Libertarians typically see themselves as ambassadors of the message of freedom. But a harsh reality exists: fifty years of messaging has not moved the needle very far.
Focusing on delegitimizing the state is correct, I think, and complements Hoppe's advice to laugh at and mock the state (https://libertarianstandard.com/2010/11/11/laugh-at-the-state-mock-the-regime/). That is, if and to the extent you think the goal of libertarianism is to help achieve liberty, by abolishing or reducing the size and scope of the state, and to do so by educating others. If this is the goal, then the primary thing we need to educate people about, is the nature of the state.
I also agree with this: "To clarify: I do not mean to suggest that dispelling the myth of the State is an actual strategy. I do mean that it needs to be the goal: the “True North”, so to speak, of whatever strategy you choose to employ." A helpful distinction.
I also agree with this: "If people have not been persuaded by libertarianism, then necessarily, something is in the way." But I don't think it's libertarians or even our tactics that is "in the way". It is something else: it is the nature of the way a large number of people, esp. in a democrat welfare state, interact given prisoner's dilemmas and various other public choice economics insights. In other worse it's basically inevitable that we have creeping statism, given our system. It's not because people are not libertarian enough. It's analogous to when you have a dinner with 10 people and everyone will split the check, everyone has a natural incentive to spend more on their meal since in effect they only pay 1/10 of that. You don't fix this problem by having a higher quality of person sitting at the table.
In any case, I do not believe that this is necessarily what libertarianism is about. It is not about "making progress" or achieving liberty, or "persuading people." Even persuading people would not do the trick. And I don't think libertarian activists or educators can really achieve liberty. Certainly not electoral politics.
At least, this is not the goal of libertairanism for all of us, or not completely. There is and ought to be a division of labor amongst libertarians. Some are activists, and activists of different stripes--intellectual activists, electoral political activists, and so on. Others are just learners or doers. Or work in the movement. My own view is that it is not the fault of libertarians that we have not made progress or even persuaded more people. Most people have their own hobbies. Just like you close the door in the face of the Mormons who come knocking, so they are not interested in our own little passion about libertarianism. They don't want to hear it. They want to go watch football or fix up that old motorcycle in the garage.
I think the goal of libertarianism, at least for me, is to be a better person by understanding the logic of liberty more deeply, and seeking to perpetuate and develop it for others to use, or future generations. Sort of Nocks' idea of "The Remnant" https://mises.org/library/isaiahs-job . I also think that liberty can and probably will be achieved, but this is both good news and bad news for libertarians. Good news because I think it's inevitable and will last even if there are no libertarian activists nudging it along, and bad because it means there's not much for us to do, or that we can do, and also that it will probably take a few generations, so we won't see it in our lifetime (unless the impact of Bitcoin is quicker and more revolutionary than we think it will be).
I think liberty has natural advantages but society needs to have advanced to a certain stage for it to overcome the prisoner's dilemma and democracy issues. We are still a young and primitive society. We need more people, more wealth, and more technology, and a more advanced, cosmopolitan, more secular world. As we become more interdependent and richer and more cosmopolitan and tolerant, the "problems" the state solves or the benefits it provides, will become more and more trivial and vestigial. If you have your own machines and robots that make virtually free energy, healthcare, cars, houses, items, food for you, and also defend you from violent attacks... what do you need the state for? War would dwindle away, there would be no poor who need welfare, education would be free, and so on. I suspect it will wither away and remain a vestigial, ceremonial informality that no one minds paying for to let it stay around, sort of like the monarchy in England. Has no real power, does no real damage, is insignificant. I hope that's where we are headed. But if we get there, it will be because of the natural logic of liberty combined with humanity having reached a certain advanced stage where liberty can take root. It won't be because libertarians were handing out IHS pamphlets to their uncle at thanksgiving. But this also means once it takes hold it will be permanent, it won't be tenuous. But it also means it might take a while, and that however long it takes, that's how long it takes, and donating money to a Ron Paul Money Bomb won't help us get there faster and only wastes money from being used more productively.
This is an excellent reply and its thoroughness is much appreciated. If it has a theme, it is that if there ever is a free society, it will have grown organically…not planned, voted in, etc. It is comparable (indeed, identical) to emergent phenomena in nature. Bee hives, human language, and so on. And I agree.
