I can’t resist quoting at length from this excellent Through the Looking Glass post…
What’s interesting here is that if the homeowner’s association were a formally constituted government body — say, a zoning board — the homeowner would face pretty much the same set of choices that he does against a private body: fight in court, petition the board to change its policies, or run for a seat on the board and start to work from the inside. And the argument that “he know about the association when he chose to buy his house” applies just as well to a zoning board. The main difference is that, as our libertarian commentators are quick to point out, there are restraints on government, like the first amendment, which do not apply to private bodies and cannot be used to defend against them.
Which all might give some people the feeling that there’s something ever so slightly wrong with libertarianism. (At least if you think it’s supposed be about empowering people and not corporations; if the latter, there’s no problem at all).
It’s worth it to read the whole post. (Via The Sideshow, whose post is also good reading).
I agree with the libertarians that freedom from government intrusion is a good thing – reproductive freedom, for example, and freedom from goverment censoring boards. But other freedoms matter as well – freedom from the threat of hunger and poverty, for example. Freedom from having a political process dominated entirely by the wealthy and by corporations. Freedom from discrimination. None of these freedoms, however, seem worth protecting to libertarians.
UPDATE: Will Baude responds and, unsurprisingly, disagrees. If the permalink doesn’t work for you, look for the entry dated August 13 2003.
UPDATE the SECOND: The blog Freespace disagrees with me, also..
Weird. This sets in stark relief a semantic shortcoming I’ve long suspected many libertarians of harboring: that “government” is some weird category all on its own, bearing something inarticulable, but inherent and essential, that differentiates it from any other way people have of getting together and making rules about how they’re going to do stuff and implementing those rules and making sure nobody gets away with breaking them too much.
It’s a consequence, perhaps, of the disempowerment rhetoric so favored by the right (and here I step out on a creaking limb): the government isn’t you; it’s this other thing, over there, and it does stuff to you and you have no control over it, except to make it smaller and one day drown it in a bathtub. –So that corporations (large, authoritarian, centrally-planned economies) and homeowners’ associations (capricious, authoritarian governing bodies whose only writ is Robert’s Rules of Order–if that) and privatized security forces and military support and logistics (lily-livered cowards who run at the first sign of a dip in the bottom line–and did we mention authoritarian) all have plenty of room to come in and do stuff to you and guess what? You don’t have any control over them at all. Ha ha!
Tools. Give me libertinism any goddamn day.
“But other freedoms matter as well – freedom from the threat of hunger and poverty, for example. Freedom from having a political process dominated entirely by the wealthy and by corporations. Freedom from discrimination. None of these freedoms, however, seem worth protecting to libertarians.”
I used to be a libertarian, but I drifted because of the reasons you cite. Recently, I discovered I still am a libertarian.
It seemd in the past 10 years or so, there has been a lot of work done in the intellectual realm on “left-libertarianism”. The threat of hunger or poverty is well handeled by them: Most support a universal basic income, concieved a rents on unearned property that all persons should have a right to. Corporations are recognised as “large, authoritarian, centrally-planned economies” – created by the government – and seen as deserving of taxation and reorganization of governence structure. Left-libertarians have done much less work in the realm of discrimination, but the critical race legal theorist I was assigned to read in my Jurisprudence class in the mid-nineties complained mostly of the government regulations inhibiting the guerrilla capitalism that props up many poor minority nieghborhoods, so I assume there are fruitfull connections that can be made in that area too.
Left-libertarianism does not yet have many non-accademic supporters, but it is just getting off the ground. Times may change.
In response to the example about the homeowners’ association, the point that many libertarians would probably raise in rebuttal is the notion that the homeowners’ association contains an opt-out provision — one can sell one’s home and move elsewhere if one is dissatisfied with the association’s rules. In the libertarian view, such an opt-out would be considerably more difficult when the authority in question is governmental; it is difficult to structure one’s behavior in order to escape from taxes for public schools or military armament, for instance.
I’d also want to know a little more about the HA. How did it come to have power in the first place? Presumably the guy who bought the house agreed to it in the first place?
“I’d also want to know a little more about the HA. How did it come to have power in the first place? Presumably the guy who bought the house agreed to it in the first place?”
Does it matter? From the time you are 18 you have the right to choose your masters, uh, leaders thus agreeing to the system in the first place.
