A few weeks ago I had a lengthy discussion with a political campaign consultant. Although not a libertarian himself, he claimed to be broadly sympathetic to the libertarian philosophy, and was kind enough to offer me his services in my next campaign (should there be one).
Ours was the typical libertarian/non-libertarian political discussion. That is to say, it was a seemingly endless series of questions about the mechanics of a freer society. “How would poor kids be educated if we didn’t force people to pay for public schools?” “What about health care?” “What about immigration?” Yada, yada, freakin’ yada.
For the most part, he was receptive to my responses. Although not completely sold on the idea that individuals are quite capable of dealing with these issues without having a gun waved in their faces, he was at least willing to ponder the concepts being discussed. But being a political advisor, he kept returning to the question of how to get votes with these ideas, and he challenged me with the following hypothetical situation:
“Let’s say you’re at a candidate forum, and a woman stands up and says, ‘I’m a single mom, and I’ve got to get from my house in Arlington to my job in Dallas. I can’t afford a car, so how are you going to help me?’”
My initial response was, “Well, I’d tell her that the best way to improve transportation would be to strike down any subsidies or laws that protect inefficient city bus systems. This would allow for greater competition in the transit sector, which would lower costs and inc-”
At this point he interrupted, “She doesn’t care about any of that. She just wants to know how you’re going to get her to her minimum-wage job tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. for free.”
I replied, “Well, I can’t promise that. If I wanted to promise people something for nothing, I’d be running as a Republican or Democrat, not a Libertarian. What I can tell her is that the private sector is going to be far more responsive to her transportation needs than the Arlington city council will be, and that the best thing a politician can do is dismantle the regulatory barriers that are preventing the market from working as efficiently as it other-“
Again he interjected, “She doesn’t care! She just says, ‘You have to get me to work tomorrow!’ Now, what do you tell her?”
Exasperated, I said, “I don’t tell her anything. There are some people who simply can’t be reached, and at some point you just have to cut your losses and move on to those who are receptive to what you’re saying. After all, libertarian principles are not that hard to understand. Every individual owns himself. Using force against someone who has not first aggressed against you is wrong. If someone cannot or will not understand that, there’s only so much I can do.”
I think it’s time I started taking my own advice. Although I enjoy discussing political philosophy with a wide variety of people, there are a few cold, hard realities that I have to accept. The first is that the overwhelming majority of people simply don’t care about these broad, theoretical concepts one way or the other. They’re just going about their lives, trying to put food on the table and focusing on the things that do interest them. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself but it does probably mean that they’ll never think too deeply about political theory. They might be receptive to some libertarian ideas on a case-by-case basis, but that’s probably about as far as this group will go.
The second reality is that, of the remaining minority that is interested in deeper political thought, the bulk of these people will also be largely unreceptive to the freedom philosophy. If I remember correctly, it was Brian Doherty, author of Radicals for Capitalism, who once said that if a person doesn’t feel an initial sense of revulsion toward the coercive power underlying all government action, that person will never become a libertarian. He may be persuaded to accept the libertarian position on this issue or that issue, but he will never become an across-the-board, principled libertarian. Anecdotally, at least, I’ve found this to be true and I think it holds an important lesson for libertarians.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that there are plenty of things that libertarians do wrong (more on that in a future post). But I think one of the first errors we commit is in believing that if we can just communicate the simple idea that “government is force” clearly enough and widely enough, that most people will feel that same visceral reaction against the use of coercion that we felt when we were first exposed to the concept. They’ll be struck by the liberty thunderbolt and will immediately begin looking for voluntary, rather than coercive, solutions to the problems of societal organization. After all, very few people point guns at their neighbors in the course of their daily interactions, so surely most people will be appalled once they finally understand that all government programs rely on force to achieve their stated objectives, right?
Wrong. Although I have no empirical data regarding this, it has been my experience that almost no one objects to using the government to achieve certain outcomes – even when they fully comprehend that by pursuing political “solutions” to perceived problems, they are merely outsourcing the pointing of the gun to people who happen to work in government. There are a few individuals within this group who are at least honest enough to say, “So what? As long as it’s my team pointing the gun, what’s the problem?” The less honest will engage in a long series of ex post facto rationalizations, attempting to obfuscate the obvious truth that their preferred method of social organization is nothing less than institutionalized violence, and that all their “noble” efforts to mold society according to their own personal preferences rely on nothing but large-scale plunder. The least honest within this group go one step further, painting their unwavering support for this institutionalized violence and large-scale plunder as virtue. This last subgroup will also relentlessly attack anyone who dares even to question the morality of the means employed to achieve their desired ends.
So it’s likely that the number of people who are both interested in and receptive to the expansion of individual liberty is very small. So small, in fact, that they may be little more than a rounding error when compared to the overall population. So be it. We libertarians are rabidly pro-free market, after all, and we may just have to accept the possibility that the market for liberty itself occupies a relatively small niche.
This is not to say that we should stop trying to increase our market share by arguing forcefully for our positions. After all, we’re selling a good product – one that would be very beneficial to society as a whole if taken in large doses. And it’s impossible to know ahead of time where we might find those few unique souls who “get it” – or would do if they were just given the chance. But as we all know, scarcity is a simple economic fact of life, and our time is a scarce resource. If someone can’t or won’t be reached for whatever reason, we have to be willing to move on to the next prospect. Life’s too short to argue with brick walls, particularly when there may be more rewarding exchanges somewhere down the line.