I don’t see libertarianism as “what we need to do”; I see it as “is there anything we can do to help it happen?”. If it’s to emerge, and assuming emergence can be influenced, I see indoctrination as the biggest impediment to emergence.
If I needed to make one thing clearer: I do not fault libertarianism for not making progress in persuading others. I only felt that the True North of demystifying the cult of the State may not always be part of their goal. Once a newbie sees “there is no Santa”, they won’t see Santa as an option. But even that is only part of the overall organic evolution. Private currency; some NAP-based legal framework that private adjudicators converge upon, etc., are all necessary. But my real contention is that the myth of State legitimacy is the key impediment.
It is entirely possible (and it’s my belief), as you speculated, that technology, currency, etc., may accelerate to eventually “crowd out” the State…and thereby, people “grow up” never imagining a need for its former services. Perhaps it’s a 3-way race; will the State first destroy the world/reduce us back to barbarism? Or, will enough of the remnant overcome the myth of State legitimacy in time...influencing enough people to resist the State into some sort of Atlas Shrugged version of agorism? Or, will technology move so fast, it crowds out the State while crypto basically defunds it? The first and last would mean our actions won’t make much difference. The second seems the only one that I can influence. But that’s my view; each person should advocate and work towards liberty however their conscience dictates.
RE: Public choice explanation for why there is Statism. I see the reasoning, but not fully convinced it trumps the psychological explanation: people simply grow up indoctrinated that the State is a legit institution. The State exists (a given); it sets the stage for the public choice outcome of people voting, wanting more goodies, etc.; which expands the State. It’s a machine running according to its nature, and doesn’t need to explain where indoctrination fits in. I see attacking indoctrination as unplugging the machine.
In human terms: the ex-cultist (in general) can never imagine going back to it; a society that no longer endorses slavery is highly unlikely to bring it back. Public choice certainly exists in a cult or slavery, but is irrelevant if the cult dissolves or slavery ends…and that pretty much can only happen if they are perceived (by a sufficient number) as illegitimate.
Focusing on delegitimizing the state is correct, I think, and complements Hoppe's advice to laugh at and mock the state (https://libertarianstandard.com/2010/11/11/laugh-at-the-state-mock-the-regime/). That is, if and to the extent you think the goal of libertarianism is to help achieve liberty, by abolishing or reducing the size and scope of the state, and to do so by educating others. If this is the goal, then the primary thing we need to educate people about, is the nature of the state.
I also agree with this: "To clarify: I do not mean to suggest that dispelling the myth of the State is an actual strategy. I do mean that it needs to be the goal: the “True North”, so to speak, of whatever strategy you choose to employ." A helpful distinction.
I also agree with this: "If people have not been persuaded by libertarianism, then necessarily, something is in the way." But I don't think it's libertarians or even our tactics that is "in the way". It is something else: it is the nature of the way a large number of people, esp. in a democrat welfare state, interact given prisoner's dilemmas and various other public choice economics insights. In other worse it's basically inevitable that we have creeping statism, given our system. It's not because people are not libertarian enough. It's analogous to when you have a dinner with 10 people and everyone will split the check, everyone has a natural incentive to spend more on their meal since in effect they only pay 1/10 of that. You don't fix this problem by having a higher quality of person sitting at the table.
In any case, I do not believe that this is necessarily what libertarianism is about. It is not about "making progress" or achieving liberty, or "persuading people." Even persuading people would not do the trick. And I don't think libertarian activists or educators can really achieve liberty. Certainly not electoral politics.
At least, this is not the goal of libertairanism for all of us, or not completely. There is and ought to be a division of labor amongst libertarians. Some are activists, and activists of different stripes--intellectual activists, electoral political activists, and so on. Others are just learners or doers. Or work in the movement. My own view is that it is not the fault of libertarians that we have not made progress or even persuaded more people. Most people have their own hobbies. Just like you close the door in the face of the Mormons who come knocking, so they are not interested in our own little passion about libertarianism. They don't want to hear it. They want to go watch football or fix up that old motorcycle in the garage.
