Critiques Of Libertarianism
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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Contents |
Basics
- A Non-Libertarian FAQ
- A general introduction to discussion with libertarians, with an extensive discussion of arguments commonly used by libertarian evangelists. This is the original FAQ, little changed from when it originated in 1994.
- The Short, Simple Dismissal Of Libertarianism
- 99% of libertarianism is obviously untrue or unacceptible.
- Libertarianism in One Lesson (Parody)
- Mike Huben's guide to becoming a libertarian. If you've argued with libertarians, you'll understand them well enough to ROTFL. :-) for the humor-impaired.
- Libertarianism in One Lesson; The Second Lesson
- Why is there a second lesson when the title says one lesson? Libertarianism is so double-plus-good.... :-) for the humor-impaired.
- What Is Libertarianism?
- Twenty views of the big picture of libertarianism.
- How Libertarian Ideas And Attitudes Are Spread
- The spread of libertarianism is not due to some "truth" or intrinsic goodness. Libertarianism would have stayed a fringe belief were it not for enormous public relations programs financed for generations by the extremely wealthy.
- Libertarian Self-Delusions
- Libertarians believe many weird things about themselves compared to others.
- Claimed Examples Of Libertarianism
- Libertarianism has never been implemented anywhere, but libertarians are armed with many "examples" to show that it could work. Examples such as Hong Kong, Chile and Singapore are uniformly misleading or false.
- Libertarian Schisms
- Libertarians are very fond of disagreeing with everybody else, including other libertarians. Maybe especially with other libertarians.
Humor, Quotations, Etc.
- Quotations
- What people say about libertarianism.
- Humor
- Makes an otherwise dry subject more palatable.
- Make Or Break Views Of Libertarianism
- Positions so absolute and extreme as to border on self-ridicule.
Criticism
- Mike Huben's Criticisms
- Developed over roughly 40 years of networked debate with libertarians.
- Christian Criticisms Of Libertarianism
- While some libertarians are Christian, many Christians have strong objections.
- Conservative Criticisms Of Libertarianism
- Libertarian radicalism is repellant to most conservatives, especially for institutions besides markets and the state.
- Economists Criticizing Libertarianism
- Libertarians like to suggest that economics backs their ideology, but numerous economists disagree.
- Left-Libertarian and Anarchist Criticism
- A resounding clash of ideologies!
- Liberal Criticisms Of Libertarianism
- Liberals (in the American sense) understand that government has a useful track record.
- Libertarians Criticizing Each Other
- Libertarianism is full of schisms over numerous philosophical and political points. We hardly need invent criticisms when libertarians create them plentifully to argue with each other.
- Objectivist Critiques Of Libertarianism
- Rand and her followers have always been contemptuous of libertarianism. Those darned libertarians did not see the necessity of her cult's logic!
- Testimonials By Former Libertarians And Objectivists
- Let's see what we can learn from some of the many who have left libertarianism.
- Unclassified Criticisms
- A miscellany of interesting criticisms.
Issues
- Charter Cities
- Libertarian Utopias! Libertarians want to experiment with Charter Cities: being given a region of their own to manage themselves. What we will probably see is is a corrupt autarchy controlled by international corporations and dependent on second class citizens or workers commuting in or out. You cannot assume democracy or civil equality for charter cities.
- NEW 6/09/2013: Constitutional Rights and Civil Liberties
- Almost all US political groups want Constitutional rights and civil liberties preserved or extended. Libertarians have their own myopic viewpoints that they want implemented. They oppose incorporation of Constitutional rights against individuals and business. They deny civil liberties such as privacy rights, except when government is involved.
- Deregulation
- Libertarians routinely propose deregulating almost everything; mostly because they want to limit government, not because it makes sense.
- Education
- Libertarians strongly oppose public education: they wish to eliminate tax-funding for education, regulation of education, and make education independent of government.
- Free Trade
- The dominance of trade over popular sovereignty. Free trade is a redistributionist policy, because it will cause some local industry to fail in the face of international competition. Libertarians avoid the justice issues of this involuntary redistribution.
