The landscape

Radical libertarianism proposes anarchy plus property rights. Anarchy is not meant as a pejorative, nor does it connote what most people think. The idea is that property title would emerge by personal occupation, coupled with the right of self-defense. Presumably, there could be violence until things settled down – think of the Wild West. Things would settle down, however. At length, there would be no need for a sheriff, or if there were, he would be a covenanted agent of the community.

There is a great deal of intuitive appeal of radical libertarianism to the male Anglo-Saxon. If it seems counter-intuitive to think that a police force would not be needed to deter crime, consider the fact that today the police are not going to arrive in time to help you in most situations of violent attack. It is up to you anyway.

Moderate libertarians see a limited role for government. Most Christian libertarians grant this on the basis of Rom. 13, while the secular moderates like lewrockwell.com grant it on pragmatic grounds, evidently seeing their role to be a dialectical voice of reason in the public discourse, content if they could just tilt the center of gravity of one or both main parties in the direction of “freedom.”

Libertarianism is a superstructure that can rest on many different foundations. Self-worshiper Ayn Jew Rand was a libertarian. On the other side, racial realist Edgar Steele has recently come out as a libertarian. The best Christian libertarians are the theonomic ones, like Gary North, since at least they can give a cogent answer both as to why there is a state at all, and what principle limits its activity. The remainder of this discussion focusses on this flavor.

Theonomic libertarians grant the existence of three pre-Ego institutions, church, state, and family, and social theory is limited to expounding the limits and duties of each of these, which provide the crystal lattice structure so to speak in which the electronic Individual circulates according to his own inner impulses. The way the three primary institutions are understood quickly reveals the Libertarian agenda:

1. The state is limited by a “regulative principle” which says that only those actions specified in biblical law may be undertaken by the state.

2. The family as biblical institution is limited to the nuclear family, and this amounts to little more than an incubator for propagating the species. The scattering of families across the American landscape is not seen as a problem: annual family reunions might be nice, but there is no clannish loyalty extending any further as a norm. The nuclear family is simply the divine institution to facilitate the nurture of children until they can stand up as Free Individuals in the wider, clanless society.

3. The church is the only ultimately important collective. If there is any theory of history, it is exclusively and only that which emerges from the struggle between the church and the city of man. The church is international and tribeless, and the city of man is international and tribeless.

The individual should seek to maximize his personal wealth, while looking forward to a golden age when everyone will belong to the trans-national church, and thus — with peace breaking out all over — facilitate tribeless states that are as limited in power as possible. Blood is an embarrassing fact of creaturely life that should be transcended whenever possible. Collectives are ordinarily evil, unless entered into voluntarily; the three divinely ordained collectives occupy an upper story that must be submitted to within bounds defined by biblical law, while the lower story of the deracinated Individual is where most of the real action and interest resides.

On this view, the tribe or community can make no demands on the individual nor assert its rights. Indeed, the “tribe or community” is itself a legal fiction — it should be defined as those, and only those, that want to think of themselves that way, like the membership of a club. If there are nations at all, it is simply the set of individuals contained at any moment topologically within the closed figure that defines a border — which is itself merely a crusty remnant of a discredited past. If one laments that Germans are being displaced by Turks and other Mohammedans, they have a quick retort: that is the Germans’ fault for not having more babies. If you fret that the neighborhood is going to be replaced with Mexicans, they retort, so what? anyone is free to buy the property at market value.

Value is defined as market equilibrium brought about by free individual choices: the supply/demand curve. This defines objectivity on the creature side.  Objectivity on the divine side is defined by the law of God, but this functions largely as a personal-eschatological category. For example, they would forbid the state from blocking pornography — unless there is a biblical law about it — granting only, that the individual providers and users of it will be judged by God in the final day.

The attractions of libertarianism

A fuller criticism of Libertarianism will follow in the future.  Indeed, you could say that a major burden of this blog is to show another way.  Here, I conclude by listing three reasons that Libertarianism has strong appeal and hint at why that surface appeal is illusory.

Part of the appeal of libertarianism I think is that it provides a slick and non-falsifiable way to allow seemingly contradictory social views to be incorporated and thus neutralized. “Ah, you want villages and farms? Fine. Find some others that think like you and join them to set up farms and villages.” You over there, form a nudist colony if that’s what you want. And you, a sodomite colony. (The theonomic variety would not permit this one.) Do you want a dense city with socialism? Then find others and build it.

