Group Solidarity and Survival

While this has little bearing on the merits of libertarian political philosophy, I must say that I am sympathetic to Bruce Charlton’s position.

Anecdotally, I’ve found the libertarian position to most often take root among individuals who were an only child.

This critique makes some sense in regard to war, but only if one were opposed to all wars. Very few libertarians I know are opposed to defensive wars. With regard to self sufficiency and hard work, he doesn’t have a case. Libertarians are probably the most hard working and responsible of the political philosophies. It requires that its adherents constantly take responsibility for their actions’ consequences.

Adam Smith wrote about circles of moral sentiments. Most political groups put a lot of effort into convincing people that the ideal size of a sentiment circle is the nation state. I am reminded of Dan Klein’s “Club Romance”, where he encourages people to find meaning and support one another in smaller groups. Humans aren’t really designed to care about groups larger than around 150. Group solidarity is important, but many political initiatives work to destroy it, not reinforce it. Consider protectionism – it may help a small group, but it destroys cooperation amoung larger groups.

I think he is doing the same mistake as many others and confusing libertarians with Objectivists.

I think the forest is being missed for all of our apparant tree-worship. Methodological individualism does not imply hermitism, though I must admit the language we use leans that way. In a similar fashion, liberty is not license, but libertines are well represented amongst libertarians to be sure.

As a big and small-L libertarian, I’ve seen way too much diversity in our movement to get overly excited about certain characterizations. But I have to admit, some stereotypes feel true enough to make me nervous, including those above.

Lastly, while I’m not so sure about the Theocrat stuff, if the recent influx of Republicans-Who-Like-Pot are the only thing keeping us from recreating Jonestown, perhaps I shouldn’t complain so much. 🙂

Nonsense on stilts.

Let’s see, individuals that a) believe in self-reliance, b) don’t look to the group for support or protection, c) have no sense of entitlement to others’ property and don’t insist that the state procure that property for them by force, and d) hold unconventional or heterodox views that are usually actively discouraged by society and family are … cowards?

Nice try.

If by “group solidarity” he means tribalism and coerced (at some level) submission to the group, then yeah, he’s probably right that libertarians are not big fans. If he means voluntary cooperation and organization and true benevolence towards others, he’s wrong. The crowding out of voluntary forms of organization and cooperation by the expansion of the state (usually in the supposed pursuit of group solidarity and whatever transcendental goals have been prescribed by those who consider themselves our moral and intellectual betters) is well recognized. The cynical exploitation of appeals to group solidarity and transcendental goals by political hucksters of various stripes to acquire power is also well recognized.

All sorts of voluntary organization, much of it aimed at the so-called transcendental goals, is consistent with libertarianism and predated the era of big government – charities, privately funded universities, churches, etc.

Lastly, speaking of goals, is there any more transcendental than individual freedom? For the answer, ask those who live without it.

So, it is an unalloyed good thing to draft and send men off to war?

The Founders of the US were about as libertarian as you can get, and they sure had a hard time with group solidarity and survival. Clearly he knows no libertarians and is doing what psychology calls “projecting”.

The nutshell response is “Just because I oppose the draft, that doesn’t mean I think there’s nothing worth fighting for.”

He has some valid points in there, though. Some organizations work better with its members committed to a centralized command: Russian communists ca. 1932, the blackshirts, Napoleon’s field army. A necessary part of Napoleon’s success as a general was the obedience of his men. His men in turn obeyed him out of patriotism, and because they believed his leadership would lead to success. Earlier French revolutionary armies had a more democratic organization: when ordered to attack, the units would vote on whether or not to comply. This worked as badly as you would imagine.

Notably, the Germans in WWII outfought everyone on a man-to-man basis with Hayekian tactics. They realized that the modern battlefield had gotten so big and so spread out, that the general in charge couldn’t possibly know enough to command in detail. Officers were informed about the intentions of the larger units they were part of and encouraged to use their own initiative. Obviously, they still had to follow orders and this worked because of the loyalty of the officers and men involved. Hitler did not follow this practice. His orders were specified in detail and meant to be followed exactly.

If centrally directed authority were stronger than our more-dispersed society, the Nazis or the Communists would have conquered the world. They were the closest to Charlton’s theocracies and they lost.

“…and consider suicide/ euthanasia as an obvious – first-line – solution to suffering. Libertarians have no compelling reason why they themselves should suffer for a larger or longer term cause.”

I would love to know what longer term cause/greater good he thinks Dr Kevorkian’s patients could have aided, had he not assisted their suicide.

He gets the Left right, but I agree that he seems to be talking about a certain kind of Objectivist rather than libertarians. Certainly, I did not see myself accurately described there at all. One can be personally communitarian and politically libertarian. Voluntary communities, yes; involuntary ones, no. I wouldn’t be surprised if plenty of libertarians died in wars (as an example of willingness to sacrafice). One could point to the Founding Fathers as classical liberals/libertarians who made plenty of sacrafices and were willing to be martyrs to the cause. And many did.

What he doesn’t seem to understand is that theocracies have been collapsing under their own weight over the past several hundred years. Whether they be traditional religions or the modern secular one of communism, theocracies — governments based on teleology — have proven mostly unstable. Especially in the face of spontaneous order societies, which are complex and robust. They can even take a consider about of b.s. from the Left.

So he can surrender to atavism if he wants. I’m fighting for a more complex, freer society.

I do believe those ambulances are run by the hopitals, which I do believe are able to be private companies (though things are sadly moving in the wrong direction there). Might need to come up with something better than something that has been proven to work perfectly well in the purely private sector.

On the empirical question of how well a society works when group loyalties are to small rather than large groups … .

Italy, in WWII, acquired a reputation for military ineptitude. My understanding, however, is that it was deserved only on the large. The Luftwaffe recruited Italians as pilots, and the Italian navy did well in small scale operations—heroic junior officers doing things with small ships. And, of course, the Sicilian Mafia provides a highly successful example of social organization built on small group loyalties, in part inconsistent with putative large group loyalties

Italy hasn’t been very successful at winning wars, but it’s a functioning society.

One has to understand where BGC is coming from. He believes that high religiosity, and only that (all other things being second or third tier drivers), is what increases birth rates/ feritility — in modern and traditional societies. He could be right. There may be other thing besides religion, that support natalism. In that case I want to find out about that option, not choose my ‘preferred variety of intolerance’. What’s the logic here? In order to stop growing pre-modern Islamic influence, we must return to pre-modern religious standards ourselves. How wonderful..

Libertarianism may have its shortcomings, but it does offer us some valuable economic insights. Charlton blames libertarians for having hedonistic impulses. He must be aiming at the Cato-Reason crowd; most web-libertarians I knowor read are social conservatives who advocate for a small (or no) state. And ironically, time preference as a concept is mostly used by Austrian economics theorists. I’m pretty sure such libertarians are aware of the risks of high time preference..

“So many libertarians are isolationists because the government uses war as an excuse to arrogate more power and control to itself. Few libertarians are outright pacifists.”

Er, I think most ‘isolationists’ don’t want their country to wage war on innocent people or get their country indebted for wars that don’t serve their interest. The past few years I’ve drifted away from libertarianism and embraced the traditional conservative right. (Main reason: libertarians seem to have a hard time understanding the impact of third world immigration on first world countries.) Reading Charlton and mainstream conservatives, I think that might be a mistake. Libertarianism is one of the ideals that makes the West a nice culture, I’d like to preserve some of that.