Monthly Archives: June 2013

Fusionism And The “Coalition Government”

Democrats, Libertarians, Politics, Republicans

Doug today had a very good post on the concept of Libertarian/Conservative Fusionism.

Suffice to say that I agree with him on the basic points, but had another take that is just too much to put into comments.

It seems that the Conservative groups understand that they’re not a majority on their own, but that they’re greater in number than libertarians. It also seems that Liberals understand the same things. And both groups see that they have SOME policy positions in common with libertarians, although as Doug aptly points out, often we arrive at similar policies based upon completely different first principles. So both groups believe that by getting the support of libertarians, they achieve a majority and can enact their policy goals. And they think that for libertarians, getting *some* of our goals is better than none of our goals, so we should come along for the ride.

At heart, the idea of “fusionism” vs “surrender” is key. And it’s one that Doug brought up, and as I said, I’m in agreement there. Either Conservatives or Liberals see a libertarian fusionism as a way to grow THEIR power, not as a way to grow OUR power. Both groups are not libertarian and don’t want libertarian ideas to grow. So in each case, they want our numbers but not our ideas — they want surrender.

As libertarians, though, we understand that our numbers make us large enough to be a key swing voting block if we acted in unison (granted, it’s tough to get libertarians to do ANYTHING in unison). The key is that we want that voting block power to actually result in policy changes that reflect libertarian policy. The major parties want fusionism on election day and for us to then shut up every other day.

Fusionism in the United States is untenable as a method for advancing libertarianism. We should reject it.

Now, that’s a bold statement. But the simple fact is that fusionism in a first-past-the-post direct representation voting system allows major parties to forget about the “fusion” part of fusionism as soon as the election is won. There is no incentive for them to continue placating libertarians once they’ve gained power. Which is why, of course, you only see the “out of power” party talking about fusionism, as we saw in the initial “liberaltarianism” talks back in the Bush days, and why we see Conservatives reaching out to us now.

The problem is the voting system. And we will NEVER have a viable libertarian movement in this country with the system we have in place. The only way for this large voting block to ever have power is in a multi-party proportional representation system, where “coalition governments” must form to get anything done.

In those political systems, the main parties usually cannot get a parliamentary majority on their own. Thus, in order to get anything done, they often must negotiate and compromise with a smaller party in order to move legislation forward. That smaller party then has an ongoing “veto power” over the actions of the legislature that persists long after election day. If the major party moves too far away, the coalition falls apart and the major party can’t get anything done.

America is the perfect place for a libertarian minority party which would have REAL power in a multi-party proportional representation system. The nation still retains much of the “rugged individualism” mindset that conquered the frontier, even if it continues to wane over time. Libertarians are thus a very sizable minority voting block, but our “winner takes all” system ensures that a 15% party will absolutely never get meaningful representation in our House or Senate. Swap that system to proportional representation, and libertarians will find their way into our legislature, and be able to do something to rein in the beast that we’ve created.

However, that’s never going to happen. Americans are too wed to the idea of being able to put a face and a name to “My Congressman” even if the guy from their district is ideologically lukewarm to everything they believe. I don’t believe we’ll ever see proportional representation absent a complete breakdown of the political process — and let’s face it, if that day comes we’ll all be worried about FAR more than how Congress is elected. We’ll be worried about riots in the streets.

So let’s just call the whole thing off. Fusionism isn’t just dead; it was stillborn. It’s never going to work. Libertarians should focus on other methods to advance our ideas, because all we’ll get from the major parties in fusionism is betrayal.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

The Intellectual Absurdity Of Libertarian-Conservative Fusionism

Libertarians, Liberty, Republicans

The libertarian movement finds itself immersed once again in a debate over strategy and where, exactly libertarianism fits in to the American political milieu. Specifically, I’m referring to the ongoing debate about “fusionism” that is perhaps best typified by the May 2013 exchange of essays over at Cato Unbound, which I recommend that everyone who is concerned about the future of what some people have started to call “the liberty movement” read. In it’s most basic form, fusionism refers to the idea that libertarians ought to ally themselves with the conservatives as a way of advancing their ideas. Implicit in this position is the idea that libertarians and conservatives have enough ideas in common to form a coherent political alliance, and that the differences are minor enough that the political alliance can be maintained without one side being subsumed into the other and rendered a virtual nullity.  Most specifically, I would argue that this is the danger that libertarians face in any alliance with a conservative movement that is far more numerous and political powerful, and one of the many reason why any argument in favor of fusionism should be viewed with deep skepticism.