I think the goal of libertarianism, at least for me, is to be a better person by understanding the logic of liberty more deeply, and seeking to perpetuate and develop it for others to use, or future generations. Sort of Nocks' idea of "The Remnant" https://mises.org/library/isaiahs-job . I also think that liberty can and probably will be achieved, but this is both good news and bad news for libertarians. Good news because I think it's inevitable and will last even if there are no libertarian activists nudging it along, and bad because it means there's not much for us to do, or that we can do, and also that it will probably take a few generations, so we won't see it in our lifetime (unless the impact of Bitcoin is quicker and more revolutionary than we think it will be).
I think liberty has natural advantages but society needs to have advanced to a certain stage for it to overcome the prisoner's dilemma and democracy issues. We are still a young and primitive society. We need more people, more wealth, and more technology, and a more advanced, cosmopolitan, more secular world. As we become more interdependent and richer and more cosmopolitan and tolerant, the "problems" the state solves or the benefits it provides, will become more and more trivial and vestigial. If you have your own machines and robots that make virtually free energy, healthcare, cars, houses, items, food for you, and also defend you from violent attacks... what do you need the state for? War would dwindle away, there would be no poor who need welfare, education would be free, and so on. I suspect it will wither away and remain a vestigial, ceremonial informality that no one minds paying for to let it stay around, sort of like the monarchy in England. Has no real power, does no real damage, is insignificant. I hope that's where we are headed. But if we get there, it will be because of the natural logic of liberty combined with humanity having reached a certain advanced stage where liberty can take root. It won't be because libertarians were handing out IHS pamphlets to their uncle at thanksgiving. But this also means once it takes hold it will be permanent, it won't be tenuous. But it also means it might take a while, and that however long it takes, that's how long it takes, and donating money to a Ron Paul Money Bomb won't help us get there faster and only wastes money from being used more productively.
This is an excellent reply and its thoroughness is much appreciated. If it has a theme, it is that if there ever is a free society, it will have grown organically…not planned, voted in, etc. It is comparable (indeed, identical) to emergent phenomena in nature. Bee hives, human language, and so on. And I agree.
I don’t see libertarianism as “what we need to do”; I see it as “is there anything we can do to help it happen?”. If it’s to emerge, and assuming emergence can be influenced, I see indoctrination as the biggest impediment to emergence.
If I needed to make one thing clearer: I do not fault libertarianism for not making progress in persuading others. I only felt that the True North of demystifying the cult of the State may not always be part of their goal. Once a newbie sees “there is no Santa”, they won’t see Santa as an option. But even that is only part of the overall organic evolution. Private currency; some NAP-based legal framework that private adjudicators converge upon, etc., are all necessary. But my real contention is that the myth of State legitimacy is the key impediment.
It is entirely possible (and it’s my belief), as you speculated, that technology, currency, etc., may accelerate to eventually “crowd out” the State…and thereby, people “grow up” never imagining a need for its former services. Perhaps it’s a 3-way race; will the State first destroy the world/reduce us back to barbarism? Or, will enough of the remnant overcome the myth of State legitimacy in time...influencing enough people to resist the State into some sort of Atlas Shrugged version of agorism? Or, will technology move so fast, it crowds out the State while crypto basically defunds it? The first and last would mean our actions won’t make much difference. The second seems the only one that I can influence. But that’s my view; each person should advocate and work towards liberty however their conscience dictates.
RE: Public choice explanation for why there is Statism. I see the reasoning, but not fully convinced it trumps the psychological explanation: people simply grow up indoctrinated that the State is a legit institution. The State exists (a given); it sets the stage for the public choice outcome of people voting, wanting more goodies, etc.; which expands the State. It’s a machine running according to its nature, and doesn’t need to explain where indoctrination fits in. I see attacking indoctrination as unplugging the machine.
In human terms: the ex-cultist (in general) can never imagine going back to it; a society that no longer endorses slavery is highly unlikely to bring it back. Public choice certainly exists in a cult or slavery, but is irrelevant if the cult dissolves or slavery ends…and that pretty much can only happen if they are perceived (by a sufficient number) as illegitimate.
Agree.