Ellen Willis THEIR LIBERTARIANISM and OURS

Books Ellen Willis THEIR LIBERTARIANISM AND OURS LIBERTARIANISM: A PRIMER, by David Boaz. Free servient to transnational capital, leftists are con- Press, 1997. 314 pp. $23.00. centrating most of their meager energy on strug- gling to enlist state power in their behalf, WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A LIBERTARIAN: A PERSONAL whether to defend social welfare programs and INTERPRETATION, by Charles Murray. Broadway affirmative action or to punish racist and sexist Books, 1997. 178 pp. $20.00. behavior. All too often, the soundtrack to this agenda consists of a whiny lecture about self- ishness, meanness, and greed versus compas- sion, decency, and justice, as if America's prob- lem were moral deficiency, rather than a declin- hose of us who call ourselves left liber- ing standard of living or an increasingly repres- tarians feel pretty lonely these days. While the sive culture, and the solution were getting gov- very word "libertarian" has become a synonym ernment to pull up our collective socks. for "radical free marketeer," the mainstream of It's no wonder that the public prefers the the American left—defined broadly for the pur- right's language of freedom. Conservatives' dis- poses of this essay as the party of economic and taste for government and for ideological curbs social equality—seems content to cede both the on free expression may be selectively applied; word and the concept to the right. At best the their celebration of free enterprise may be a ra- contemporary left, with few exceptions, defends tionale for ruthless class warfare; yet they speak particular liberties and challenges particular to Americans' deepening feelings of entrapment repressive laws and policies while ignoring the and suppression in a way the left refuses or structures of unfreedom built into institutions doesn't know how to do. Ironically, many left- like the state, the corporation, the family, and ists are all too eager to pander to the socially the church. At worst it attacks "excessive" lib- conservative values they imagine (erroneously) erty as a mere extension of capitalist individu- are the key to majority support, while dismiss- alism, an offense to communal values, and/or a ing libertarianism out of hand, despite its wide rationale for maintaining the position of domi- appeal. In reality, I'm convinced, the left has no nant social groups. Most leftists are uncritically hope of seriously influencing the public conver- statist, merely complaining that the government sation unless it counters the right's conception is controlled by the wrong people and doesn't of liberty with its own compelling vision of a do enough of the right things. And though the free society. left of course wants to redistribute corporate prof- These books by David Boaz, executive vice its to workers, it shows little interest in attack- president of the right-libertarian Cato Institute, ing the authoritarian structure of the workplace and Charles Murray, who needs no introduction, or the puritanical assumptions of the work ethic. are a good place to start. Together they do a fair Except for a few nanoseconds during the job of articulating the dominant themes of right- sixties, individual freedom has always been a wing anti-statism. Boaz's "primer" attempts a hard sell on the left. But in the embattled, dike- broad overview of libertarian philosophy, which plugging, circle-the-wagons present, dissident he defines as a strict construction of classical voices are ever fewer and fainter. Even as the liberalism based on a few first principles: indi- state becomes steadily more impotent and sub- viduals have the inalienable right to live as they FALL • 1997 • 111 Books choose so long as they respect the equal rights Boaz, he endorses "freedom of personal behav- of others; property rights are the foundation of ior" in the absence of force or fraud. But while freedom and must not be abridged; "Free mar- this freedom comes first on Boaz's list, Murray kets are the economic system of free individu- mentions it last, on the grounds that it's of little als"; government's role should be limited to pro- practical consequence, since few people actu- hibiting force and fraud, enforcing contracts, and ally aspire to take advantage of it by testing so- providing for the national defense. cial limits. (And if they did, in Murray's utopia, Murray is also a staunch advocate of mini- their parents, neighbors, landlords, and bosses, mal government, untrammeled property rights, unimpeded by state-mandated tolerance or state and free market economics (if slightly more will- subsidies for "irresponsible" behavior, would ing than Boaz to allow exceptions for a limited soon set them straight.) number of public goods). Adopting the style of a lecturer intent on making a few homely points to an audience slightly low on the bell curve, he In the end, though, these differences are more devotes the meat of his book to statistics pur- rhetorical than real. Both authors subscribe to porting to show that every social improvement the fundamental fallacy of