Libertarianism: Rearing its ugly head with faith in ‘free market’

By: Lee Hampton

Monday, March 30, 2009 - 9:22 PM

Lee Hampton

Lately I’ve been hearing whispers from a familiar foe on the University of Nevada, Reno campus. I thought I had heard the last of this adversary when Ron Paul and his utopian legionnaires slipped from any thread of relevance they may have been clinging to. Alas, even ideologies with crepe paper foundations refuse to simply fall back into the center of the earth. Like an unregulated market propped up by privatized bureaucrats who pretend to know what’s best for business, this group of people is still thriving despite its absurdities. I’m referring to Libertarians.

The same group of students who masterminded the marginally clever “Nobody ‘08″/Unregister to Vote campaign, UNR Students For Liberty, hosted a discussion at the Joe Crowley Student Union on Thursday. The topic was anarcho-capitalism, as explained and presented by club president Barry Belmont. Belmont is an incredibly bright person and a highly admirable public speaker. His skills are dangerous, in fact. Dangerous enough to almost make the simplistic tenets of anarcho-capitalism seem plausible.

Almost. Belmont stated at the beginning of his lecture that he would draw from a plethora of fields — politics, economics, philosophy, evolutionary biology, etc. — to make his argument for an anarcho-capitalist society. It quickly became apparent, however, that one field in particular would dominate the evening: religion.

Anarcho-capitalism hinges upon a blind, fanatical and theological faith in “free markets.” The simplicity of the prescription, though buried in jargon like “non-aggression action” and the “sovereignty of the individual,” is astounding. Not only will the market without government regulation correct inefficient business practices, it will also act as the most efficient form of justice, security and protection. Thus, police forces and courts should be privatized because the market will not only bring about all justice that is necessary, it will do it far more efficiently than the government.

If the fatal simplicity of this argument is not already apparent enough, an analogy that Belmont employed will give a better impression of the kind of diminutive logic we’re dealing with. He spoke about how a monopoly in the shoe industry would inevitably lead to higher shoe prices and less efficient production methods because of the lack of competition.

True enough, but here’s the rub. “Just replace the word shoe with law,” Belmont says, “and shoesmith with police officer, and it’s clear to see that the step toward market law is not an unreasonable one.”It takes quite a leap of faith to make it from shoes to justice, but if anyone is fit to make the jump, it’s the Abrahamic adherents of anarcho-capitalism.

The market mantra that followed was chilling: “The way people would determine how much of this security they want is by how much they’re willing to pay for it.” Somehow supply and demand curves are going to solve the problems of justice that have been wrestled with for thousands of years? The magical movements of the market are going to do a better job than the government at protecting society as a whole simply because market forces look more elegant in textbooks?

Please. Belmont is right. In a truly free market, security and protection would be distributed by who is willing to pay for it. But this is Social Darwinism in its simplest form. The rich would get the best protection when it is almost always the poor who need it more.

But the rich are at the top because they deserve it, right? And everyone has the opportunity to become rich in a free market.

And if they are at the top it’s because they are doing things efficiently and will continue to do things efficiently. Libertarian dogmatism at its finest — this isn’t the 19th century, boys.

Lee Hampton can be reached at perspectives@nevadasagebrush.com.

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4 Responses to “Libertarianism: Rearing its ugly head with faith in ‘free market’”

Shane says: March 30th, 2009 at 11:24 pm

The fact Lee Hampton hit the nail on the head does not change the fact that he did it while apparently blindfolded. His ad hominem attack on free market principles seems to lack any foundation in research—ideological or scientific. Admittedly, a counter argument to strong belief in free market principles inherent in the Libertarian tradition in a little over 600 words is not an easy feat but it appears Mr. Hamilton did not even wish to try.

Of particular amazement to me was the idea that a belief that the sovereignty of the individual makes an individual a “blind, fanatical theolo[gian].” Quoting from something I hope all will find familiar, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This nation has as a pillar of its foundation the belief (perhaps ideological, but born of rationalism) that the individual has a right to liberty. To many a blind fanatic, this means the right to act as an individual as long as the social contract (via the law and therefore social norms) to the state is not broken.

This however is not the author’s most grave error. While dismissing Mr. Belmont’s argument with the offhanded comment that his logic is “diminutive”, Mr. Hampton makes a similarly simplistic logical error in asserting Belmont’s arguments are wrong because they are just plainly wrong, “Somehow supply and demand curves are going to solve the problems of justice that have been wrestled with for thousands of years? The magical movements of the market are going to do a better job than the government at protecting society as a whole simply because market forces look more elegant in textbooks?” Under certain circumstances this is most certainly possible. However, the circumstances under which an efficient and just free market would emerge cannot plausibly emerge.

Here is probably the simplest, and most simplistic but slightly wonkish, explanation for why free markets cannot work to distribute justice fairly and efficiently: for a free market to work the market must be economically perfect. This means perfect information, free market entry and exit, and perfect competition.

Another error, this one of a historical dimension, is that the United States during the 19th century could be characterized by as a laissez faire economic system. While capital markets were not strongly regulated during this period, the notion that the government played almost no role in the economic development of the nation indicates Mr. Hampton’s history education is not much superior to that of a graduate of the eighth grade. The Homestead Act, the Morrill Land Grant Act, the granting of monopolies, the emergence of a system of intellectual property rights, the existence of fire departments and libraries and police forces, agricultural subsidies, the destruction of monopolies (both capitalist and labor based), the monopolies created about railroads, etc all indicate the error of the historical analysis.

I think I’ve said this to you before, but try harder next time. Please.

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John Pollak says: March 31st, 2009 at 3:37 pm

“Like an unregulated market propped up by privatized bureaucrats who pretend to know what’s best for business, this group of people is still thriving despite its absurdities.” As opposed to a government bureaucrats who pretend to know what’s best for business?

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John Russell says: April 1st, 2009 at 7:56 am

For those of you who may be interested, the entire lecture he is referring to is posted on our website here.

As for the article and author himself, it becomes brutally apparent that no logical response, rebuttal, or counter-argument will ever satisfy his need to belittle an ideology he so obviously does not understand. By classifying the UNR Students for Liberty, and the members wherein as ‘a familiar foe’, ‘Utopian legionnaires’, and people who should ’simply fall back into the center of the earth’, he removes any avenue for critical thought and reason.

But the most interesting assumption in this piece is that it assumes that the ideology of liberty is dead. When, exactly, did the idea of freedom lose its ‘thread of relevance’? What makes personal responsibility better in the hands of government bureaucrats than individuals? When did the memo get released that liberty is dead?

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Thomas says: April 15th, 2009 at 12:41 am

I was given the impression that Mr. Hampton’s article was a refutation of Austrian Economics. This is obviously not the case, in fact, it is nothing more than a byproduct of a markedly subnormal intellect. Mr. Hampton is more concerned with demonizing Libertarianism and fabricating derision. Furthermore, the response from Shane is explicated more logically than the tripe Hampton presents. Why don’t you put on a counter-lecture espousing the tenets of an economics system you do prescribe to. But then again, it is much easier to hide behind the pen and pick at the heels of another like a chicken hawk.

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