Case against Libertarian philosophy in 2012!

The core belief of Liberty is that an individual is able to govern himself. Intrusion by society or institution such as a government, on one’s interest is as good as lacking freedom. In concept it differs from the well accepted although not completely understood concept of democracy. People love democracy but conveniently forget to analyze the fact that in concept a democracy should be morally tolerant, more over supportive of the decision of 51% of a population deciding to kill the rest 49%. I admit, I exaggerate  but a possible situation none the less. A simpler and practical example could be government using tax dollars of a single person or a person devoid of any kids to give tax breaks to a family with kids. It is repugnant to see the child just because is born it has to be taken care of and if the parents are can not suffice then the government—in reality all the honest tax paying people—should pick up the tab. This is something a libertarian will die to oppose. John Stuart Mills, a 19^th century political economist calls it ‘tyranny by majority’. The Idea of Liberty is easy to understand and agreeable to  even a person who might be hearing about it for the first time.

I personally am in accordance with the conceptual part of the Liberty but fail to accept the full practicability. The Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman is credited for explaining the practical aspect of Liberty and easily ignored damage resulting from lack of liberty in the simpler terms. One of his famous quotes is, “The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.” People from developed world consider the constraints placed on the women in developing or poorer countries to be immoral. If you agree with this then you are attacking their ‘Democratic’ right to choose the way of living. Some economic decisions taken here in US are subtle in the ways of ridding a citizen of his/her Liberty. Milton Friedman in his PBS special ‘Free to choose‘ explains the detriment the so-called for-the-people-laws such as minimum wages brings. There are low skilled individuals such as teenagers or individuals from minorities, which generally could have worked for lesser wages and gained experience which could help them advance. The minimum wage law would discourage employers from hiring these lowly skilled workers and these same individuals who were supposed to benefit from this law are its first casualty. Next is the consumer who ends up paying more for that product.

In this video from Milton Friedman’s series, William H Brady says “Freedoms are inter-dependable and indivisible.” People often forget that as they are entitled to certain rights by virtue of freedom, they also have to bear the responsibilities that come with it. Libertarian philosophy puts one responsibility above all, ‘ones should not use or be able use ones right to trample others’. This is where the individuality comes into the picture. The phrase ‘For Greater Good’ is not so palatable to libertarians because the definition of ‘Greater Good’ is always subjective and often skewed to benefit one group over other. If one gives a serious and sincere thought to this, it does make sense. I shouldn’t be asked to sacrifice my rights so as to benefit other. However selfish it may sound but this is the only way to protect individual from a bunch of people, government or as my friend Liberalcynic likes to call “People who have much bigger guns than me”.

Republicans and Libertarians have been able to live together for so long. There are some similarities in their way of thinking. Both believe that a government can never be better judge of how an individuals money can or rather should be spent. For this reason they both believe in small government. They also believe that big government can not be distinguished from the tyrannical system, which the Americans refused so long ago. In recent primaries, Republican politicians have gone on record to make President Obama, so-called big government president, a devil. Rick Santorum compared President Obama to King George III. Rick Perry went further and said President Obama is Nazi Germany. One can easily dismiss this as a scare tactics aimed to distance americans from President Obama by comparing him to the British King at the time of american revolution and second one’s a little better known and recent american fear. Even so there is an important point to understand here. They used these specific comparisons to exploit the inherent fear in american people of the authority.

If you hand the command to a true Libertarian at the time of crisis such as the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008, then you can assume some decisions to be scrupulous but yet widely unacceptable. A libertarian will never bail out any bank or the auto maker. I have some reservations about the auto industry bailouts but in my opinion banks had to be bailed out. The usual measures a Government takes to tackle the recession are lowering the interest rates, lowering the taxes and increasing government spending. A libertarian will only lower taxes which will not be enough. 2008 recession is sometimes referred to as ‘Great recession’ for a reason. When this particular recession struck, the interest rates where already low, taxes were lowered twice in past 6 years and government was already under massive debt from the tax lowering and fighting two wars. Libertarians are considered fiscally conservative but one must spend to insert capital in the stagnated economy at the time of recession. The banks—institutions that are known to make capital available—were themselves in trouble. This makes the government spending mandatory.

Libertarians and Republicans believe in the ability of market to take care of itself and good businesses arise on the backs of the bad ones. This means that there is no need for governmental spending at the time of crisis/recession. If there had been a Libertarian President in this particular scenario then he might have spent to get the economy back on track but there was one, one might argue. President Herbert Hoover not only believed in Liberty but he also implemented it in his life. He, at the time of “Great Depression’, chose not to act because he believed in rich investors to come forward and give economy the kick-start it needed. Nobody came. He lost 1933 election by a landslide as a consequence. The most important and popular aspect of ‘New Deal’ was that President Roosevelt was doing something. Some of his policies didn’t workout but some worked and that was enough for the american economic engine to start running.

Today in 2012, when all is said and done to get economy out of recession, the important question is the debt. The debt is almost equal to the GDP. This to me seems very dangerous scenario because first you don’t own anything anymore and plus you have to pay hefty interest on the same debt. In my opinion one can expect a liberal and not conservative President to tackle this scenario effectively. One has to increase taxes and reduce unnecessary spending at the same time. Considering the current political environment, the best bet for americans would be to give Presidency to Democrats but keep house with republicans. This arrangement assures the reduction in spending because of house leadership and at the same time a presidential push to increase taxes.

One can always argue who should pay more and which department should get the scissor. Current divide between 1% and 99%; people who want the entitlement programs to stay and the ones who want to get rid of them; people who want to bring back troops and the ones who want to “win” the Afghanistan war, is very deep. I want to explore this in detail but first I would like to check some mathematics regarding the US debt.