Transcripts For CSPAN2 Matt 20240703 : vimarsana.com

CSPAN2 Matt July 3, 2024

Professor, what are you trying to accomplish in this book . The individualists. So this book is the First Comprehensive history libertarian ideas from, the middle of the 19th century, up to the present day. And if theres one overarching idea in about that history, its that no matter how many libertarians, you know, no matter how many libertarians you love or hate or have argued with libertarianism is much, much more diverse than you probably think. And so we try to show that diversity through the whole history, both to shed light on the current state of the libertarian and future possibilities. Libertarian thought. Are you a libertarian . Im a libertarian of sorts, but it depends a lot on what you mean by libertarian ism, which is the issue that john tomasi and i struggle with a deal in writing this book. It turns out to be a much harder term to pin down than might expect. And before we get into the book, who is your coauthor . John tomasi . John tomasi was professor of political theory at university, but he has since moved on and he is now the president of heterodox academy, an organization that tries to promote diversity of viewpoints in higher education. So you talk about the three waves of libertarianism in your book. How did it begin when did the concept begin . So libertarianism emerged. Is that our view in the middle of the 19th century, i. E. In britain and france before made its way over to the United States individuals, didnt necessarily call themselves libertarians then were kind of applying that label retrospectively. But what you saw around time was clearly something new, ideologically speaking. So prior to libertarianism, there had been what we now call Classical Liberal political theorist people like john locke or adam smith or even immanuel kant, who had talked about the importance of dignity and freedom, who had talked about the ideas of free markets and limited government, but what you saw in the 19th century was, a kind of radicalization of those ideas, whereas earlier Classical Liberals viewed these things as kind of presumption as it were. Yeah, we should have free markets. But of course theres going to be exceptions. There going to be things that governments need to do that markets cant do. Libertarian radicalized that view. And the idea that markets were sacro saying that they that any interfere with markets that any expansion of government was a slippery slope which if left unchecked would lead inevitably down to socialism. And thats that word socialism. I think that really explains why libertarianism emerged when and where it did because in the middle of the 19th century in britain and france what you started seeing for the first time were socialist revolutionaries who sought to establish a socialist state that would impose a particular kind of Economic System by force on entire national communities. And libertarians saw that and thought like this is the antithesis of freedom. This is what we need stand against. So were talking middle 19th century, 1850s or so. Who was it in france and england who were taking the ideas of adam smith, john locke and putting them into practice yet variety of individuals in france, one of the most prominent individuals was a gentleman, frederick bastia, who was an economist in france. Also a member of the French National assembly for, a time bastia devoted himself primarily to cause of free trade in. France he thought that restriction on imports, when government sought to meddle with Domestic Production at home in order to expand and Certain Industries that was economically foolish and also a unjust usurpation of individual liberty. And so he dedicated himself at first to this narrowly economic of defending free trade, but a curious thinker that he was he soon to believe that the moral and economic basis which free trade stood actually had implications. A much wider range of governmental and economic questions than first it seemed. So it gradually evolved into kind of overall economics of liberty. In bastiat terms in britain, you had the, i think the primary driver of libertarian ideas in britain was spencer, who is not much remembered today. If hes remembered at all, as is the father of social darwinism, which i think is somewhat unjust, charge. But at the time he was a tremendous popular intellectual figure, one of the most popular public intellectuals of the late 19th century and spencer in 1851 authored what, i believe is probably the first systematic treatise of libertarian thought in a book called social statics. Spencer set out this idea, which he called the law of equal freedom, which was the idea that every individual is entitled to as much as possible, that is compatible a similar freedom for others. So i have freedom to control my own body. You a freedom to control your own body. I have a freedom. Move my arm around but i dont have a freedom to punch you in the nose because that interferes with your freedom to control your own body so as much freedom as possible, as long as we render that freedom compatible all other individuals, and then he goes out and explains what that implies in terms of property rights, in terms of government welfare systems, in terms of the rights for children, women. Spencer was actually radically progressive on both womens and childrens rights, holding. Both of those groups were denied very many rights in the political circumstance at the time ought to be entitled to as much rights as anybody else. And so spencer launched a Libertarian Movement in england that spawned the number of followers after his death and eventually in the united as well. So mr. Smolinski, these ideas of equality were pretty radical, given the politics of mid 19th century england. France thats right. And you saw the same thing in, the United States. So