The most important thing to remember in dealing with the entire fusionism debate is that, contrary to Ronald Reagan’s famous quote in a 1975 interview with Reason Magazine that “the very heart of  conservatism is libertarianism,” there are and always have been significant differences between conservatives and libertarians when it comes to basic political philosophy.Where conservatives place significant value in the preservation of “tradition” and generally stand against the idea of radical change, libertarians generally advocate a political philosophy that stands in direct challenge to the status quo, rejects the idea of tradition for tradition’s sake, and emphasizes the primacy of the individual over the group, whether that group be the “traditional family,” the church, or the state. On some level it’s hard to see how conservatives and libertarians can be compatible with each other on any level given their significant core differences.

Even getting beyond the core differences, though, the similarities between conservatives and libertarians are far less obvious than might seem at first glance. For example, it is often stated that libertarianism is basically a mixture of “fiscal conservatism and social liberalism,” meaning that libertarianism is a blend of conservative economic policy and “liberal” social policy on issues such as personal freedom. However, as Jeremy Kolassa pointed out in his initial essay during May’s Cato Unbound debate, there are significant differences between libertarian and conservative views on economics and government fiscal policy:

[W]hat about economics? Surely we can agree with conservatives there. But let’s be honest, Jonah Goldberg was incorrect in saying that Friedman, Hayek, et. al were the Mount Rushmore of conservative economics. Conservative economics is more aptly described by the term “trickle down”: By giving tax breaks and subsidies to corporations and those at the top, the wealth will flow downward and lift the boats of those at the bottom. But that is not increasing freedom or limiting government, it is merely tilting society in the direction of one group rather than another.

That’s not libertarian. A libertarian economic policy would be to eliminate all the subsidies given to businesses, give the tax breaks to everybody, and knock down the barriers that prevent newcomers from setting up businesses. Libertarianism is universalist, not top-down.

This highlights the major difference between “libertarian” and “conservative” economics. Libertarians are pro-capitalism. Conservatives are pro-business. While they sound similar, these ideas are emphatically not the same and never could be. Through the means of creative destruction, capitalism frequently tears down and destroys established businesses. Conservatism, however, in its quest to maintain the status quo, steps in to prevent this. The best example? 2007. If conservatives were truly pro-market, they would have never passed TARP, but they did and bailed out the banks. That’s a conservative, not a libertarian, economic policy.

If conservatives and libertarians can’t even really agree on economic policy, then where’s the basis for the alliance?

Perhaps my biggest problem with fusionism in its current incarnation, however, is the extent to which it demands that libertarians silence their criticism of their so-called conservative allies in the name of “unity.” Even if one accepts the argument that libertarians and conservatives are on the same side when it comes to economics, there is no denying that there are significant differences between the two sides on many issues. The most obvious, of course, are social issues such as gay marriage, the drug war, pornography, and, for some but not all libertarians, abortion rights. In addition to that, it’s generally the case that libertarians have a far more restrained view of what proper American foreign policy should be than conservatives do, even in today’s era where conservatives suddenly seem to have become anti-war when the war is being led by Barack Obama. Based on those differences alone, the idea that libertarians and conservatives are just two sides of the same coin is clearly false.

So, this leads us to the inherent flaw of modern fusionism. People who consider them libertarians are expected to join conservatives in their vehement, and often insane when expressed by people like Michele Bachmann and Allan West, criticisms of the left, and they are also expected to keep their mouths shut when it comes to criticism of their so-called conservative allies when they advocate policies that clearly violate libertarian principles. That’s not an alliance, it’s surrender. If libertarians stay silent while conservatives continue to push continually absurd arguments against marriage equality that advance hateful and bigoted stereotypes about homosexuals, for example, then they are essentially abandoning their principles in favor of short-term, and likely quixotic, political gain. There is no value in keeping your mouth shut just so you can be part of the political “Cool Kids Club.”

None of what I’ve said here should be taken as a rejection of the idea that libertarians should reject the idea of temporary alliances with people on the right to advance specific issues. There are plenty of such issues where conservatives and libertarians can find common ground to push through policies and make progress on the local, state, and federal levels, and coalitions have always been a part of politics in the United States.  However, there’s a difference between coalitions and surrender, and it’s clear to me that fusionism demands nothing more than abject surrender from libertarians and expects them to become little more than the lapdogs of conservatives. Well, we’ve tried that one before, my friends, and it didn’t work. We’d be foolish to try it again.