right libertarianism, government has supposedly made would have that the state is the only source of coercive power. happened anyway, and to "thought experiments" Neither recognizes (surprise!) that the corpora- detailing how his proposals for economic de- tions that control most economic resources, and regulation, abolition of antidiscrimination laws, therefore most people's access to the necessities and so on might actually work. But he only re- of life, have far more power than government to luctantly adopts the libertarian label—he would dictate our behavior and the day-to-day terms rather call himself a liberal, had the word not of our existence. (Murray's claim that "If your been appropriated by proponents of "an expan- personal life were as closely monitored and regu- sive government and the welfare state"—and lated as the vocational life of millions of Ameri- indeed it hardly jibes with his professed admi- cans, you would rightly consider it oppression" ration for Edmund Burke and his communitarian is unassailable, except that he means govern- belief in "the indispensable roles that tradition ment health and safety rules, not employers' and the classical virtues play in civic life." decrees about when you can go to the bathroom.) Unlike Boaz, who genuinely seems to be- Evidently they haven't noticed that a handful of lieve in civil liberties for dissidents and minori- global conglomerates exercises a controlling ties, Murray basically defines freedom as the influence on investment priorities, wages, in- right of the conformist ("an ordinary human terest rates, and conditions for workers and being making an honest living and minding his smaller businesses around the world; or that own business") to be left alone. He is especially these same corporate dogs routinely wag the state concerned that landlords, employers, families, tail, financing politicians who do their bidding and other private parties not be deprived of "free- on economic and foreign policy while threaten- dom of association" (that is, freedom to discrimi- ing to withhold credit and move jobs from any nate) and its corollary, freedom to enforce so- community (or country) deemed insufficiently cial and moral norms without state interference. compliant. For Murray, the absolute right of property own- Nor do Boaz and Murray acknowledge the ers to exclude from their premises anyone they ways corporate control of mass media and cul- find objectionable is the community's best de- tural production limits the circulation of dissent- fense against drugs, pornography, and other "ob- ing ideas and encourages patterns of de facto noxious" practices. His main quarrel with gov- censorship like chain stores' refusal to stock ernment is its propensity to overrule traditional unedited CDs. (On the contrary, Boaz has the structures of authority in favor of individual nerve to complain about "court intellectuals" of rights and, worse, undermine those structures the left whose big-government ideology is sub- with welfare programs that allow unwed moth- orned by their patrons, such powerful dispens- ers and other such delinquents to survive. Like ers of Leviathan's largesse as . state universi- 112 • DISSENT Books ties and the National Endowment for the Hu- only their labor to sell—have helped produce? manities! Now, who did you say funds the Cato What happens to the latter's freedom under such Institute? Santa Claus, right?) In fact, in three a regime? Ignoring such obvious questions, the hundred pages Boaz never mentions corporate authors in effect reduce the issue of property to power even to debunk the idea, while Murray whether someone can (Murray's example) "come declares bluntly that economic coercion does not in off the street and walk off with your televi- exist, except, perhaps, in rare cases of "natural sion." monopoly." The world as depicted in these books Like Murray, Boaz upholds the right of prop- is the projection of an imagination stuck some- erty owners to discriminate against anyone where in the eighteenth century, its inhabitants whose values, appearance, or behavior they don't myriad individual producers, entrepreneurs, and like; the impact on the freedom of those forced workers all playing by the same rules, freely to conform to get a job or apartment—let alone competing and contracting in the marketplace. those with the wrong skin color or other immu- As Boaz puts it, "If I trade my labor for a pay- table traits—is not considered. Just as all eco- check from Microsoft, it's because I value the nomic dealings in Laissez-faireworld are purely money more than the time, and the sharehold- voluntary transactions among equals, the moral ers of Microsoft value my labor more than the and cultural judgments that inform those deal- money they give up." And if we can't agree on ings are assumed to reflect millions of individual how much of the shareholders' money my time tastes and prejudices rather than ubiquitous so- and labor are worth? Well, gee, surely I have as cial patterns like racism, homophobia, antidrug much choice of more obliging employers as hysteria, and the like.

Load more