- Freedom Through Technology
- Cypherpunks, high-tech libertarians, and various others mistakenly think technology will eliminate the need for government (if not outright eliminate government.) As foolish as the idea that atomic weapons will end war.
- Global Warming
- Libertarians generally align with "climate skeptics" (denialists of global warming) because market regulation by government is needed to reduce global warming..
- Guns
- Libertarians generally endorse unregulated private ownership of guns and other armaments, no matter how absurd.
- Health Care
- Despite superior results from socialized health care in every developed nation, libertarians insist on privatizing.
- Historical Revisionism
- The facts of history do not support libertarianism. This spawns an industry supplying libertarians with false history that supports their beliefs.
- Ideas Libertarians Do Not Own
- Some ideas are described as libertarian, but in reality have long been held by innumerable others. Drug legalization, for example.
- Law
- Libertarians want laws and interpretations of laws that favor their own interests. They have invested in authoring and sponsoring laws. They have their ridiculous own schools of legal and Constitutional interpretation, and they sponsor training for law students and judges.
- Minimum Wage
- Contrary to Econ 101 dogmas, minimum wage law has no harmful effects on employment according to many real-world studies. And definitely not the harmful effects long claimed by its opponents.
- Privatization
- There is an enormous history of privatization which shows that while it is sometimes beneficial, often it does not give the results its proponents claim. Privatization is often a form of crony capitalism, and often results in a different and less desirable product.
- Social Security
- Social security (and other social insurance such as Medicare) is one of the great enemies of libertarians and conservatives. They continually misrepresent it and claim alternatives are better.
- Taxes
- Libertarians hate 'em! But minarchist libertarians (the vast majority) have no coherent answer to how to pay for even a minimal government. Libertarian and Republican criticisms of taxes usually overlap.
- Unionization
- With anarchist exceptions, libertarians align with their wealthy funders to oppose unions. Supposedly unions have special privileges from government: but these libertarians somehow don't notice that corporations have special privileges from government. John Kenneth Galbraith pointed this out in his theory of countervailing powers.
- Vouchers
- Libertarians claim to prefer vouchers to direct government provision. But they do so for ideological reasons, not because vouchers are the best method. Some voucher programs (such as food stamps) work well, but direct provision works better for many other goods.
Libertarian Blind Spots
- Central Planning
- Libertarians associate central planning with their worst bugaboos: Communism, Socialism, and the State. But Corporations are notorious for their central planning: all of Walmart is run through central planning. When market failures are overwhelming (as in health care), history shows central planning is much more effective.
- Child Labor
- Many libertarians defend child labor because the alternative is for popular, labor, and government action to end the cycle of poverty, low education, and child labor.
- Children
- Much libertarian theory ignores the fact that we start out as children. Many libertarians feel that government has no role in protecting or supporting children.
- Civil Rights
- The civil rights movement has been one of their great bugaboos: it is a classic example of non-market application of government to relieve widespread oppression.
- Corporate Threats to Liberty
- Corporations also threaten liberty. The private prison industry has every incentive to sponsor laws to increase incarceration. Corporations have huge incentives to invade your privacy by tracking you, recording your purchases, your messages, etc. Government could then legally buy this information, rather than getting a court order to do it as part of an investigation.
- Corporations Are Government Creations
- Libertarians love to whine about government handing our special privileges, but somehow seldom notice that corporations use special privileges to achieve social dominance.
- Democracy
- Representative democracy with division of powers is the other enlightenment theory (besides markets) that has created today's world. Libertarians often view it as opposing markets, and grossly misrepresent it.
- Disability
- Libertarians have no solution to problems of disability: people who (often through no fault of their own) have physical or mental differences or impairments due to genetics, accident, age, etc. They sweep the problems under the rug, claiming that family and private charity are sufficient when all of history shows they are not.
- Discrimination
- Libertarians usually think they should have a total freedom to discriminate however they wish. They are wrong. Discriminatory choices which affect markets undercut the assumptions of free markets, and thus destroy market efficiency which libertarians claim to want. In addition to harming others. Our society is a commons, and rampant discrimination is a tragedy of the commons.
