Against Libertarian Self-Sabotage

Well, shouldn't libertarians ABOLISH bueraucracy?

I would think that utilitarian libertarians should be willing to work for government while deontologists, virtue-ethics people and objectivists should not.

I have seen your post and this post is very useful for us.I have read your all concepts that seems useful for us.

I wonder whether incremental libertarianism might work at the local level, and thereby maybe become something other than an idea for policy geeks.

For instance. I grew up in a neighborhood where development wasn't in the least "free-market." It was a college town, and the university decided what got built where, along with aldermen and other local officials. The result? We've never been able to get companies to stay in our neighborhood. Property values declined even during the bubble. We used to have a live music scene; now that's all dead, thanks to regulation, and it's such a retail desert that you can't even buy a pair of socks. I can't think of a more vivid illustration that central planning of commercial activity can fail.

It seems less ideologically charged than libertarianism on a national scale to point out local forms of inanity (and corruption). Maybe you guys should be looking at that.

First, Will has an amusing view of the Institute for Humane Studies, for which I still have fondness and for which I also worked.

The whole place was geared around measurement - which young student was placed where etc. Now, in the Clinton administration, IHS obviously didn't place very many people into the bureaucracy because it was a Democratic administration.

But once Bush came to office, IHS did place and also trumpet people who were placed into the administration. In fact, at its 40th anniversary event, the keynote speaker was Gale Norton, who had recently been nominated Secretary of the Interior. IHS would trumpet to donors its success at placing lawyers in the Justice Department, agencies, and in Republican offices in the Congress.

Maybe some of the staff members - me included - thought this was not the right strategy. But you just need to go back and read issues of the IHS Account, or have been at some of the donor events etc.

The problem with libertarianism is that it's incoherent. And it's just not viable as a political ideology.

Certain insights might be, but the most valuable of them - don't bomb people or invade their countries - but these turn out to be the least palatable to the conservatives and libertarians out there in the fields who fund places like IHS.

Will is right that insofar as you think the bureaucracy (or any job) is worth taking, go take it not as a libertarian, but as someone who thinks this or that job is worth doing in exchange for a paycheck. And if you can do a little good in the process by helping out your fellow human being, then great.

Will is wrong that libertarians - whatever that might be - as libertarians need to go into the bureaucracy.

Joe, One of the things that frustrates me about the libertarian movement is that young freedom lovers are strongly discouraged from participating in government, but once a libertarian-ish person (Norton, Brad Smith) happens to stumble into a position of power, institutions like IHS make a big effing deal about it. Make up your mind!

as a former Cato intern and a present federal bureaucrat, i could not agree more with the Reason article or with this post. and as a former Cato intern and present federal bureaucrat, of course i would say that.

it is the nature of almost all schools of thought that followers will adopt a dogma that the movement's greatest thinkers are careful to avoid. when i read hayek, two things become apparent. the first is that liberty is paramount in his hierarchy. the second is that the first is true because liberty enables a society that proceeds by action as opposed to one by design.

many libertarians grasp the first point, but haven't fully come to terms with the meaning of the second. if more did, we would see less of libertarians shooting themselves in the foot.

As a federal employee, are you personally in a position to modify policies so that they reduce the current reach of the government? I mean in actuality, not just trying to get your coworkers to understand the broken window fallacy and the like.

I agree that libertarians do lots of stupid things, but isn't the schizophrenia and ping-ponging perfectly natural? We'd like to have a real libertarian society, and our caveman intuition tells us we can get if we just argue loudly enough and gather a big enough coalition. But in the modern world that is hopeless, so proponents sound nuts to anyone sensible. And then there are the small incremental changes we can actually achieve, but which are much less exciting and passionate, as they invoke our higher thinking centers.

One is practical, one is exciting, so people flip-flop. At least, until they discover http://seasteading.org/, and realize there is an option that is practical AND exciting :).

If you build it, I may come. Good luck!

a good example

Once again, when talking about theory and practice, it would better if progressives were impeded by the acceptance that what's been created, the type of government we're actually practicing, CAN"T work and IS ignoble in it's current nature. What we have has become the nature of government. Now if we are talking about the nature of government in general, it's been pretty well established that its nature is to grow in power and incompetent bureacracy unless limited. The Roman Empire was as good example, along with every other failed, unlimited government which preceded or followed.

Will,

Are libertarians any more schizophrenic than any other political ideology? Don't progressives likewise struggle with the tension between a large government that oversees a good portion of our lives and attempting to delegate fair outcomes while dealing with the sausage making of governing?

Toolbit out

Toolbit, Yes. I think so. Progressives struggle with the gap between their ideal of government and the reality of government. But few are impeded by the assumption that government CAN'T work, or that participating in politics or government is by its very nature ignoble.

If we were discussing theories of good governance, I'm sure most libertarians would have some good ideas to lend to the discussion, but the real schizophrenia is in the contrast between theories of good governance and what we have. The problems with what we have are systemic, deep and fundamental, so that incremental symptomatic improvements will not break the negative loop --it will take radical changes to break free.