But before I begin doing this, I think one post is required that is more general. Politics is very complicated, and it doesn't help that people with different opinions often borrow eachothers terminology. To resolve this confusion I'm going to explain what different words mean to me, and of course I'm going to explain what a Minarchist Libertarian believes in, and why I choose to believe in this over other political philosophies.
A good start would be to outright reject the concept of definining yourself as either "left-wing" or "right-wing" as this is too simplistic. Online there is a political test called the 'political compass' test, I'm sure most of you have heard of this. Whilst the test itself has horribly slanted questions, it does introduce nicely the concept that there should be a whole new axis added to the equation. Right down the middle of your left-right line there should be a vertical line - which then creates four different positions. The horizontal line represents economics, and the vertical line represents social policy.
Straight away this changes the face of politics entirely. This is where the political compass website places many of the mainstream parties in the UK, in 2008:
An interesting observation here is that the BNP party is actually defined as being left-wing, wheras in the media they are constantly referred to as being "far right" - the reason I am eager to stress this point is that according to my definitions I am actually the one who is far-right, however, I am also the exact opposite of the BNP and I want to make sure I am never associated with them in anyway. If there is still any confusion, here is the websites explanation for where they place the BNP:
"It's muddled thinking to simply describe the likes of the British National Party as extreme right. The truth is that on issues like health, transport, housing, protectionism and globalisation, their economics are left of Labour, let alone the Conservatives. It's in areas like police power, military power, school discipline, law and order, race and nationalism that the BNP's real extremism - as authoritarians - is clear."
So where does a Minarchist Libertarian fit into this? Unlike any mainstream political party I fit into the 'bottom right' box, which means that I am economically a 'neo liberal' (but I prefer the term free-marketer) and socially I am apparently a 'libertarian' (and again I disapprove of the websites terminology here, libertarianism is as much economical as it is social, the term 'liberal' works here, I am socially liberal.) I am also aware that this website places the liberal democrats into my area: and of the big three parties that is who I would probably vote for - but firstly I am far more 'extreme' than the liberal democrats and on social issues especially I would be hugging that bottom line, and secondly I simply don't think that they are actually a right-wing party due to the huge precense of "social democrats" in the party who are effectively socialists who are also socially liberal. Finally, I hope it is now clear that a libertarian truly is the opposite to the BNP, who market themselves as "the labour party your parents voted for" - in other words, as a socialist party (that happens to be horrifically authoritarian in addition to that.)
Finally, I am going to quickly summarise what a Minarchist Libertarian believes, and why I identify myself as one. Firstly, when it comes to defining your social values - issues such as freedom of speech, immigration, capital punishment, warfare, drugs policy, prostitution and so on, the real difference between being authoritarian and liberal is the level of involvement of the government. In all of those examples I listed, and all others which I just don't have time to list, the more a government is doing to supress those things, the more authoritarian it is being. However if you believe that most, or all, of the above should be a matter of choice for the individual - free from state intervention - then you are socially a liberal. A libertarian such as myself sees society as 60 million individuals who each have their own set of morals and values, and I believe that legislation over morals should be an absolute last resort. For example, many people feel that prostitution is morally 'wrong' and should be illegal. Whilst on a personal level I agree with them: I do not believe the role of government is to put people into prison for making a decision that it sees as morally questionable, if they are consenting adults of a sound mind, who is the victim? Not to mention the fact that when the government intervenes on social issues even with the best intentions, it runs the risk of exasperating the problem, to give another example, prohibition of drugs makes illegal substances far more dangerous than they would be if they were legal and regulated - it also creates organised crime, and all evidence suggests that it actually increases drug use compared to the alternatives of decriminalistion or even full legalisation.
As a student my social values don't tend to raise many eyebrows, but on economic issues I am often faced with criticism. This is because economically I am "right-wing", and yes this means that I prefer the conservatives to labour, and I prefer UKIP to the conservatives. Many of those who take the political compass test come out as "bottom left" - and whilst that is largely because the questions are designed to produce that outcome - it is also partially because that really is the position of many students. The concept of being in favour of capitalism seems outrageous.
The point I would make is that I do not support capitalism as we know it in modern society. What I support is "free-market" capitalism which we do not have. The consistency between my economic and social values is that economically speaking: free-market capitalism requires minimal government intervention. In fact if you google "minarchism" this is the definition that comes up first:
"Minarchism (sometimes called minimal statism, small government or limited-government libertarianism) refers to a political ideology which maintains that the state's only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression."