- Game Theory
- Simple game theory such as the Prisoner's Dilemma shows that many situations can be improved by government interference.
- Inequality
- Libertarians have five dismissals for problems of extreme inequality: it is market-based just dessert, it is needed for incentives, it is freedom, it is the fault of government, and it is unimportant. All five are wrong.
- Institutions
- Libertarians cannot see the forest for the trees. By focussing on individuals, they ignore the fact that individuals comprise, reside in and utilize institutions. Institutions such as property, law, governance, marriage, etc. Libertarians pretend that rights are "natural" when in reality they come from institutions.
- Laissez Faire
- History shows pretty clearly that unregulated, unfettered capitalism is a brutal environment where wealth accumulates in the hands of an elite leaving most people in poverty, deeply vulnerable to the inevitable economic shocks that follow.
- Mercantilism And Industrial Policy Works
- Merchantilism and industrial policy have a long history of being effective in the US and Great Britain, with free trade being adopted only after dominance is achieved. Merchantilism and industrial policy work and are responsible for the huge reductions in poverty in India, China, Korea, and the rest of eastern Asia. Government support of export industry is key.
- Middle Class
- There is no libertarian theory of the formation of the middle class. The middle class is conspicuously the result of government programs in education, commerce, taxation, housing policy, agricultural policy and other efforts.
- NEW 6/19/2013: Minorities
- Libertarians tend to be non-minorities, and thus not understand the obstacles (expecially discrimination) society creates for minorities. And they refuse to face the privately created obstacles that government can remedy.
- Mixed Economy
- Existing markets are important parts of our mixed economies. The most socialist or communist economies in the world still use mixed markets, though they are more weighted towards central direction. Likewise the most capitalist economies, still weighted towards central direction within corporations.
- Organized Crime
- Organized crime is a capitalist endeavor. Remove government constraint, and corporations and organized crime will merge. Claims that government is organized crime miss the critical difference: government is where we place coercive power so that it may be publicly managed for public purposes, while organized crime is private management of coercive power for selfish purposes. While prohibitions create black markets and organized crime, even libertarians want prohibitions against force and fraud and thus would create problems.
- Political Correctness
- World English Dictionary: "demonstrating progressive ideals, esp by avoiding vocabulary that is considered offensive, discriminatory, or judgmental, esp concerning race and gender". Since WWII, there has been an enormous success of political correctness. Right wing (and libertarian) press mercilessly mocked PC in the 1990's with exaggerated examples, making stereotypes of it.
- Predictions That Never Come True
- Medicare will cause the end of freedom! We're on the road to serfdom! The market will end discrimination! Regulation will bankrupt business! Libertarians are loaded with predictions and promises that will never come true, and ignore all the historical evidence they won't come true.
- Private Limitations Of Liberty
- Libertarians like to claim only government limits liberty. But that's not what people experience.
- Private Property Is Not The Only Liberty
- Many libertarians root all rights and freedoms in self-ownership and other property rights. The few who recognize other rights consider them trumped by even the slightest association with property. Property uber alles!
- Public Health
- Public health is the outstanding government success story. The sewers of Rome have saved far more lives than the legions of Rome ever killed. Killing by governments is tiny compared to the lives saved by government-eradicated smallpox alone.
- Real World Power
- Libertarians like to attribute all power to demon government, but refuse to face any other sort of oppressive power.
- Responsibility
- Libertarians regard government policies of responsibility as tyrannical burdens.
- Slavery
- Slavery is a free-market, capitalist phenomenon. Slavery has almost always been abolished by acts of government that regulate the market, making it illegal. 19th century slaveowners defended their property rights in slaves in "economic freedom"-like terms that are unmistakably libertarian, differing only slightly in terms of who had natural rights. Some modern libertarians continue to make a case for slavery. The private prisons that libertarians endorse (and traditional "hard labor") are really an opportunity to revive slavery. The only way to eliminate prison slavery is for government to regulate against it.