Tom T. said, “In response to the example about the homeowners’ association, the point that many libertarians would probably raise in rebuttal is the notion that the homeowners’ association contains an opt-out provision — one can sell one’s home and move elsewhere if one is dissatisfied with the association’s rules. In the libertarian view, such an opt-out would be considerably more difficult when the authority in question is governmental; it is difficult to structure one’s behavior in order to escape from taxes for public schools or military armament, for instance. ”
The two parts of your argument are actually non sequitor; the second part does not logically follow from the first. In the first part, you say that if the homeowner doesn’t like to display his flag, then a libertarian would say that he has the right to move to another neighbourhood. Then you say that a similar opt-out isn’t as possible with a government becasue one cannot so easily opt-out of taxes for public schools. The analogy, however, isn’t consistent because taxes for public schools is more analogous to the display of the flag than to living in the neighbourhood. Thus, in regard to the issue of taxes for public schools, if one were to follow the logic, it’s okay for the government to tax us for public school systems because there’s an opt-out in the form of the ability to move to France (or wherever; I don’t imagine that France is a libertarian paradise).
If Tom T.’s comments really are representative to libertarian thought, whether he is a libertarian or not, I think that shows a pretty hefty logical inconsistency in their thinking.
I’m not an organized thinker of any sort, so the Cato Institute may well disavow any of my thoughts as unrepresentative of their views. :-)
PDP, you may be pushing my comment farther than it’s meant to go. I’m not trying to suggest that there’s a significantly qualitative distinction between the private power arrangment of the HA, and the public power of a government; just that there’s a noticeable difference in degree. Hence my comment that it’s “considerably more difficult” to avoid public laws than to decline to enter private contracts (I do think it’s a lot more difficult to move to another country than to move down the street).
There’s a federalism point in there too. Empowering state and local governments to pursue different policies gives people more flexibility to find a governmental structure that is more to their liking. For instance, I assume that libertarian thought would approve of Vermont citizens deciding to approve of gay unions, even if the idea shocks the citizens of Utah (setting aside the various federal tax issues, etc.).
It seems to me that this discussion has arisen in a strange context, though. Having finally read the Thought Mesh posting that is linked in the Sideshow’s post, it is indeed hard for me to see why the Thought Mesh writer believes he is making a libertarian point. He is drawing a contrast between libertarianism and “libertinism” that I really don’t understand. I would have expected a libertarian to look at the HA situation in terms of contract language and the parties’ expectations, rather than this seemingly moralistic concept of “believing that he should be able to do what ever he wants without consquences,” which has straw-man overtones to me.
Didn’t they tell you, kip ? All government employees have their blood removed upon hiring and replaced with tiny little stainless steel ball-bearings. And you wonder why I always rattle when I walk ?!
Decnavada, thanks for mentioning that. I’ve also seen some “geolibertarians” or “progressive libertarians” who has some very interesting views.
I think it’s unfortunate to see libertarians so often bashing leftists and leftists bashing libertarians. I would like to see both groups working together to build common ground. I know of several libertarians that want to get rid of Bush as much as I do but they can’t seem to see past their reflexive dislike of liberals. Well, that’s their loss.
I’ve posted another libertarian response to this same article here:
http://www.theagitator.com/archives/007942.php#007942
Will Baude’s response says most of what I want to say about the “freedoms”. To respond to one objection raised in the comments and the linked-to posts: a private organization, in the libertarian view, is not a government because it operates on the basis of *individual* free contract and unanimous consent– not a “social contract” and majority consent. The homeowner’s association rightfully owns the right to set rules for the homeowners who buy into it; a zoning board or other government doesn’t rightfully own anything at all.
Now, perhaps you disagree with that philosophical position. Fine. But then disagree with it, rather than dismissing it or distorting it.
Nicholas, someone who refers to people who disagree with them as “demagoguing” and “doom-mongering” is not in a good position to lecture anyone about treating opposition respectfully, or not distorting their position.
Ach, fair enough; that last sentence was overheated. Touche. I’ll edit it.
“Freedom from having a political process dominated entirely by the wealthy and by corporations. Freedom from discrimination. None of these freedoms, however, seem worth protecting to libertarians.”
News Flash: Our political process is already “dominated entirely by the wealthy and by corporations”, and discrimination is alive and well. None of this is at all related to libertarianism (of which I do not subscribe).
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This is kind of a subtle argument, but when you talk about freedoms not worth protecting to libertarians it seems like your really talking about safety nets and legal protections things that libertarians hate.
Libertarians don’t believe in safety nets, and they only support legal protections that apply equally across the board like the first ammendment. They wouldn’t support hatecrime protection for example since they would say the law is being applied unequally in that situation.
I think safety nets are a good thing to a certain extent, but I kind of see their point on legal protections.