I’ve been following with interest Will Wilkinson’s writing about libertarian democracy skepticism and the reach of its influence on the Republican party today.
Any ideology best shows its fundamental defects when the conception of The Human necessary to its coherence fails to match actual humans. The non-contractual nature of our literally original connexions to our parents and siblings and extended family, and the circumstances of our births induce epicyicles amongst the Libertarians. For these, for example, they must take refuge either in what I'll call 'vulgar Coaseanism', that is that these do not matter, which has been shown to be false only everywhere and always, or in the decidedly non-individualist 'Your circumstances and your family‘s would be the results of their actions within the Market and they would act to improve things as much as possible for you.' when that outcome is, unfortunately, at best only a most-desired good among their many.
One last, very late, addendum: libertarian Market absolutists must, in the end, reject majoritarianism in any given case because Market absolutism is a statement about the proper mechanism for valuation, one that weighs individual choices' impacts according to how much the individuals spend on them, which inevitably weighs some people's contributions higher because they have more to spend.(A rich man able to spend billions on [as per Patton Oswalt] a flatulent panda is more significant than a poor man with $5 trying to eat for one more day.) Libertarians consider this a _feature_ because they hold that in their desired society, at least on average and over time, wealth accumulation would map best to the ability to make good decisions. (Peikoff once claimed that our choices were advice given by some 'vital entrepreneur' or else by 'some bum on the street'…my mental answer was 'Is it advice on how not to freeze to death without housing?', which I now know to be Boasean).
—and those who are abolutists believe that there is _no_ sphere in which the Market were not the optimal mechanism of valuation.
Hello from 2025. I'll note the following from Wilkinson's 2017 piece cited above, with regard to Republicans, particularly the last sentence:
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And they’re going to get those tax cuts come hell or high water. Right now, it looks for the world the GOP is planning to run up the deficit so that budget rules that automatically reduce entitlement spending kick in. Neat trick! It’s a way to cut Medicare with tax cuts. If congressional Republicans don’t ultimately manage to pass huge tax cuts for rich people on the back of major reductions in entitlement spending, it’s not going to be because they didn’t try.
ʼ
So far they're targeting Medicaid, as it's younger and browner and blacker than Medicare, but just wait.
Rothbard would have you believe we’re all like Tarzan, castaways with deceased parents, raised in the jungle — a fiction.
…and, preferably, white.
Any ideology best shows its fundamental defects when the conception of The Human necessary to its coherence fails to match actual humans. The non-contractual nature of our literally original connexions to our parents and siblings and extended family, and the circumstances of our births induce epicyicles amongst the Libertarians. For these, for example, they must take refuge either in what I'll call 'vulgar Coaseanism', that is that these do not matter, which has been shown to be false only everywhere and always, or in the decidedly non-individualist 'Your circumstances and your family‘s would be the results of their actions within the Market and they would act to improve things as much as possible for you.' when that outcome is, unfortunately, at best only a most-desired good among their many.
One last, very late, addendum: libertarian Market absolutists must, in the end, reject majoritarianism in any given case because Market absolutism is a statement about the proper mechanism for valuation, one that weighs individual choices' impacts according to how much the individuals spend on them, which inevitably weighs some people's contributions higher because they have more to spend.(A rich man able to spend billions on [as per Patton Oswalt] a flatulent panda is more significant than a poor man with $5 trying to eat for one more day.) Libertarians consider this a _feature_ because they hold that in their desired society, at least on average and over time, wealth accumulation would map best to the ability to make good decisions. (Peikoff once claimed that our choices were advice given by some 'vital entrepreneur' or else by 'some bum on the street'…my mental answer was 'Is it advice on how not to freeze to death without housing?', which I now know to be Boasean).
—and those who are abolutists believe that there is _no_ sphere in which the Market were not the optimal mechanism of valuation.
Hello from 2025. I'll note the following from Wilkinson's 2017 piece cited above, with regard to Republicans, particularly the last sentence:
`
And they’re going to get those tax cuts come hell or high water. Right now, it looks for the world the GOP is planning to run up the deficit so that budget rules that automatically reduce entitlement spending kick in. Neat trick! It’s a way to cut Medicare with tax cuts. If congressional Republicans don’t ultimately manage to pass huge tax cuts for rich people on the back of major reductions in entitlement spending, it’s not going to be because they didn’t try.
ʼ
So far they're targeting Medicaid, as it's younger and browner and blacker than Medicare, but just wait.