On a final note, I’d like to note that conservatives aren’t the only ones at fault here. One of the major problems with libertarianism is that, in many ways, it is not a coherent philosophy but rather a hodgepodge of different philosophies that have united under the banner of libertarianism. Among our ranks there are minarchists, Hayekians, the Mises crowd, fans of Milton Friedman, utilitarians, Christian libertarians, anarchists, and anarcho-capitalists. Given that the general principles of libertarianism are still very much in the minority in the United States, perhaps its inevitable that people who clearly have their own deep philosophical differences. However, the lack of a core philosophy is, arguably, one of the biggest weaknesses of libertarianism. I intend to address that issue in a future post.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

And yet another Ayn Rand quote (from Atlas Shrugged):

For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors – between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.

Pretty much sums up the difference between Conservatives, Liberals, and Libertarians, huh?

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Quote Of The Day

Book Reviews, Movie Reviews, Quote of the Day

Warren from Coyote Blog, on Atlas Shrugged Part II:

The one failure of both movies is that, perhaps in my own unique interpretation of Atlas Shrugged, I have always viewed the world at large, and its pain and downfall, as the real protagonist of the book. We won’t get into the well-discussed flatness of Rand’s characters, but what she does really well — in fact the whole point of the book to me — is tracing socialism to its logical ends. For me, the climactic moment of the book is Jeff Allen’s story of the fate of 20th Century Motors.

I had never thought of it this way. I agree that she had some issues with character development, as so many of her characters seemed to be cardboard cutouts of political positions, and lacked any real humanity or depth. I always said I liked the philosophy of the book, but didn’t think much of Rand as a novelist.

That’s still true, but this is a new way to look at it. She really did do a very good job of world-building in the book. Even so many of her plot articles must have seemed far-fetched back in the 1950’s, yet seem like there’d be no shock to hear them announced tomorrow. And her thesis is clear:

Look around you: what you have done to society, you have done it first within your soul; one is the image of the other. This dismal wreckage, which is now your world, is the physical form of the treason you committed to your values, to your friends, to your defenders, to your future, to your country, to yourself.

The message is simple. The world we have is the world we’ve wrought, by our failure to live according to consistent humanitarian* ideals. And viewed in that sense, her key objective is to show the world, and that her characters are only there to explain the ideals which have brought it to destruction.

» Read more

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Free Market Organs: The Case for Capitalism in the Organ Transplant System

Activism, Civil Liberties, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Economics, Free Trade, Freedom, Government Regulation, Healthcare, Human Rights, Individual Rights, Legal, Politics, Property Rights, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, Theory and Ideas

A 10-year old Pennsylvania girl by the name of Sarah Murnaghan could die within a few weeks if she doesn’t receive a lung transplant soon. There’s currently a petition on Change.org directed at HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to alter the current policy so that Sarah is made a higher priority on the donor list because the clock is ticking at least somewhat faster than some who are ahead of her.

I’ll leave it to the readers to determine if this petition is the right way to go in the case of Sarah, but I think there is a much larger problem with the organ donation system that I believe could be addressed by the free market. Back in 2008, I wrote a post about why a regulated, above board organ market would be superior and much more moral than the current “altruistic” system. Some of my examples might be a little dated (Hanna Montana is all grown up now) but my overall point stands. Though this post is mostly about live donations, compensation going to an individual’s estate would give Sarah and countless others a much better shot at living.

Free Market Organs (Posted January 24, 2008)

Last week, Doug linked a post about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s support for a policy that would allow hospitals to harvest organs without prior consent of the decedent or his/ her family. In essence, the organs of all deceased British citizens would belong to the government’s healthcare system except for those individuals who “opted out” prior to death. The policy in the U.S. is an “opt in” approach rather than “opt out.”

Why is this distinction important? Answer: the presumption of ownership. If citizens have an option of opting in, this shows that individuals own their bodies; to suggest that an individual has to opt out shows that citizens’ bodies are property of the government (unless s/he makes an affirmative claim on his/her body).

