That most people desire individual liberty was an hypothesis on which the rise of liberalism in the 18th century was predicated. But here is a question: Is that hypothesis true?
“What people really care about is who gets to tell them what to do,” writes David Runciman in How Democracy Ends. In Democracy for Realists, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue that what counts for people is group or partisan loyalty, and that individuals align their opinions on their political party as much as, or more than, the latter follow their members’ opinions.
In a free-market society, there are private ways for people to be told what to do if that’s what they want. They can choose to belong to a sect, adhere to an organized religion, enter into a religious order, earn their living as employees, or just follow what others do in another social tribe to which they belong.
However, the original question remains because some people may want to be told what to do by political leaders (who will ipso facto tell others what to do: that’s the difference between following a political leader and choosing private ways of belonging). Public choice theorists believe that the domination of special interests and government bureaucrats can be ended by a voters’ takeover. But what if voters want to “take over” the government only in the sense of electing somebody from their own partisan tribe to tell them what to do?
The current partisan climate in the United States seems to confirm this. From the results of the last presidential election, we observe that one third of the electorate want to be told what to do by Donald Trump or the Republican Party—the latter changing its traditional stances to follow the former. Another third of the electorate want to be told what to do by the Democratic Party and whoever leads it. The last third—those who don’t vote—don’t care, or perhaps they are happy to be told what to do by whoever is in power.
The rising populist movements in the world, which are typically illiberal, also seem to confirm the desire of large chunks of voters to blindly and loyally follow strong political rulers.
What is the proportion of the population who share the 18th-century dream of individual liberty for all? And how does this affect the prospects of liberty?
READER COMMENTS
Robert D.
Jul 11 2018 at 6:20pm
I’m among the 1/3 who didn’t vote, and I specifically refused to vote because I didn’t want anyone using my vote (regardless of how infinitesimally insignificant it is) to mount a podium and utter trash like, “I have a mandate to…” or “Elections have consequences.” I do not want to be told what to do, and I abjectly refuse to vote for anyone who will use winning an election as grounds to force their vision on the whole country. Especially when two-thirds of that country, either actively or through inaction, didn’t support the new wannabe dictator.
BC
Jul 11 2018 at 9:39pm
I don’t think we can infer from election results that people want to be told what to do. They may, however, want to elect leaders that will tell *others* what to do. That’s a big difference. If people truly wanted someone else to tell them what to do, they would not need to elect a Big Government. They could always (individually) just decide to follow someone else’s orders. People elect Big Government to control others, e.g., control others’ migration, spend Other People’s money, censor others’ speech, etc. They still want liberty for themselves. We know they want liberty for themselves because even popularly elected Big Government needs to threaten criminal punishment to get the voters that elected it to comply.
The challenge is to convince people that electing Big Government to threaten others’ liberty will eventually threaten their own liberty. I think that is one of the reasons why we see illiberal attitudes in relatively free countries: people take their own liberty for granted so much that they have trouble envisioning that threats to others’ liberties will eventually spill back onto themselves. Campus speech restrictions are a perfect example. Restriction proponents actually value (their own) free speech. They just don’t believe that the restrictions could eventually censor their own speech.
mbka
Jul 11 2018 at 11:43pm
This play has already had a run, best described in Popper’s “The open society and its enemies”. For those who haven’t read it, it juxtaposes “closed”, fixed-hierarchy, tribal societies, with “open” societies where people are not confined to their original position acquired through birth, nationality, tribe, social class of the family, or other factors not borne out of their own making.
Popper pointed out that closed societies have a lot of proponents even in modernity. It seems that we’re in the same downswing of that pendulum right now – group identity is the in thing. I hope it’s really a pendulum swing only.
Interesting detail: George Soros originally took up philosophy under Popper. Bet he felt like he couldn’t hold a candle to the man, so he went into finance instead. Here, he used another of Popper’s concepts – falsifiability. Soros went into investment with a scientific mind set, assuming that his ideas are faulty and always approching investment like a falsifiable experiment.
Soros’ educational projects in Eastern Europe have a strong popperian flavor as well. The hatred against Soros is probably founded in hostility to Popper’s critique of mindless tribalism and pursuit of cold, scientific fact instead of romanticised belief.
Mark Z
Jul 13 2018 at 2:40am
“The hatred against Soros is probably founded in hostility to Popper’s critique of mindless tribalism and pursuit of cold, scientific fact instead of romanticised belief.”
