Tom Woods likes to say that Libertarianism isn’t about this or that, such as selfishness or individualism or anything else, but rather it’s about people getting along with each other peacefully. Voluntary social interactions.
This important observation demonstrates why Libertarianism is profoundly radical, because the principle of voluntary social interaction contains a superficial contradiction. This contradiction is perhaps the key source of criticism from left and right against Libertarianism. It is: if I accept the right of others to choose to do whatever they want to do in life, then what do I do when they choose things that harm my interests?
As I said, this is a superficial contradiction. Libertarians are perfectly comfortable with the sound logic of the non-aggression principle, and non-initiation of force. Yet, both the left and the right have decent critiques of the principle.
The right proposes that culture represents an unspoken “trust” commons. The willingness to abide by the NAP is a product of culture, and they propose that certain policies which perhaps violate NAP are pragmatically necessary to preserve the cultural commons that makes voluntary social interaction possible.
The left’s critique is remarkably similar. This is that people are not individually capable enough to make the sort of market choices needed to achieve the utilitarian common good. Classes of people will form with different needs and desires, and in competing for their particular class interest, they’ll waste resources. Therefore people need to be managed to compensate for wasteful class differences.
Both critiques fail because the solutions which come from a commitment to voluntary interaction are not intuitive from the perspective of our basic social instincts (one such instinct is conformity or submission to authority as outward signs of a willingness to seek harmony – deviants are seen as not only harmful, but willfully antagonistic).
Imagine a lower class family. This family possesses cultural habits which might be said to contribute to their economic status. These might be: need for instant gratification, tendency to act based on immediate emotional concerns rather than rational considerations, an embrace of leisure and hedonism to bring meaning to life, a lack of expectation of having wealth with a consequent desire to spend money as soon as it is obtained.
The left has traditionally reacted to this sort of culture – first in the form of poor rural Yankee whites, then later freed black slaves, now poor urban blacks and again rural whites – by proposing cultural revolution. They propose puritanical reforms: schools for indoctrination, prohibition movements, cultural war against the institutions of these people (such as evangelical Christianity, or black culture) and so forth. The idea is to use the power and wealth of the state to prevent people from living their own lives, and to impose upon them the socially responsible culture the left prefers.
The right generally takes a more organic approach to the issue, but it seeks the same outcome: removal of the cultures seen as socially harmful. Instead of reform, the right seeks segregation, extradition, imprisonment, and so forth. Groups that possess approved cultural traits are left alone, but other groups are forced to live apart.
Libertarianism’s probable “solution” is radically different from both left and right in that it doesn’t propose to change or eliminate cultural habits that might make voluntary interaction difficult, but rather to accommodate them.
For example: I personally know many poor people who struggle with managing all the complicated and bureaucratic institutions of modern life. Credit card payments, collections agencies, interest rates, healthcare regulations, safety regulations, arriving exactly on time to work, legal proceedings, family life and divorce issues, and so forth. Even calling the cable company to cancel service is profoundly time consuming and often confusing. Much of the legal infrastructure surrounding these things is structured to accomodate the habits of the highly competent, and if it’s dumbed down it’s nevertheless for the benefit of a conscientious middle class. When you get home, don’t pop that beer can Cletus, check your credit statement first!
Imagine cultural habits that produce economic waste (legal services industry dealing with persistent petty domestic abuse, for example). The left wants to waste even more money trying to force people to change. The right wants to keep everyone they don’t like locked up. Libertarianism sees: profit potential.
Tired of dealing with collectors? We’ll manage your credit and deal with the bureaucracy and legalese for you – we know how to cancel your cable in minutes, and we won’t argue with you about it.
Got in trouble for domestic abuse? We serve victims and perpetrators alike. We’ll take care of your family and keep them safe, help you manage your anger if you want, but most importantly convince a judge that you don’t need to be imprisoned. For a small fee.
To the irresponsible the message is: party all you want, but pay us a little and we can manage the worst consequences for you and for everyone else.
That’s how voluntary interaction works. You have to live with uncomfortableness. But, as you accomodate it the division of labor enables both cultures you like and don’t like to make progress. Life can get better for both at the same time.
