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“Libertarian” is a description applied to a wide variety of political philosophies in American society. The common thread at the core of each is an emphasis on individual liberty. At times, libertarianism appears as a political ideology, or as a cultural movement, and finally, a mere emotional impulse. It is rooted in the core DNA of the nation, dating back to our origins as the colonies of a heavy-handed monarchy. Individual rights took a prominent position in the Declaration of Independence, inseminating the new nation’s mythology with a near-pathological distrust of the national government. Most of us, regardless of our political leaning, oppose intrusion by government into our private lives. We are jealous of our personal liberties and, as a consequence, desirous of minimal interference from the state. In a personal way, most of us, no matter how we identify politically, prefer “small” government.

Identifying as “libertarian” seems to be in vogue these days as various strains of conservatism seek to differentiate themselves. Putative libertarians are a disparate group; among them you find the EPA-loathing Koch brothers, anti-tax activists, college students who backed Ron Paul in 2008, advocates for legalized marijuana, the cattle-grazing Cliven Bundy and survivalists living in the wilds of Alaska: a strange brew, indeed.

My own sense is that this preference for small government is more ambiguous and driven by factors other than a desire for personal freedom. Case in point: It is a given that business reflexively resists taxation and governmental regulation. So as not to appear completely self-serving, such rationales are frequently cloaked in the language of libertarianism. There is a sly, not unintended conflation of free market with various personal freedoms. Lost amid the noise of small government rhetoric from corporate bigwigs is the signal of economic and human costs borne by society in allowing these self-seeking actors to operate without prudent constraints.

News Item:

May 13, 2014

New York Times

 2 Killed in West Virginia Mine Accident

By Michael Wines

 “Two people were killed late Monday after being trapped in a collapse in a coal mine in Wharton, W.Va….

 “The Brody mine has a history of federal citations for safety violations… Forty-six citations, including 16 in 2013 and 2014, were for unwarrantable failure to comply with safety rules, which the agency defines as “aggravated conduct constituting more that[sic] ordinary negligence.”

 ”In the 12 months that ended Aug. 31, 2012, the mine was cited for more than 250 significant and substantial violations, meaning that they were reasonably likely to cause a serious injury.”

Of course, the hypocrisy of the position of the proponents of a diminished government role in the private sector is exposed, ironically enough, whenever the economic rent-seekers go scurrying to the very same government for protection from those same free market forces for which they have such affection:

News Item:

 May 11

 The Associated Press

 “Electric car maker Tesla Motors is decrying a last-minute legislative move to prohibit direct car sales to Missouri consumers in a battle playing out in several states between the California company and traditional car dealers.

 “Missouri lawmakers added new wording to a pending bill last week that would bar auto manufacturers from circumventing car dealerships and selling directly to buyers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The measure passed the Missouri Senate without debate.

 “The effort’s top supporters include state Senator Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, a former car dealer [Emphasis added].”

 When it comes to these kinds of libertarians, they can best be described as practitioners of flim flammery, motivated by avarice and having no particular interest in personal liberty. Like all plunderers, they prefer not to be in hindered by the law. If anything, they endeavor to use government to interfere with anyone else who might obstruct their looting of society’s wealth.

Cultural libertarians are a fascinating study in their own right. Here we find people spouting platitudes about liberty and freedom and waving the Gadsden flag at rallies. They express a desire to pursue happiness freely, unrestricted by an oppressive government. It is consequently curious that some of these same people see no contradiction in opposing other people’s right to exercise their free choices. We have witnessed the battles in state legislatures over women’s reproductive rights, with several states mandating transvaginal ultra-sound examination for women seeking abortions. Cloaking this intrusion into the lives (and literally, the bodies) of citizens with a veneer of morality, they aver a stunning expansion of government into the personal lives of citizens. That they do this without acknowledging the irony is a wonderment. Peril accompanies moral certainty, a phenomenon the writer H.L. Mencken warned us about last century:

” Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."

What is certain is that the invocation of morality almost always means liberty for some, but not for all. Witness the farcical vision of certain state legislators calling for a ban of the practice of Sharia law because, after all, the United States is a Christian nation. Again, the irony that a nation founded in part by the decendents of people fleeing religious intolerance would attempt to institutionalize a type of religious intolerance seems lost on these people.

Then there are the acolytes of Ayn Rand, worshippers at the altar of the individual. Rand manages to reduce society to a bi-polar condition: there is the collectivism of the state on one side and the individual who resists that collectivism on the other. It is the individual who achieves, the state which stifles. There is an almost romantic- albeit naïve- appeal to her devotion to the individual. The principle tenets of Objectism, her philosophy, are often found in the statements of libertarian-leaning Republicans such as Rand Paul and Paul Ryan.

Whither the Social Contract?

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?”

Let me put it this way” “Can a person become wealthy if not a member of a society?”

The concept of the Social Contract- the idea that individuals surrender some of their personal liberties in order to be a member of a group which in itself can provide its own set of rewards- underpins much of modern political theory. The idea of an implicit agreement between citizens and the state that guarantees most people the opportunity to live in a civilized society is the basis of modern political systems. Libertarian thought seems to run counter to this- a Google search for “libertarianism+social contract theory” and returns a trove of libertarian writings contesting the theory.

In reality, of course, libertarians want government- to enforce contracts, provide national defense, and maintain law and order. If we tunnel into the core of the American libertarian, eliminate the wide-spread desire for freedom from government interference in our personal lives, what you will find is a very traditional American value- the profit motive. Libertarians resent taxation, and they despise government programs which create the need for taxation. They resent limits on the use of their “private property”. The rail against fiat currency. Of course, in America, all private property originated with the actions of some government (the colonizing powers or our own government which obtained the land mainly through purchase or conquest). A return to the gold standard is not in the offing, either.

Distilled, we are looking at a 19^th Century philosophy, laissez-faire economics. American libertarians are not of the “brother’s keeper” ilk. They seem to want a society that is many ways resembles one depicted in science-fiction movies, an island society of prisoners left to govern themselves without outside interference.

Those movies always seem to end in chaos.