Really? Is the hatred of the Koch brothers founded in hostility toward freedom? Is hatred of Sheldon Adelson founded in anti-Semitism?
I’m willing to bet most people who oppose Soros don’t care much about Popper one way or the other. They dislike him because of his financial support for left wing causes, including opposition to free markets, support for affirmative action, support for anti-police protests, etc. Surely it can’t be that hard to imagine people oppose one’s views and those who promulgate them for reasons other than they ‘hate science and mindless tribalism.’
mbka
Jul 13 2018 at 5:22am
I’m a bit scratching my head here. The kind of Soros hatred I see around is more of the alt-right to lunatic generic kind of “member-of-the-illuminati / exploiting-the-working-classes / seeking-world-domination-by-infusing-our-children-with-immigrant-blood. All this delivered with a whiff of anti semitism. It doesn’t seem to come from any reasoned discussion of Soros’ opinions or actions, the hatred seems to come straight from the gut.
Although for sure, the Koch-hatred works the same way and I don’t understand it either. Adelson, I wasn’t even aware he was hated.
Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan
Jul 13 2018 at 10:37pm
In America, loathing of Soros is primarily associated with his support for leftist organizations whose visions are essentially totalitarian. I frankly do not understand how he imagines himself as a supporter of open societies, given some of what he funds here.
He has also funded some very worthy causes but, exactly because of the other things that he has funded, those causes are brought under such suspicion that they might well do better without his involvement.
Mark Z
Jul 14 2018 at 12:14pm
When I think of anti-Soros sentiment on the right, I think of Glenn Beck and his chalk board. Much of what he says is bizarre, and it’s popular for him and others on the right to attribute everything bad to him, but I think it is indeed because of his opinions. You can see on Beck’s old show (I use to occasionally watch reruns at 3AM when I couldn’t sleep and the only other things on were infomercials) that it was things like socialist, BLM, or other left wing type activism on campuses that he would try to tie to Soros because someone there was a member of a group whose leader was a member of another group whose treasurer did an internship at a group partially funded by Soros.
In other words, much like leftists with the Koch brothers, Soros serves the purpose of associating organizations or activism of people one disagrees with to a rich, powerful benefactor, which is seen as reducing its reducing its legitimacy.
Incidentally, I think Soros’s ideas are largely terrible (he’s been a financial supporter of socialist, anti-police activism, etc., and other illiberal movements on the left) but I don’t think he’s a driving force in any movements as some like to believe.
In Hungary, I think he’s often hated for the somewhat different reason that he funds groups opposed to the current nationalist regime, so I guess I’d be less unsympathetic to his cause there. Personally, in the dispute between fascism and socialism, I’d prefer to see them both lose somehow.
mbka
Jul 16 2018 at 12:30am
Thanks (and thanks to Daniel too)
I guess I haven’t delved too deeply. I’ve seen Soros mainly in direct interviews where he explained his philosophy, and that made somewhat sense, although he comes across as overestimating his insight into how the world works. But he did seem, to me, sincere in trying to be a force for good. Which btw, I think is also true for the Koch brothers, it’s all a bit ironic. Once people get very wealthy, they get this disproportionate power, all the while they remain people, and their judgment is often no better than ordinary once you take them away from their area of primary expertise. But they become lightning rods for hatred all the same, because they make good symbols for “all that is wrong with [insert pet single issue]”, and all their honest mistakes are taken as purposeful evil.
Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan
Jul 12 2018 at 1:48am
We need to account for the facts that many people were primarily attempting to vote against rule by a Republican or against rule by a Democrat, rather than for rule by either. (Consider people such as Richard Allen Epstein, a well-known libertarian-conservative who supported Clinton as a way of opposing Trump.)
Then there is the important point made by BC that people often vote not from a desire to have themselves ruled, but from a desire to have others ruled. Perhaps BC ought to have mentioned that some people do not feel ruled when the mandated choice is the same as they would have made without being ruled. (Others do not feel this way. For example, I greatly resent being commanded to wear a seat-belt in a motor vehicle, though I habitually chose to use one for many years before the law required their use.)
From what data I have seen, I believe that about a third of the adult population would like governance of the US to move from where it is in a (classical) liberal direction, that about a quarter would like it to move further to the left, and that about a quarter would like it to move to restore and uphold what are taken to be traditional institutions. (Mind you that, were the country to move in any of these directions, there would be some share who supported that much movement, but none further.)
Joe McDevitt
Jul 12 2018 at 10:19am
Do People Want Liberty?
