Splitting the libertarians


Some of the small "l" libertarians look at why the Iraq war has caused such differences
If you're not libertarian or if you don't follow libertarian blogs, you may not have noticed the deep split over the Iraq War. I've mentioned it a few times in this blog, and it came out with the Wall Street Journal interview with Milton and Rose Friedman that I linked to on Saturday.

Illya Somin examines some of the reasons for the divide over at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Obviously, the war has also produced internal rifts among conservatives and liberals, but in each of these groups one side (pro-war among conservatives; anti-war among liberals) is clearly in the ascendancy and the other a small minority (though I wonder if more conservatives would oppose the war and more liberals support if it had been initiated by a Democratic administration instead of a Republican one). Libertarians, by contrast, seem much more evenly split, at least judging by the positions taken by prominent libertarian academics, pundits, and intellectuals.

I do not as yet have a definitive explanation for the intra-libertarian split. One possibly theory is that this disagreement tracks the longstanding division between those who endorse an absolutist interpretation of libertarian principle versus those who take a maximizing approach. Wars clearly lead to violations of rights to life, liberty, and property. If you are a deontological absolutist who believes it is always (or almost always) wrong to violate such rights regardless of consequences, then that gives you a logical reason to oppose virtually any war, possibly excepting a strictly defensive one, with "defense" defined very narrowly. By contrast, if you take a maximizing approach, you will be more willing to accept some rights violations now in order to reduce the total incidence of violations in the long run. For example, it could be argued that the War in Iraq, despite the carnage it has caused, saves a much greater number of innocent lives in the long run, as well as expanding personal and economic liberties for most Iraqis. However, it is not clear to me that the longstanding absolutist vs. maximizing division among libertarians fully accounts for the split or even that being absolutist or a maximizer is a good predictor of individual libertarians' positions on the war.

A second possible explanation is more autobiographical than ideological. It is possible that those libertarians who embraced the ideology primarily out of hostility to the various works of the US government are more likely to be antiwar than those who came to it primarily because of personal or familial experience with statist and socialistic governments elsewhere. Certainly, anecdotal evidence suggests that immigrant libertarians are more likely to be pro-Iraq War than native-born ones. So too with Jewish libertarians (who, even if native-born, may have a strong consciousness of their people's oppression by governments outside the US) as opposed to gentile ones, though Milton Friedman is one of many exceptions to the pattern. If you are highly focused on the evils of oppressive regimes and political movements outside the US, you might be more willing to countenance the use of American military power to destroy or contain them than if you have regarded the US government itself as the main threat to your freedom.

Obviously, most native-born libertarians are well aware that many other governments, including Saddam Hussein's. are much worse, in libertarian terms, than that of the US. Similarly, foreign-born and Jewish ones are still deeply hostile to the many nonlibertarian policies of the US government (I know I am!). However, there may be a visceral difference between the two groups as to which of these dangers to liberty seems more vivid and threatening and which engages our emotions more strongly at a subrational level.

Well, it explains part of it. But not in my case.

Not to be outdone, Jonathon Wilde at Catalarchy has some interesting thoughts on the Volokh entry.

The biographical theory is especially interesting, because contra Ilya, I don’t think most libertarians truly appreciate how corrupt other nations’ governments can be. They see the US government carry out a Drug War, tax up to 50% of earned income, and kill innocent people on death row. Because it causes suffering within the boundaries of the US, and because the US is the most powerful government in the world, they conclude that it must also be responsible for the suffering outside the boundaries of the US. Unless one has direct experience living under a foreign government, it’s difficult to maintain perspective at the relative evils of various governments, to realize that there is a difference in living in a country where you can, without remorse, openly and publicly mock the President from 10 feet away as he sits helpless in front of millions versus living in a country where you can be whisked away and killed for passing a note in the audience during a speech given by the dictator. Someone who has lived in such a place would be less likely to be outraged by a war carried out by the US government.

The comments on both are almost as good as the entries themselves. You should follow the links and prepare to have your brain stretched.

What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't offer my own opinion?

As both a Pagan and a small "l" libertarian, I see many similarities between both groups, especially in the way they approach problems. Both groups have their Idealists, the passionate ones who insist that the only acceptable goal is a lofty vision. And then there are the Practicals, the ones who want to make it work, even if it is not the Perfect Ideal.

I do not believe we can offer freedom until we have ripped out enough tyranny. It's not going to happen overnight, and we'll never get recognition for it. But there are changes happening now that will have huge effects a couple of decades down the line.

Yes, I said decades.

We can only be sure that freedom and liberty took hold when the first children born in a free Iraq are old enough to vote.

This is the only way I can see to pull off planting freedom in the Middle East without turning the whole region into a nuclear blasted wasteland.

That is not to say that there won't be risks. There will be. That is not to say that there will not be fanatics determined to launch a religious war. There will be. That is not to say that there won't be strongmen using religion and regional differences as a justification for power. There will be.

But Bush's Gamble is the only way I see for democracy to spread in the Middle East.

And then maybe we won't have to spend the next three thousand years fighting over that desert.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - July 24, 2006 at 04:23 AM  Tag


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