we’d be labeled not sensitive to the deficit. … The American people have an anger about the growth of the deficit because they’re not getting anything for it. … So if somebody has the idea that the percentage of GDP of what or national debt is will go up a bit, but they will now — and their neighbors and their children — will have jobs, I think they could absorb that.”

She added: “If we pull our punch, as they did in the mid-’30s, we shouldn’t be surprised if history repeats itself.” 

PAY-FOR WAR. Pelosi was far more fiscally conservative when it came to Afghanistan, expressing sympathy with congressional liberals, including Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who thinks war funding should be subject to Blue Doggish “pay-for” rules.

“I think we have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the lefty bloggers, according to HuffPo’s Ryan Grim. “There is unrest in our caucus about: Can we afford this war?”

Pelosi qualified her remarks by noting that cost is not the top concern. “I think the American people believe that if it’s something that’s in our national security interest,” she said, the investment is worth it.

But it still has to be paid for, she said. “Everything else has to be paid for. It must be fiscally sound. We have to hold it to the same standard, as well.”

Despite Pelosi’s statements on job creation all the Democrats have managed to do so far is spend billions on job creation with no improvement in the unemployment rate while increasing the deficit.  In the early stages of the Obama administration it was fashionable to blame president Bush for our economic situation but the blame must clearly lie at the feet of the Democrats who have done nothing but throw money at the problem to no avail. 

In the meantime they are still spending money like mad on earmarks despite the president’s pledge to eliminate them and haggling over how to fund our war efforts.

The hope now is that there will be a change in 2010.