libertarianism didnt really emerge in United States until a little bit after it did in england and france, like the 1870s, through the 1890s. And when it did it took a strikingly different but equally equally radical equally egalitarian. So whereas libertarians in britain and france were reacting primarily against socialism in america wasnt really any live socialist threat. There werent any groups that were setting out to overthrow the us government. You had socialists, but the socialist that you had in 19th Century America were essentially voluntary, small scale socialists. They wanted to move out to a commune in the countryside, kind of mind their own business and let everyone mind their own business as well. Libertarians didnt have any problem with that. What they did a problem with and what america had that britain and france lacked was slavery, not slavery on some far off colony. Was slavery right there in your own backyard and liberty science viewed slavery as essentially the of everything they stood for. And in fact, a lot of libertarians didnt start off as libertarians then become antislavery advocates. They started off as antislavery advocates, and then became libertarians. William lloyd garrison, for instance is well known as an abolitionist. Less well known is the fact that he was essentially a libertarian anarchist and based on the same kind of fundamental logic, garrison looked at slavery and thought, like, what is slavery . Its the unjust imposition of authority by one human being over another. Well, isnt that what government is to he thought, and government to government doesnt get our consent for all the talk about the consent of the government, nobody ever asked for my consent to pay taxes or for this law for that law. So if slavery wrong because its a coercive imposition of authority why isnt government the same and so garrison became kind of radical libertarian on abolitionist and a lot of other people like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker did as well. But it wasnt it wasnt about socialism for them. And so a lot of the libertarians, the 19th century United States actually saw socialists as their allies, actually saw socialists as basing their views on the same kind moral principles that libertarians did right. So why do socialists object to capitalism . Its because they think the capitalist is profiting from the labor. The worker. Well, thats something that libertarians dont like either. We dont like it when government taxes because. We think government is unjustly taking the proceeds of our labor. So its the same moral principle its just a difference of how that principle was applied. So are we still the first wave with what with it coming over to america in the early 20th century or if we moved into the second wave, this is all this is all what call first wave libertarianism. Second wave of libertarianism doesnt really start until about the 1930s. And now were talking primarily about the United States. So whereas britain and france were kind of hotbeds of libertarian theory in the 19th century, by the 20th century, all the action is really in the United States. Most of the major libertarian thinkers are either born in the United States or they migrate the United States. So you get people like ayn rand, for instance, coming from the soviet union. You get people like ludwig von mises and Friedrich Hayek coming from austria. But all the action here is centered in the United States. And what sparks this kind of and reshaping of libertarian thought in the 20th century is essentially a new wave of. Fear of socialism. It starts with the new deal, United States, because a lot of people believe that fdr was essentially attempting to impose a kind of socialist dictatorship on United States through the new deal and other mechanisms and then when the soviet union emerged, a kind of expansionist International Force libertarians are now worried about both International Socialism and domestic socialism. And this provides the kind of glue that, holds the Libertarian Movement together. Most of the 20th century, holds libertarians a kind of uneasy relationship with political conservatives for of the 20th century and defines the what counts as a salient issue. What counts as the major battles for libertarians. For most of that time period. You write in your book, the individualists for libertarians in general and for anarchists in particular. Democrat Political Institutions hold special intrinsic authority. Thats right libertarians have always had a kind of, uneasy relationship with the autocracy and the position radical and extreme. When you put that way. But if you think about the reasoning that led them to that conclusion, its not completely alien to most of us. Right . So most of us believe that democracy has its limits so there are certain things that shouldnt be up for a vote if. 51 of the population decides to enslave 49. The other 49 or 51 decides to deny enfranchisement to the other 49 that strikes most us as deeply unjust. And we think that the constitu option does and ought to prohibit that kind of democratic governments, libertarians take that same but expand it further so that libertarians believe that there are a whole host of rights beyond just not being enslaved or not being enfranchised that are essentially sacrosanct, are moral absolutes and just because a large percentage people votes to abridge those rights doesnt make it any less unjust. So libertarians think what really matters is that . Peoples rights are respected. We that we dont violate peoples rights, that we dont violate peoples rights, bodily autonomy and the particular political mechanisms that we use to enact those rights or enforce those rights, those are of secondary importance only. So democracy at best, not a big deal at worst. Maybe even destructive if it tends to lead to peoples rights being