- State Support Of The Wealthy
- Supposed "makers" benefit much more from the state than the remainder of the populace. This is especially clear from historical and international comparisons.
- The New Deal
- Libertarians cannot explain the successes of FDR's New Deal. Hence, they engage in ridiculous denialism about how effective it was.
- The Workplace
- Our greatest daily loss of liberty is in the workplace. Libertarian pretense that the workplace is voluntary would only make sense if people had an equal alternative to the workplace. Power differences between employer and employee result in many losses of liberty.
- There Are Important Values Besides Liberty
- Compassion, justice, civic responsibility, honesty, decency, humility, respect, and even survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable. All these trade off with liberty in important ways.
- Women's Issues
- Women's issues (and feminism) are largely ignored by libertarianism, which is overwhelmingly male. In part inherited from early liberalism which assumed male heads of household represented the whole family both politically and economically. No libertarians have really grown past this to address women's issues as strongly as they address the issues of big business.
Libertarians
- Peter Boettke
- A Koch-financed Austrian School propagandist at the George Mason University Economics Department and the Mercatus Center.
- Tyler Cowen
- A professional, second-generation libertarian selected by the Kochs as head of the George Mason University Economics Department.
- Richard Epstein
- A law-and-economics, laissez-faire, University of Chicago Professor who views the world through the peephole of property rights.
- David Friedman
- Son of Milton Friedman, and perhaps the foremost anarchocapitalist.
- Milton Friedman
- Nobel prizewinner (economics), and one of the foremost propagandists for capitalism. Married to Rose Friedman, son David Friedman.
- Friedrich von Hayek
- Nobel prizewinning (economics) student of Ludwig von Mises, and a major propagandist for libertarianism.
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe
- One of the more bizarre Austrian philosophers.
- Charles and David Koch
- Libertarian billionaires who have founded and funded most libertarian think-tanks.
- Ludwig von Mises
- Austrian economist, mentor of Friedrich von Hayek, and a major right-wing economic crank.
- Robert Nozick
- The foremost libertarian philosopher, who gave up on it a few years later.
- Ron Paul
- A libertarian congressman (and perennial long-shot presidential candidate) renowned for kooky racist, isolationist, goldbug and Austrian beliefs. Not to mention conservative civil and reproductive rights ideas 50 years out of date. Father of senator Rand Paul. AKA: "Crazy Uncle Liberty".
- Ayn Rand
- Anybody who thinks Rand is a great author or a great philosopher can be immediately discounted. She was the Horatio Alger of her era. See also Objectivism, her cult philosophy.
- Rand Paul
- A libertarian (and Tea Party) Republican Senator, son of Ron Paul. He was burnt when he gave his real feelings on the Civil Rights Act, and now is attempting to be a normal slimy politician. AKA: "Senator Aqua Buddha".
- Murray Rothbard
- A leading Austrian economist, student of Ludwig von Mises. A very scholarly and prolific crank author who takes Austrianism to its logically absurd ends.
- Less Prominant Libertarians....
- Slightly less to greatly less well known. Certainly not needing to be on the main page.
Organizations
- Cato Institute
- A "libertarian" quasi-academic think-tank which acts as a mouthpiece for the globalism, corporatism, and neoliberalism of its corporate and conservative funders.
- George Mason University Economics Department
- A Koch-financed libertarian department of an otherwise publicly financed university.
- Libertarian Party
- An experiment in herding cats.
- Ludwig von Mises Institute
- Llewellyn Rockwell's shrine to Ludwig von Mises. A minor competiitor and rival to the Cato Institute, with a separate source of funding. Specializing in comically extreme Austrian Economics.
- Mercatus Center
- A Koch-financed libertarian think-tank associated with the Koch-financed George Mason University Economics Department.
- The Tea Party
- The Koch brothers' successor to the Libertarian Party: an attempt to usurp the Republican Party with fake grassroots.
- Think-Tanks In General
- A very few think-tanks are non-ideological and attempt to solve problems. The vast majority are ideological propaganda organs that spew the bullshit their donors pay for.