Do I have the right to move into that city and not abide by its socialism, or does the city have the right to forbid my entry? Libertarians start to choke a little here. Someone’s right is going to end, or their broad inclusiveness will have to stop short. If the Swedes nearly unanimously choose for socialized medicine, how is that not libertarianism? Perhaps the Libertarian will answer that the individual does not have the right to delegate away any part of his individual liberty – similar to Thornwell’s view of Presbyterial Right. But this can only be sustained if, like Thornwell’s church government, the Individual Right comes by direct divine endowment — which I will show in the Ham series is problematic to say the least.

The second surface appeal of Libertarianism is the intuitively-sound theory of exchange, based wholly on the subjective-marginalist insight. You have the right to exchange your property for any property of someone else, subject only to the willingness of both parties to enter the exchange. When many players enter and form a “market,” a “supply/demand” schedule emerges which describes the “market price.”

But this insight is not really denied by very many. Even communists, though they place the “means of production” exclusively in state ownership, grant property right at the level of personal moveable items, I think. Would communists forbid a comrade from trading an extra easy chair for a coffee table? Not that I have ever heard of. The Austrian School has the most sound exposition of micro-economics, but its basic kernel could be granted and appropriated by advocates of a variety of social theories.

The third element is frankly the appeal to the base instinct of avarice so easy to awaken in fallen humanity. Every collective aesthetic concern must be sacrificed on the altar of property-owners’ freedom. The owner of the lot across the street has the right to build a mansion, a factory, or an airport, as it suits him. Libertarianism coupled with an ethos of maximum enrichment leads to the look of Harbor Blvd in Costa Mesa, Orange County, which is fast being duplicated as the K-marted, Thisorthat Warehouse-infested, congested mobile main street of Everytown in America. The Libertarian either relishes that look – “I love the sight of Walmart in the morning! It looks like… freedom!” – , or considers that the ubiquitous ugliness and cultural impoverishment is simply the necessary cost of adopting their vision – a hive of ambitious little bees trying to become millionaires. If we can get that, we have everything! they think.

Say a city has 100 barbers. Let’s say these barbers are all equally skillful, pleasant to be with, conveniently accessed, and so forth, so that, everything else being in fact equal, each expects to get 1% of the city’s business.

Say 2% of the population are an identifiable group, 2% of the barbers belong to the group, and likewise the group comprises 2% of the pool of customers.

The 98% majority have little or no group loyalty; or, even if they might have, their great majority makes it seem like a moot point, and they forget about it. Say the 2% minority, in contrast, always select a barber from their own ranks.

Then their barbers get this amount of the total customers:

100% of 2%  +  2% of 98%  =  3.96%  ~ 4%

That is, all of the 2% go to their own, and 2% of the remainder “happen” to light upon a barber of the group. Likewise, the non-group barbers get this amount of the total customer base:

0% of 2%  + 98% of 98%  = 96.04%  ~96%

Thus, each of the 2 barbers from the group gets 4%/2 = 2%, while each of the non-group barbers gets 96%/98 = not quite 1%. The non-group barbers suffer a barely-noticeable drop in business, because the loss of the missing 2% has been spread around; but the group-barbers nearly double their business [see Note 1].

As the size of the minority grows, the effect becomes gradually less. However, even a minority as large as 10% gains 90% (i.e. each barber gets 1.9% of the business) by following the group-loyalty rule, provided the non-minority does not catch on and do the same. Moreover, as the group size becomes bigger, its impact on the non-group vendors becomes more and more significant, so that the ratio of group-vendor volume to non-group actually increases. When the group reaches 50% of the population (hardly a “minority” any more), the group only gains 50% of the traffic, but the non-group loses 50%. So the competitive advantage is actually a factor of three (1.5 / 0.5). A ratio of 2 is actually the smallest advantage possible, as the size of the minority approaches  the zero-end of population share.

Thus, the basic advantage to the group of self-loyalty does not depend on the group being a minority at all. Indeed, on the hypothesis, a 98% majority would realize a 50-fold advantage over the remaining 2%. This might seem like a paradox at first, since it seems to be simply the first example reversed. However, it differs in that here, the 98% limit their business to themselves, while the 2% distribute their business over the whole body. In this case the vendors in the 2% go bust.