NO. If they wanted Liberty you would have to accept responsibility for yourself.
Rome is falling.
R Richard Schweitzer
Jul 12 2018 at 11:07am
This article opens up a number of lines of thought, each of which should be explored separately.
The piece does seem to take inferences from recent U S Presidential (skipping over the related more regional and federal legislative) election; as well as “populism” (read: discontents)trends amongst “Western” societies. So, let’s take up there.
As to “wanting” individual liberty, perhaps we might more accurately view the issue as individuals (separately and forming groups) weighing of the benefits of, and need for, “organization” of individual capacities and efforts.
That nature of “organization” can take us to consider the lugubrious work of Robert Michells which posits that organization results in the ultimate formation of oligarchies in the direction of group decisions and actions.
The determinations of the formations, modes of “ruling” or operation, and sufficient “public” acceptance, of any particular oligarchic structure (and there is good evidence there is always some such) which through evolution and “results” (or lack thereof) comes to a point of sufficient “public” dissatisfaction, may bring about the “downfall” of predominant oligarchies.
Effects of the recent U S elections and current party organization disorders (fractures and fragmentation) may be viewed as “overthrows” of “establishments.”
Establishments are a softer label for the oligarchies – which they are.
In the U S, the long period of ameliorating personal obligations and substituting coercive group or “society’s” obligations (largely through governmental, hence political, oligarchically managed, mechanisms) has led to the acceptance of imposed obligations (constraints on individual liberty). Here again, the issue may be more accurately seen as a weighing of personal determination and acceptance of obligations (which may constrain “freedom”) and the acceptance of imposed obligations -which most certainly do constrain freedom.
In all, consideration should not be lost as to a very vital part of individual liberty, which most associate with morality. Beyond “what to do” is the more vital issue of “how.” That is the issue of how to perform (or in cases to evade performing) obligations, self-determined or imposed. That people seem to “cling” to.
We may well be looking at a wide-spread perception that the oligarchies (and the modes of their institution and perpetuation) have failed, are the sources of dissatisfactions – to be eliminated, even at some costs.
Hilary Barnes
Jul 12 2018 at 5:37pm
“The rising populist movements in the world, which are typically illiberal, also seem to confirm the desire of large chunks of voters to blindly and loyally follow strong political rulers.”
I was rather relieved when recently I looked at a Wikipedia article on populist movements in Europe. There are many of them, but none of them is tagged as “authoritarian”; they seem to accept the democratic systems of which they are a part, and it does not seem to me accurate to say that their supporters wish blindly and loyally to follow strong political leaders, though some may do. It is common to these movements that they have a less liberal attitude to immigration, and not only non-European immigration, that the mainstream view.
Mark Z
Jul 13 2018 at 2:53am
Do people vote against liberty for themselves or others? If we made it so that every year or so people could opt in or out of laws, would most people who favor, say, restrictions on payday loans, or minimum wage laws, drug laws, etc. opt in to have these laws apply to themselves? Or would most people who support these laws be libertarians regarding their own lives, because “I know better than to make poor choices; these laws are for all those people that can’t make their own decisions.”
Of course, if it’s the latter, then allowing people to opt out of paternalistic laws or policies would be contradictory to their purpose, as the people such laws would benefit are presumed to be incapable of making good decisions for themselves.
Mark Brophy
Jul 13 2018 at 5:12pm
I don’t vote because my vote doesn’t matter. I can’t influence national elections and local entities like states, counties, and cities are merely administrative units of the central government.
T Boyle
Jul 16 2018 at 9:53am
Probably the wrong question: it’s pretty clear the answer is “not for anyone outside the tribe”, but it’s not clear that it matters very much.
Liberty doesn’t gain ground because people want it to. It more likely gains ground despite the people’s opposition, because government needs it to. Governments that promote at least moderately high liberty, and protect liberties against the democratic desire for tyranny of the majority, have tended to become richer and more powerful than governments that don’t. That doesn’t mean that any given government will have the institutions and processes to ensure it does that: governments have a well-known tendency toward tyranny. It simply means that a government without those institutions will weaken and may fail.
History is littered with governments that died through overcontrol – indeed, places like Venezuela keep adding to the tally, but it’s a long tally. Are there any that have died of “too much liberty”? Hard to say: there are arguable examples, some would argue that most revolutions take advantage of an environment that tolerates their activities.
So, governments explore the space: how much liberty, how much authoritarianism? What works well? What can they get away with? What succeeds?
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