Economics
- Austrian Economics
- A pre-scientific, data-free, conservative and blinkered methodology for economics propaganda.
- Chicago Economics
- Milton Friedman's school. An example of Lysenkoism: "the manipulation or distortion of the scientific process as a way to reach a predetermined conclusion as dictated by an ideological bias."
- Common Fallacies Of Economics
- Economics has its own styles of common fallacies. These are much loved by both pundits and highly qualified economists making partisan arguments.
- Economic Freedom
- Code for "let business run the country: the heck with the populace." The anti-liberal dominance of property over popular sovereignty. Historically, we could extend this concept to include buying, owning, and selling slaves. The arguments made then were the same. Used by propagandists to trump other freedoms. Also known as economic liberty.
- Economics 101
- Libertarians are fond of applying standard Economics 101 microeconomics principles to bash the state. They forget the many concealed ideological biases of Economics 101, they forget market failures and they forget that microeconomics is not enough: you need macroeconomics too.
- Free Market
- "Free Market" (for libertarians) is a propaganda term, by which libertarians actually mean unregulated markets. Free markets cannot exist: they are an ideal model in economic theory. The vast majority of uses of "free market" are actually about real, regulated, imperfect markets, which are very little like free market models. Truly free markets would include markets for anything, including murder, and require perfect information and perfect competition. I recommend "unregulated market" instead of the propaganda term "free market".
- Libertarian Economic And Political Experiments
- Chile and New Zealand are often cited by libertarians as sites of successful libertarian economic reform. They tend to cite a few "benefits", but there are many downsides....
- Market Failure
- Real world economies are rife with market failure. This means choosing between second-best options, such as imperfect markets, NGO's and government solutions. Ideology and economic theory cannot say which is best: you must resort to experimentation and history.
- NEW 6/13/2013: Positional Goods
- Positional goods are a zero sum game, and the more who participate in the game the more wasteful it gets. Luxury taxes can redistribute part of the wasted wealth to better purposes which are not zero sum.
- Public Choice Theory
- A school that starts with anti-government and pro-market ideology to find that government cannot work and markets do. Surprise!
- Public Goods
- Libertarians often refuse to recognize public goods or that governments have a role in public good provision. The list of important goods with substantial public goods components is very long, and includes education, law, safety, health, transportation, research and much more.
Philosophy
- Anarcho-capitalism
- The "logical" extreme of libertarianism, doing away with all government in favor of hi-tech feudalism.
- Capitalism, Markets and Laissez-Faire
- Libertarian ideology worships these gods with feet of clay, and wishes no limits to them. History and common sense tell us that limits must be imposed on them, they must be regulated.
- Failures Of Libertarian Philosophy
- Libertarian philosophy has some conspicuous failures. The numerous libertarian attempts to demonstrate self-ownership and property rights fail badly. This undermines essentially everything else they attempt.
- Fallacies Of Ideology
- Ideology commonly makes a number of different mistakes than more ordinary philosophy.
- Fallacies Of Philosophy
- A great deal of philosophy is grossly misleading from the very start.
- Natural Rights
- Natural Rights has always been a propaganda term, from its first invention as an answer to the rights of kings. Nobody has yet really answered Jeremy Bentham's charge of "nonsense on stilts". Most libertarianism (Nozick, for example) is still behind the times here.
- Objectivism
- Ayn Rand's pathetic pretense of a philosophy.
- Philosophical Individualism
- Individualism is merely one viewpoint in an enormous hierarchy of viewpoints ranging from Planck length to the universe. Individualism as a tenet of a philosophy transforms that philosophy into a Procrustean bed that cannot model the real world well, because the real world is not based on individuals.
- Praxeology
- Ludwig von Mises' anti-scientific, axiomatic, a priori methodology for supporting his preferred conservative political economy. Also used by Murray Rothbard. Ignored by academia, promoted by the crank vanity press Ludwig von Mises Institute.
- Rights
- Libertarians play fast and loose with ideas of rights. If they are not resorting to Natural Rights or claiming that all rights are property rights, they are making up rights out of thin air that serve their purposes. Rights are human-created social relationships: we create the many and varied rights we are willing to enforce.