Boycotts

Note that, except for motive, group self-loyalty is identical to boycott: limiting patronage to one’s own group describes the same behavior as “boycotting” the non-group. The motive for group self-loyalty is presumably enrichment of their own; while the motive for the boycott might be to inflict punitive economic harm of some kind — though it also might be simply the elimination of an unfair advantage held by group-loyal competitors as described above, or restoration of an unfair debilitation due to self-loyalty of the other group.

Thus, we can restate the results of the above analysis in terms of “boycott.”

A boycott of the non-group by the group doubles or more the group’s business compared to that of the non-group, provided they are not also doing a “boycott.” A boycott of the minority by the majority can be devastating if the minority is naive, i.e. if the minority distributes its own patronage evenly across all vendors. However, if the minority is or becomes self-loyal, then they restore themselves to equality — in fact, realistically, more than equality, since the boycott would tend to reinforce the group-loyalty, while on the other hand, only some fraction of the majority would honor the boycott typically.

If the minority were already self-loyal in their business patronage, the boycott would at most reduce their previous loyalty-induced advantage back to parity with the majority.

Special cases

1. A boycott that is over an issue that is not congruent with the set of players makes the situation more complicated. For example, when McDonald’s was boycotted on account of their fag-sponsorship, neither the ownership nor patronage of the targeted businesses was correlated with the reason for the boycott. In that case, faggots could have fought back by favoring McDonald’s with their business, but the result would be more complicated to analyze by virtue of the fact that the population percentage would likely be different than the vendor percentage held by the targeted entity (McDonald’s).

2. A situation in which strong segregation is already in place would render inter-group boycotts/loyalty moot. For example, in South Africa, if blacks are already not patronizing white businesses because of physical separation, then the Blacks declaring a “boycott of white businesses” would not add anything additional to the picture.

3. The analysis assumes that the average “purchasing power” is the same for each group, as well as the distributions thereof and business-entry ability. As these assumptions are relaxed to match concrete reality here or there, the situation becomes more complicated of course. Graduate students in economics could start to vary the parameters to study how the situation would change in those cases — either as a priori studies (preferable) or computer-modeled.

Homework

The reader’s homework question is to ponder the gentile boycott of jewish businesses in Germany in the 1930s. In view of the considerations laid out here, would such a boycott be just or unjust?

[Note 1: Of course the reality would play out differently. The barbers with the x2 advantage might raise their prices, being willing to trade volume for rate and so forth. This would all have to do with subjective marginal preferences, and cannot be predicted in detail. On the other hand, a commodity-business would double its volume while not doubling overhead, thus much more than doubling profit. The numbers in this simplified account should be taken to prove advantage, not exact quantity.]

Cliché #1: We are a nation of immigrants.

This cliché betrays a lack of reflection on world history.

1. All the lands of the world were once unpopulated. They became peopled through “immigration.” Thus, every nation was originally a nation of immigrants. Nor does the case differ in that those primal lands were unsettled: the original settlements of most lands, at least in the West, have been readjusted countless times through conquest and/or migration. The USA is not fundamentally different in this respect; it’s just that our immigration was more recent on the stage of world history.

2. Even granting that we are a nation of immigrants, so what? Because my great-grandfather was an immigrant, I, and all my fellow countrymen, are obligated in 2007 to keep the floodgate open? Where is the major premise that this enthymeme is based on? It simply does not exist.

Cliché #2: Immigrants are needed to do the jobs Americans refuse to do.

When you unpack its meaning, this cliché is particularly vicious.

Translated into simple terms, this means only that not enough Americans are willing to clean other people’s toilets at minimum wage.

There is always work that needs to be done, and there are always people that are wiling to work. The equalizing of demand and supply for labor leads to a compromise in each party’s desire, known as the market labor rate. At a higher rate, there would be more supply then demand, which would lead to discounting and drive the price back down. At a lower rate, there would be a shortage, leading those that were shorted to bid the price back up. This is Economics 101.

Now, if that equilibrium rate for cleaning toilets would be $15 dollars per hour, that’s perfectly fine. That means that at $15, the number of people that are willing to pay for that service, rather than do it themselves, exactly equals the number of people willing to render the service at that rate.

So when they say, “Americans are not willing to do this work,” what they are really saying is, “they won’t do it at the rate I would be happy to pay.”