abridged. How different was the libertarianism of the ayn rands and the Friedrich Hayeks from the first wave of libertarianism pretty substantially different. So in the first wave in britain and france, the threat was socialism. And so libertarianism defined itself as anti socialism. In america. As we talked about, it was very different. And so if you look at 20th century libertarianism, the United States, its radically, radically different from 19th Century American libertarianism, where people were talking about libertarianism and socialism is essentially the same thing where libertarians complaining about the injustice of profits and rent. You dont see any of that really in 20th century libertarianism, but 20th Century American libertarianism does look an awful lot like 20th or 19th century british and french libertarianism because theyre both reacting against the same. Theyre both reacting against the threat of socialism. What you saw in the century that was different, both from british and french and american libertarianism in the 19th century, was that liberty and ism came to identify itself as and be identified by as more of a right wing conservative view. Whereas in the 19th century, libertarians saw themselves as radicals, saw themselves as progressives, they saw as people who wanted to fundamentally change the unjust structure of society. And that started shift pretty notably in 20th century in a way that still lingers on today. I think libertarianism, if you average person on the street where you place libertarianism on the left, right spectrum, theyre going to put it on the right. Well before we get into the third wave, i wanted to ask you, you spent quite a bit of time with Lysander Spooner in your book, who he . Lysander spooner is fun. Its hard not to spend a lot of time. Lysander spooner have you ever seen a picture of the guy you should google him because hes got this tremendous beard. He just looks the kind of person that youd see at a conference like this and youd walk up with him and have a really interesting conversation about all kinds of youd never thought of before. And he was a bit of a crank. He was, you know, we call our book the individualists and theres a number of reasons for that. Some of them philosophical, but some of them are cultural libertarians are just they go own way. They dont think like else does in Lysander Spooner certainly fits up to that bill he a lawyer in the 19th century United States he was a abolitionist and one of his most famous legal works was a piece called the unconstitutionality of slavery, where he tried to show through meticulous legal and philosophical why slavery was incompatible with the constitution of the United States then on to have a pretty tremendous influence on the Libertarian Movement. But it was a pretty mainstream piece as spooner age she became more and more radical. So after having written the un constitution out of slavery, he wrote another piece called to the non slave holders the south. And this was not a document for public dissemination in the same way that earlier piece was. This was a broadside that was going to be distributed to the non slave holders of the south urging them to essentially incite and support any slave rebellions that they could. He kind of given up on the Legal Process as a means for remedying slavery and he thought look these are people whose rights are being violated on a systematic and, egregious basis. Anybody who is in a position to aid those, whose rights are being violated, is least permitted to do so and may be morally obligated to do so. So if you can get guns to slaves, if you can help slaves escape, if you can capture a slave owner and flogging him on the street to teach him a lesson these are all things you should do. So he wrote up this pamphlet. The story gets better, by the way. He wrote it this pamphlets to distribute it. Word gets around that Lysander Spooner is this plot and john brown pays a visit to lysander and says, look, this is great, but im actually planning on doing Something Like this fairly soon. And if you go distributing your pamphlet calling attention to it beforehand, thats going to set a spotlight me in a way that i dont want. So can you just like keep this quiet for now . Let me do my thing. And so he did john brown conducted his raid on harpers ferry, got arrested, at which point Lysander Spooner hatched another plot to kidnap the governor of virginia and hold him for ransom exchange for john browns release, which thankfully he was talked out of by his friends. So colorful character, to say the least but one of the one of the most interesting figures 19th century lewinski are we currently in the third wave of libertarianism. What is it we are what it is is something that in some ways remains yet to be determined. So what really held libertarians together for most of the 20th century . What held libertarians and conservatives together . A somewhat Uneasy Alliance for the 20th century was socialism, but by the end of the 20th century, socialism essentially collapsed, both politically, intellectually, politically, the berlin wall falling 89, and with it so too did the threat of International Socialism as a military expansionist force. And intellectually, there simply arent that many people around anymore who believe in socialism in the sense full state control of the economy, the people who themselves socialists nowadays mostly believe in a market economy. All right. They believe we all have a capitalistic name with private ownership of the means of production they just think that there should be a lot of regulation, that there should be a dose of redistribution to help. Those who are left behind by the rising tide of a capitalist economy. So socialism essentially died. And when socialism die, libertarians kind of l

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