Fellow Travelers
- Defenders Of The Unsavory
- Prostitution, blackmail, environmental crime, child labor, tobacco, gambling, black markets, corruption of many sorts: defenders of these practices often find libertarian allies.
- Dictators And Other Anti-Democratic Authoritarians
- A large number of notable libertarians have supported dictators and other anti-democratic authoritarians, primarily because they support big-business over the interests of ordinary people.
- Extreme Right Wing
- Much libertarianism is a front for very right wing people and organizations.
- NRA and other gun extremists
- Libertarians usually endorse NRA positions or even more extreme positions on private ownership of armaments. The NRA has created an absolutist atmosphere extremely hostile to reasoned discussion of (or research on) benefits and harms of guns.
- NEW 6/07/2013: Science Denialists
- Libertarians overlap strongly with science denialists on global warming, vaccines, fluoridation, creationism, HIV, smoking, ozone hole, pollution, etc.
- NEW 6/03/2013: Tax Protestors And Other Pseudolaw Cranks
- There is strong overlap between libertarians and tax protestors. Tax protestors have amazing reinterpretations of laws and history that they claim justify independence from paying taxes.
- Wall Street, Corporatists, Neoliberals And Plutocrats
- There is strong overlap of goals between big wealth and libertarians. These fellow travelers often fund libertarians and their organizations to promote overlapping goals. This is a class war: between the first class citizens (large corporations and the very rich) and ordinary people.
Alternatives
- Alternatives To Current Capitalism
- Pitting "free market capitalism" against "socialism" is a false dichotomy. There are numerous variants and alternatives to study and choose from.
- Capability Approach
- Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum's successor to liberalism. This approach to human well-being emphasizes the importance of freedom of choice, individual heterogeneity and the multi-dimensional nature of welfare.
- Consequentialism And Utilitarianism
- Much libertarianism is deontological, based on moral rules such as "don't kill". This leads to many results that seem illogical or intuitively wrong.
- Credible Sources
- We need credible alternatives to libertarian and conservative propaganda.
- Democracy
- Representative democracy with division of powers is the other enlightenment theory (besides markets) that has created today's world. Libertarians often view it as opposing markets, and grossly misrepresent it.
- Human Rights and Civil Liberties
- Libertarian talk big about rights and civil liberties, but they actually do extremely little to defend rights. These organizations actually do something!
- John Rawls
- John Rawls' theory of justice has been the major theory of liberty and justice in the latter part of the 20th century. Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia was merely one of many reactions to Rawls.
- Keynsianism
- Libertarians reflexively oppose Keynesian macroeconomic ideas because they give an important role to government, instead of relying on laissez-faire. The Great Depression and the Great Recession both illustrate the superiority of Keynsianism
- Leaving Libertarianism
- A series of suggestions for how to start undoing libertarian programming.
- Liberalism
- Liberalism differs substantially from libertarianism. All modern first-world nations are liberal. There are no libertarian communities, let alone nations.
- NEW 6/11/2013: Middle-out economics
- Emphasizes that growth comes from promotion of a strong middle class, rather than by addressing the top 1% (as in Supply-side economics.)
- Mixed Economy
- Existing markets are important parts of our mixed economies. The most socialist or communist economies in the world still use mixed markets, though they are more weighted towards central direction. Likewise the most capitalist economies, still weighted towards central direction within corporations.
- Progressivism
- A philosophy that attempts to improve human flourishing through reforms. Successes of progressivism include 8 hour work days, universal enfranchisement, etc.
- Social Contract
- Most libertarians violently oppose the idea of social contract. Libertarians usually misrepresent social contracts as they actually exist, referring instead to philosophical models.
- Social Justice
- People who tend to the Libertarian side are usually people who have yet to experience the need for financial assistance or social justice.
- Things Government Should Do
- There are plenty of ideas of what governments should do born out by long history of where governments have been successful and where markets have failed. Not just defense, but things like basic research, infrastructure, social insurance and a host of other practical needs.