There is no shortage of labor willing to do any kind of work.

What is “Fair Trade”?

Fair Trade is described as “a movement to make sure that the producers of goods in developing countries are paid fairly, especially small producers in economically weak situations.”

This is the old fallacy of pre-modern economics: that there exists a price that is “fair,” which can be objectively calculated apart from the subjective preferences of the producers and consumers. It is amazing that this concept still survives some 120 years after it was exploded by economists.

As one might imagine, Fair Trade is loaded down with additional ideas to widen the “market” of its appeal. For example:

1. “It’s about taking out the middle man and paying producers a fair price for their goods.”

But this assumes that the old bogey-man the “middle man” is not providing a valuable service. If he is not providing added value, then a free market will squeeze him out anyway.

2. “It requires that groups of farmers work cooperatively and give a certain percentage of income to their communities to build facilities like schools and help centers. In order for this to happen and avoid the monopoly of one farmer, communities must be structured democratically.”

In other words, the system is a way to bribe the local producers to implement socialism. A hard-working, efficient farmer must not be allowed to profit more than his lazy fellows! That would be undemocratic.

3. “Women and minorities also have an advantage under the Fair Trade model: they must have access to leadership positions as decision makers on issues like how profits will be spent.”

So, the odds are again stacked against male bread-winners. This should really help solidify families in the third world!

Profits do not belong to owners, but can be spent by functionaries forced into position by the Fair Trade bureaucrats.

(And what minorities? All minorities? For example, will the white minorities in Zimbabwe and South Africa be aided by this policy?)

4. “American consumers profit from Fair Trade also, because products are of top quality. For example, Fair Trade coffee is shave grown, a method that preserves the land.”

But by definition, one never profits by virtue of paying more than is necessary for a given product. Moreover, what does “preserving the land” have to do with the “quality” of the product which “American consumers profit” by? It may be that “preserving the land” is something an American is willing to pay more for; it is misleading to call that profit, however.

A Few Things Wrong with “Fair Trade”

that is, in addition to the criticisms listed above:

Price competition is the way new suppliers can attract attention for their product. Take that away, and they must now resort to the usual ways of corrupt regimes to get any action: bribery (the carrot) and threats (the stick).

Suppose a “Fair Trade” system is in place for coffee, and the demand for coffee is allocated amongst some set of producers for the given “fair price.”

Now, what if the women of Rwanda are able to produce more coffee than what they are allocated under the artificial Fair Trade equilibrium that has been established? In a real market, they might decide to shave 50 cents per pound, so that the demand would sky-rocket and they could clear all the coffee they are able to produce, becoming wealthy in the meantime. But here, they can’t. It wouldn’t be “fair.” Instead, all they could do is lobby for greater market share with the bureaucrats that control the Fair Trade market. But then, their greater share (if they are the lucky lobbyists) will translate into a smaller share for someone else. How is this fair?

The defenders would probably say, “they can produce as much as they want, and we will pay them $10 per pound [or whatever] for all of it.”

But this is nonsense. If there were enough demand for all that coffee at $10 per pound, then the price would have already reached $10 under normal market forces.

The “Fair Price” is of course higher than a free market would deliver. Therefore, there will be surpluses produced, as economics infallibly predicts.

Why it might work, for a while

There are only two ways a boondoggle like “Fair Trade” could work:

1. By dictated favoritism directed by the organizers, who can starve out the undesirable competition that would be willing to sell for less.

2. Somehow, the demand schedule must be artificially jacked up.

An upward shift in the demand curve will of course increase both price and quantity compared to the pre-shifted situation (ceteris paribus).

How to create this upward shift?

Guilt, plain and simple.

Guilt-ridden people are easy to manipulate, and will fork over lots of money to assuage their guilt.

Christians are going to be prime targets of this propaganda, because of their tender consciences.

If they want to send charitable donations, say, to the women of Rwanda, then by all means do so.

But don’t confuse paying an artificially high price for coffee as being anything other than charity.

It is doing an economic injustice to someone, somewhere, who is being squeezed out.

And I suspect, that the “middle men” have far from disappeared from the scheme. Surplus gravy like this will attract them like roaches, from all corners.

Only these middle-men will indeed not be adding any value to the transaction.

Someone, probably not the women of Rwanda, will be laughing all the way to the bank.