One of the most notable developments in modern life is the
tendency for us to lead ever more separate lives. Changes in our economy have led to jobs for
life becoming ever rarer. These same
changes have led to people seeking work further and further from their homes
leading to villages and towns with communities having ever more transient communities. This problem has been exacerbated by the fact
that it has become ever more difficult to get on the property ladder thanks to
ever increasing prices, leaving many captive in the rental market, encouraging
mobility for better opportunities above staying put and establishing roots. In many ways our culture has reflected this
seeming transcendence of a collective existence to a more nomadic one. The internet seems to have given a massive
impetus to a kind of 'me' culture, which includes an aptly named Youtube where
people often share the most intimate parts of their lives. In a way the internet almost seems to simultaneously
embody both trends, an older yearning for a community and a tendency towards
collectivisation and it's opposite a more recent trend toward a more
libertarian existence remain important to us.
My argument is this piece is that while libertarians would push us
towards a soulless and apathetic society and collectivism would impose
suffocating paternalism a future course surely belongs in some sort of middle
path.
Libertarianism's two governing themes come from the Liberal
and Conservative ideologies. The Conservative
one that is recurring is individual responsibility. This is defined as responsibility mostly to
oneself, to be disciplined, take responsibility for one's actions and their
well-being. The Liberal theme is one of
individual liberty. At face value their
importance is hard to argue against. We
all have responsibilities for our own well-being and our place in society. Our individual freedom of course is precious
and often under threat. However the relatively
modern concept of using the state as an engine for social improvement and advancement
is a trend that has earned the deep suspicion of classic liberals who place an
importance on individual freedom. While
this is an important danger to keep one's eye out for libertarians turn this into
a kind of paranoid obsession. Universal
healthcare and welfare is regularly described as "tyranny". Of course the use of such hyperbolic language
threatens to confuse the question of what a tyranny actually is.
Joining the obsession with any state involvement in people's
lives with an iron clad belief that all such involvement is doomed to failure,
the importance of helping people in a wider community is lessened. Their individual circumstances of not being able
to achieve this vaunted individual liberation is also wilfully dismissed as not
worth a concern. The late British MP
Tony Benn's question "how can someone be free if they are enslaved by
debt?" is willfully ignored by such ideologues since it takes them out of
the comfort zone of their world view. A
libertarian would argue that their anti-state goals pushes people to not let
the state take care of the social ills in their community and thereby force
them to step up to build stronger
community organisations. While there is
a certain logic to this in that people have a responsibility to keep the fibre
of communities strong, it dangerously overestimates people's capacities by
themselves to tackle the many problems that pervades it. Of course the state is not a solution to
every problem, but that does not automatically validate the libertarian
argument that the state cannot ultimately help in anything.
Libertarian's justification for self improvement above
helping others extends to international relations. Libertarians view our commitments to the
international community simply in terms of trade and diplomacy for strict
narrow self interest. The concept of
international norms, rules and laws going against their fundamentalist
interpretation of the concept of individual liberty have no place in their
world view. This attitude has grave
implications for tackling global problems and facing down atrocities. Since the end of the Second World War the
concept that certain crimes are universal and violate Human Rights has been
advanced, albeit over troubled terrain.
Wide-ranging international agreements such as the Geneva Convention
Against Genocide are all too often not hailed as valiant measures against
crimes against humanity are snarled at libertarians for just providing an
avenue for sorting out "other people's problems".
In their quest to persuade
the British public, shell shocked from interventions in Iraq and Libya, that we
can ultimately do no good in the world libertarians have made an unholy
alliance with the Far Left. The myths of
the Far Left with regards to Western foreign policy are swallowed whole in
order to provide seemingly legitimate excuses for writing off any grand designs
we have for our troubled world. And yet
their world view goes against the evidence.
International cooperation to tackle global problems is a hard road with
some notable successes, not a futile one.
Through international cooperation CFC's were outlawed largely
successfully in order to stop severe damage to the Ozone layer. Through such cooperation Polio is nearly
extinct and AIDS is on the way to the same fate. Thousands of people have been saved by international
relief efforts provided after natural disasters, not because it would
ultimately help them but for the single concern for preserving life. At the same time many libertarians willfully
deny the existence of global problems such as climate change in order to
justify their aloofness to international affairs. And yet ignoring rising sea levels is
unlikely to stop them rising. For the
cause of keeping out of 'other people's wars' they also spurn concepts vital to
our security such as collective security, which in the form of NATO has
preserved the freedom of Western democracies against determined opposition.
Like many ideologies that become important libertarianism is
seductive in it's simplicity. All state
intervention is an unacceptable violation of human liberty. All problems can be related to state
involvement. This kind of simplicity is
of course misleading. Ultimate freedom
without state aid or any aid means nothing to someone who is in distress. The freedom to be not helped and waste away
without anyone knowing, caring or doing anything is not a sign of
progress. Libertarian's ultimate problem
is it's seeming obsession with persuading us away from wider fights but our own
individual improvement. Individual
improvement and enjoyment is of course
important, but the promotion of it as a soul concern of our own lives I find is
ultimately soulless and not a little depressing. The soullessness is perfectly captured by millennial
generation enthusiasm for US Libertarian US Presidential candidate Gary
Johnson. Here is a man who glorifies in
his ignorance of the world and his enjoyment of recreational drugs. What he does in his spare time I could care
less about, but the promotion of ignorance I cannot respect.
Ultimately libertarianism is a creed that promotes a society
governed by a shrug rather than a call to action against it's ills and those
further afield that we can do something about.
Ultimately it is an anti-society ideology. My opening point about our lives becoming
more separate is not to try and set the clock back, but merely to bring up the
point that such trends have consequences which we should seek to address. Wherever we end up and for however long it is
important for us to try and learn to respect the people we live near and foster
a certain pride for our community. I
don't want people to be cemented to where they live thereby passing by life
changing opportunities, but ignoring the community that is right in front of
you is it's own kind of failure. Some
communities can make it on their own and they should be left alone as they
wish. But struggling communities need
state support to avoid tragedy. There is
no shame in asking for help.
