Posted by Ilya Somin:
Kay Hymowitz, Libertarianism, and Lifestyle Excesses:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_09_09-2007_09_15.shtml#1189661948
Like David Bernstein, I welcome some of the things conservative pundit
Kay Hymowitz says in her Wall Street Journal essay on libertarianism,
and of course I too appreciate her praise of the VC. At the same time,
there are some significant shortcomings in her analysis. David has
identified one of them: her treatment of the libertarian position on
civil rights.
I want to focus on her embrace of the common fallacy that
libertarianism requires endorsement of any and all private lifestyles,
no matter how foolish or self-destructive. This very common criticism
(especially by social conservatives) conflates that which libertarians
believe should be legal with that which we hold to be prudent and
right. There are lots of foolish and even immoral behaviors that
libertarians believe should be legal. It does not follow that we
believe that doing those things is a good idea. Hymowitz,
unfortunately conflates the two:
[I]t is difficult to separate the reasons for our abiding social
disarray from the trends that Messrs. [Brian] Doherty and [Brink]
Lindsey praise and for which libertarians bear a measure of
responsibility. Despite Mr. Lindsey's protestations to the
contrary, libertarianism has supported, always implicitly and often
with an enthusiastic hurrah, the "Aquarian" excesses that he now
decries. Many of the movement's devotees were deeply involved in
the radicalism of the 1960s.
Nor should this come as a surprise. After all, the libertarian
vision of personal morality--described by Mr. Doherty as "People
ought to be free to do whatever the hell they want, mostly, as long
as they aren't hurting anyone else"--is not far removed from "if it
feels good, do it," the cri de coeur of the Aquarians. To be sure,
part of the libertarian entanglement with the radicalism of the
1960s stemmed from the movement's opposition to both the Vietnam
War and the draft, which Milton Friedman likened to slavery. But
libertarians were also drawn to the left's revolutionary social
posture.
To reiterate a simple but oft-misunderstood point: that which should
be legal is not coextensive with that which is desirable or right.
Libertarians believe that racist and communist speech should be legal;
that does not mean that libertarianism implies support for such
speech. The same is true of excessive drug use, cheating on your
spouse, and so on. Moreover, prohibition by the state is not the only
way to combat immoral or self-destructive behavior, and nearly always
not the best way. Indeed, a large part of the libertarian case against
government "morals" regulation is precisely the the argument that the
state is less likely to do a good job in this area than private
institutions such as families, religious organizations, and social
norms. The superiority of private sector social norms and traditions
over state regulation was one of the central themes of F.A. Hayek's
work, which Hymowitz praises in her essay. And Hayek was perhaps the
most influential libertarian scholar of the twentieth century.
There is a small kernel of truth in Hymowitz's argument in so far as
libertarians are far less willing than conservatives to condemn
private behavior merely because it goes against tradition (especially
a tradition imposed by government coercion). This, to my mind, is a
strength of libertarianism rather than a weakness; all too many
longstanding traditions defended by the social conservatives of the
day have turned out to be morally bankrupt or worse. 1960s'
conservatives' defense of the tradition of racial segregation
(discussed in David's post), is a major case in point. Be that as it
may, refusal to condemn private behavior merely because it violates
tradition is a far cry from "if it feels good, do it."
Similarly misguided is Hymowitz's claim that libertarianism was
"complicit, too, in the vociferous attack during the 1960s on the
bourgeois family." From Adam Smith to F.A. Hayek and beyond, prominent
libertarian scholars have emphasized the importance of families, and
the consequent need to protect them against government intrusion. Part
of Hymowitz's argument here simply relies on the broader fallacy of
conflating legality with morality already discussed above. The rest
consists of a discussion of Ayn Rand's distaste for family ties. Rand
had a deeply dysfunctional personal life, which may in part account
for her attitude. But that attitude had everything to do with Rand's
personal shortcomings and little if any connection to libertarianism
as such.
Lastly, some of Hymowitz's claims about individual libertarian
thinkers verge on the bizarre. For example, it is simply not true that
Murray Rothbard "became a fan of Che Guevara and the Black Panther
leader H. Rap Brown" because of libertarianims embrace of social
liberalism. Like other communist regimes, Che Guevara's Cuba was
highly repressive of alternative lifestyles, [1]imprisoning
homosexuals and generally enforcing sexual puritanism. Rothbard's
support for Che had nothing to do with social liberalism (which he
knew to be the opposite of communist policy), and everything to do
with his foreign policy isolationism, which often led him to take an
overly indulgent view of America's foreign enemies. Far from embracing
lifestyle excesses, Rothbard was actually very critical of the use of
mind-altering drugs - a point noted in [2]Brian Doherty's book, which
Hymowitz reviews in her essay. It is also not true that any
significant libertarian thinkers endorsed the "revolutionary social
posture" of the 1960s radical left; at least not if "revolutionary
social posture" means advocacy of violent revolution or supporting
efforts to replace the US government with a socialist or communist
state.
There is a serious debate between libertarians and social
conservatives over the degree to which we should defer to tradition,
and the degree to which government power should be used to punish
irresponsible private behavior. That debate is not advanced by
recycling dubious claims that libertarianism implies indiscriminate
endorsement of any and all self-destructive lifestyles.
References
1. http://www.galha.org/glh/213/cuba.html
2.
http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586483500
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