It now becomes clear that taken to it's extreme, my political position would actually be anarchy. Though I have nothing but contempt for anarchists who give libertarianism a bad name by making it look too extreme and unworkable. It's a bit like somebody who is left-wing having contempt for communists for giving them a bad name.
Some people believe that the economics of society are totally seperate to the social aspects. They believe that you can increase the public sector at the expense of the private sector - and this create a huge government with more and more government officials whose job it is to make decisions on your behalf - without them then using that power to legislate over your day to day life socially. I think this is naive at best, dangerous at worst - it is no coincidence that the Nazis and in modern times the BNP were both economically socialists. True capitalism actually ensures freedom for the individual by reducing (though not eliminating) the role of government in society. Another positive of capitalism can better be expressed by a nobel prize economist than myself:
"The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what colour people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another." - Milton Friedman.
As I said at the beginning of this post, which seems so long ago - in the future I will confine myself to discussing a single issue which is currently in the news, but it seemed sensible to give a more vague overview of my ideas first.
The Political compass is fundamentally flawed. Any system which places Sarah Palin and Joseph Stalin as similar in a social context is completely flawed as Stalinism is the complete opposite from conservatism on social or cultural issues.
ReplyDeleteThe old right/left political spectrum is far suprerior in determining the overall character of a political position.
Sarah Palin and Joseph Stalin both believe that the state should have a higher authority over the personal lives of the individual than the individuals themselves. While culturally Stalin may have believed Marx when he said "religion is the opium of the masses" and in contrast Palin was a creationist - their different beliefs lead to the same outcome, and that is what is important.
ReplyDeleteI do take your point, and I do know that even the system I have proposed is still flawed and is still too simple: but I don't see how you can claim that making it more simple still will rectify this.
All statists believe that but that isn't what the difference between leftism and rightism is. Stalin advocated revolution or the destruction of tradition while Palin (or a better conservative like Gottfried) advocates conservation of tradition.
ReplyDeleteTo equate social "liberalism" with leftism is insane. Most of the leftist or "progressive" cultural or social reforms that have occured (multiculturalism, radical feminism, "gay marriage") could not have ben possible without the extensive state involvement that made those things happen.
The traditonal left/right system is in fact less simple than the one of the political compass as you have to anaylse the whole character of the political position to place it correctly. With the political compass this doesn't happen as only very superficial things are taken into account and real deep philosophical positions are ignored.
Many progressive social reforms can surely be viewed as the removal of state intervention, not the creation of it. The process of making things legal, ie. gay marriage, female suffrage, etc. means the government is placing fewer restrictions and therefore playing a less active role.
ReplyDelete"Social liberals" want fewer state restrictions on people's personal freedom and "right-wingers" want fewer state restrictions on business and the economy. It's natural that these two would go hand in hand, as they do in the libertarian/minarchist ideology, however in common political parties the opposite often seems to be true. To try and place every party on one axis, as you've suggested- the left/right axis- would require ignoring major parts of their ideology. If you did it on a purely economic basis, old Labour and the Nazis would be worryingly close while Libertarians and Republicans would have to share the other end of the spectrum, which clearly doesn't properly reflect the respective parties' beliefs. How exactly would you take all factors into account, without using the additional axis that Ben has?
Even though the traditional spectrum only has one dimension (left/right) while the political compass has two, the problem is that the dimensions of the political compass is very superficial and ignores the general attitudes of political positions.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the poltical compass is that it is inherently anti-conservative in thought as it is very universalist, i.e. it believes that being a Mexican libertarian and a Israeli libertarian means being the same thing. The traditional left/right spectrum however avoids this with it's main dichotomy of egalitarian leftism against conservatism which can be applied to almost all eivilisations.
The old left/right spectrum isn't about economics but about the approach to the traditional institutions and prejudices of a society. Leftists often talk of equality and liberty while rightists consider the left to have an obsession with such things.
On the issue of libertarianism, it is quite clear that libertarianism is mostly leftist although there are rightist libertarians.
Whether you actually agree with my definitions or not is not actually that important - all you need to know is what I mean when I use certain terminology, to save confusion. There is no universal acceptance of what's left-wing, what's authoritarian etc and there never will be - so pedantic arguments about these things will get us nowhere.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why this first post of mine is also the last that will concern political theory purely.
Good man!
ReplyDeleteThe left/right paradigm serves the politicos. *We* should define our terms of acceptance of politics.
I look forward to reading your postings.