A certain skepticism of democracy has gone (slightly) viral, Mencius Moldbug notes, and left-libertarian Will Wilkinson has coined a predictably indignant pejorative — democraphobia:
From our perspective, he spends most of his gas merely in proving his remarkable, if hardly unusual, inability to distinguish freedom from power. A sort of political colorblindness, as it were. (If colorblindness were transmissible.)It may be pointless to explain the difference between red and green to any such congenital deuteranope. But 360 years ago, one greater than I tried anyway:
Truly I desire their liberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever; but I must tell you their liberty and freedom consists of having of government, those laws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not for having a share in government, sir, that is nothing pertaining to them. A subject and sovereign are clear different things.That would be Charles Stuart, of course.
Wilkinson says that many people have considered libertarian ideas and have rejected them for all sorts of decent reasons, and that libertarians need to take those reasons (and those people) seriously and adequately address them.
Sounds reasonable. Moldbug calls it teh democrack — alluring, perhaps, but divorced from reality:
Dear Will: you mention IQ. Perhaps you’re aware that the average IQ is 100. Have you ever collaborated with, employed, or otherwise befriended anyone with an IQ of 100? If not, it’s never too late to moonlight in “food prep” at your local Hardee’s. You could also enlist in the Marines; train as a cosmetologist; or work as a telemarketer. Or why not all of the above? Don’t you want to connect with your good friends, the People?After these learning experiences, you may be inspired to set up a special, simplified version of your blog, to explain the virtues of Rawlsekianism to voters in this bracket — who have, as you say, “considered libertarian ideas and rejected them for all sorts of reasons.” (An accessibility feature, as it were. One small step ahead of the ADA.)
Rawles and Hayek aren’t easy to understand. Neither is Marx, of course, but you don’t have to understand Marx to understand Marxism’s allure:
We now arrive at the fundamental comedy of democratic libertarianism — a proposition no less grimly hilarious for its infinite boneheadedness. At the start of the 20th century, “classical liberalism” was conventional common sense, and Marxism and its relatives were on the fringe. Now, Marxism and its progeny are as ubiquitous as cytomegalovirus, and the lineage of John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Thomas Jefferson infects only a few nerds, stoners and other freaks. (And the world, of course, has gone to hell in a handbasket.) Is this just a coincidence?Um, no, duh. It’s not just a coincidence. Because if you and your friends can parrot Marxism and get it together to capture the State, Marxism gives you: (a) money; (b) power; and probably (c) women. Whereas if you and your friends can parrot Rawlsekianism and get it together to capture the State, Rawlsekianism gives you — what? Philosophical satisfaction? So: which of these creeds would you expect to be more popular with the masses?
So what we’d expect, just from rational first principles, is that if you start with a libertarian democracy, it will eventually become socialist. Socialism, as a theology of vote-buying and worse, is perfectly preadapted for Darwinian success in a democracy. If democracy is like cancer, socialism is like terminal cancer — the natural, entropic endpoint of the process.
And indeed, not only does the experience of American democracy demonstrate this effect — so does the accumulated wisdom of both Greco-Roman antiquity and classical Europe, both of which regarded democracy and socialism as (a) contemptible and (b) synonymous. You’ll note that the Greeks, in particular, saw upward of five zillion independent city-states over the course of about half a millennium, so their experience is by no means to be taken lightly. (“Aristotle! Plato! Socrates! Morons…”)
Therefore, what the left-libertarian has the courage and forthrightness to propose is not just that a libertarian democracy can remain libertarian —contrary to history, reason, and wisdom alike — but that a socialist democracy can become libertarian! Through the same democratic process that sent it in the other direction! Time reverses, water runs uphill, dogs meow, and old women become young and beautiful. Will, this is why I wonder what your dealer’s selling you.