The reason for Brown’s support for this policy is quite obvious: like just about everywhere else in the world, Britain is having an organ shortage. So if presumed consent is not the answer to solving the organ shortage, what is? Randolph Beard, John D. Jackson, and David L. Kaserman of Auburn University published a study in the Winter 2008 issue of Cato’s Regulation Magazine. The team studied the effectiveness of current policies aimed at maximizing donor participation and organ matching. Among the policies they analyzed were: increased government funding for organ donor education, organ donor cards (such as having the words “organ donor” on driver’s licenses), required request, kidney exchange programs, and donor reimbursement. None of the policies have come close to solving the shortage. The researchers estimate that roughly half of the potentially viable cadaver organs are ever harvested. With the exception of the inefficient kidney exchange program, one feature that all of these programs have in common is that they each rely on altruism on the part of individuals to donate organs without any sort of compensation.

The one solution which the researchers believe would be effective, monetary compensation to organ donors or their families, is illegal almost everywhere. In 1984, the National Organ Transplant Act was passed making it a crime in the U.S. for a surviving family to receive payment for their loved one’s organs. The law was passed mostly on ethical grounds without any consideration for what would happen to the supply of available organs. The researchers estimate that some 80,000 lives from 1984 to present have been lost because of the bill’s passage and other subsequent policies in the current “altruistic” system. The researchers further project that another 196,310 lives will be lost between 2005- 2015 (and this is what they consider a “conservative” estimate!).

As controversial as compensating families organs of deceased family members is, the thought of an individual driving to a hospital, removing an organ (such as a kidney), and selling that organ to someone in need of the organ for a profit is a complete non-starter. This shouldn’t come as a shock given that in today’s lexicon; the word “profit” is a dirty word. The people who scream bloody murder whenever people decide to “scalp” tickets to sporting events or tickets for Hanna Montana concerts (what’s the big deal with Hanna Montana anyway?) will not likely be in favor of selling vital organs. Anti-capitalist objections aside, free market buying and selling of organs appears to be the most practical solution.

Cato Institute’s Director of Bioethics Studies Sigrid Fry-Revere found that Iran is the only country that does not have an organ shortage and has not had a shortage in ten years. Why? Because Iran (of all places!) is one of the only countries where it is legal for individuals to buy and sell organs from live, voluntary, donations. Revere’s findings also revealed that even if all the viable organs were taken by force by the government from cadavers, there would still not be enough organs to provide an organ to everyone who needs one (Cato Daily Podcast dated January 15, 2008). Maybe the Iranians are on to something here? David Holcberg, writing for Capitalism Magazine agrees arguing in favor of a free market system for organs on both practical and moral grounds:

If you were sick and needed a kidney transplant, you would soon find out that there is a waiting line–and that there are 70,000 people ahead of you, 4,000 of whom will die within a year. If you couldn’t find a willing and compatible donor among your friends and family, you could try to find a stranger willing to give you his kidney–but you would not be allowed to pay him. In fact, the law would not permit you to give him any value in exchange for his kidney. As far as the law is concerned, no one can profit from donating an organ–even if that policy costs you your life. Patients’ attempt to circumvent this deplorable state of affairs has led to the emergence of “paired” kidney donations, an arrangement whereby two individuals–who can’t donate their organs to their loves ones because of medical incompatibility–agree that each will donate a kidney to a friend or family member of the other. But this exchange of value for value is precisely what today’s law forbids. Thus, under pressure to allow this type of exchange, in December the U.S. House and Senate passed The Living Kidney Organ Donation Clarification Act, which amends the National Organ Transplant Act to exempt “paired” donations of kidneys from prosecution.

The congress says that kidneys can be exchanged without sending anyone to jail; how thoughtful. While this is an encouraging step in the right direction, why won’t our elected officials go the rest of the way? Is it the potential risks for the donors? Holcberg points out that the risk for a healthy person dying from donating a kidney is about .03% and usually live normal lives without reducing his or her life expectancy.

No, I suspect the objection to selling organs is more rooted in the overall distain far too many people have towards capitalism. It’s simply unethical to make a profit off of something that someone else “needs” whether its gasoline, Hanna Montana tickets, or a kidney. Only the “privileged” will be able to buy organs if such a system were adopted, they would argue.

Even if this were true, denying a person the right to purchase an organ to save his or her own life should not be subject to a vote or someone else’s ethical hang-ups. If I want to remove a kidney and sell it to a willing buyer for $30,000 (or whatever the going market rate is) I ought to have that right. Why must we assume the government has the right to tell us what we can do with our bodies whether it’s selling our organs by our own choices or government taking them from us after we die without prior consent? Our individual rights of life, liberty, and property demand that we have the ability to make these choices for ourselves.

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/
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