But here's the kicker -- for libertarians, the practical arguments ultimately have nothing, repeat NOTHING to do with their opposition to government programs, agencies, or regulations.
Libertarians are opposed to government regulation or subsidization of the economy on principle.
The philosophical basis of American libertarianism is what they call the non-aggression axiom: no one has the right to initiate force against another, including the government. Government regulation or taxation of private property, including businesses, is regarded as "the initiation of force," so it must be opposed.
So, taking the examples cited above, Libertarians:
- oppose minimum wage laws because they believe no one, including government, can forcibly dictate to a business what they can pay their workers.
- want to repeal Obamacare because they do not believe the government should guarantee health care for anyone, since doing so requires taxes and regulation of the health care industry.
- want to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency because they oppose government regulation of private property. You might ask "what about pollution?" Libertarians want to privatize all land, water, and air resources, enabling pollution to be treated as a nuisance or trespass problem. The protest that, even if possible, this will take time to implement, so what do you do about present pollution problems? -- falls on the deaf ears of libertarians.
- are critical of public schools because they don't believe government should be concerned with providing education for all, since that involves taxes.
- want to "privatize" Social Security (meaning abolish it) since any government guarantee of a minimum income for senior citizens and the disabled requires taxation.
- would abolish government regulatory agencies like the FDA because government shouldn't interfere in the free market. "What about harmful products?," you might ask. Libertarians would answer "that can be handled by the market and tort law."
- must deny that human-caused climate change is a real problem because trying to mitigate it inevitably involves government regulation of carbon dioxide emissions. For radical free market believers, anthropogenic climate change can not, absolutely not exist. By now, you can probably guess why. As Naomi Klein put it in her latest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, "A belief system that vilifies collective action and declares war on all corporate regulation and all things public simply cannot be reconciled with a problem that demands collective action on an unprecedented scale and a dramatic reining in of the market forces that are largely responsible for creating and deepening the crisis (p.41)" There are simply no private solutions that can fully address climate change, so it must be denied by the free market fundamentalists.
Just imagine how flat the above arguments would fall on the ears of the general public. When I was a professional libertarian working for the Libertarian Party, I almost never mentioned the non-aggression axiom on matters involving the economy, except when speaking to a political science class or to an audience that I believed might be very receptive to libertarian ideas. I knew that if I did, I would sound nuts or heartless or both.
So you might ask "why didn't that make you reconsider your ideas?" I answer this question in depth in my post entitled "How Could I Believe This Crazy Stuff," but, suffice to say I was possessed with the typical hubris of the idealogue. I knew I was right and, importantly, my ideological fervor guided me to uncritically accepting whatever practical arguments could be made against government policies and programs. But, importantly, while I came to believe the practical arguments I made against government, it was libertarian ethics that fueled my enthusiasm.
There would be no modern radical libertarian political movement without the non-coercion axiom as applied by libertarians to property rights. We might still have the Kochs and the other big business self-interests proselytizing Congress with their dollars, but you would not have the ground troops --the legions of libertarian enthusiasts who are not millionaires by any stretch of the means, who often come from low and middle income backgrounds, but who truly believe that what they are fighting for is right. It is this libertarian ethos that fuels the self-righteous fervor of libertarians, and now many conservatives, against taxes and other government interventions in the economy.
To be clear, corporate self-interest and racism are also important to understanding the appeal of free market fundamentalism in America today, but those are hardly positive selling points in an election. They cannot be overtly used, and neither can the non-aggression axiom -- an ethic that says that government must be essentially useless in the face of poverty, racism, environmental problems, or fighting the power of wealthy corporations. Thus the practical arguments against government are mostly what you hear. But this also requires a degree of subterfuge, conscious or not, on the part of libertarians. This is why I believe the libertarian non-aggression axiom is the soft underbelly of libertarian free market fundamentalism.
Ideological hubris and subterfuge are much easier to attack. Practical arguments can quickly become wonkish, enabling a libertarian to bury criticism of their views in a tiresome debate of statistics and economic jargon, and with enough truths about government/corporate corruption to inspire the listener to think "well, that libertarian has a point." But bring up libertarian ethics as applied to the economy, and the libertarian can soon sound frankly ridiculous.
For example, let's say you're someone who has no philosophical problem with the government using its power to regulate the economy and you're debating someone you know to be a libertarian. If the libertarian says "I'm opposed to minimum wage laws because they destroy jobs," my advice is to avoid an economics-only debate with him. Turn the argument around by asking "But as a libertarian, would it be true to say that you oppose minimum wage laws because you don't believe in government regulation of business, regardless of whether minimum wage laws destroy jobs or not?" The libertarian has to either 1) lie, and disagree, thus creating an opening for supporting minimum wage laws, or 2) agree. If it's the later, then you can just carry the libertarian argument to its logical, absurd conclusions -- "So you don't believe in government labor laws in general, such as requiring workman's compensation for on-the-job injuries, or fair employment regulations outlawing discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual preference, or religion?"
Here's another example -- the libertarian argues "government schools don't teach; in our inner cities, public schools have become violent warehouses for the children of the disadvantaged that do little to prepare their students for the outside world." The libertarian goes on to argue for a government voucher program "to give parents living in poverty the option of sending their kids to private schools." There are pros and cons to education vouchers, but if you know the person making that argument is a libertarian, my advice is to go to the heart of the matter -- "but as a libertarian, and correct me if I'm wrong, you don't believe in public schools do you; that is you don't believe that government should provide education for anyone, isn't that correct?" If the libertarian is honest and agrees, then they are effectively sidelined to the radical fringe by their fundamentalist position and you can carry the debate beyond vouchers to argue for ways of making public schools better. Also, listeners to your debate will understand that libertarians support education vouchers as a means to abolishing public education, not primarily as way of better delivering educational opportunity for all.
I hope you can see that the same method - attacking libertarian free market fundamentalism by going directly to libertarian ethics -- can be very effective on any of the other economic issues confronting us. For example, "But as a libertarian, you don't believe government should provide health care for anyone, isn't that correct? .. You would also abolish not just Obamacare but Medicare and Medicaid as well, right?" "But isn't your opposition to climate change science guided by your fear that, if true, any global solution requires extensive government regulation of the fossil fuel industry, and you are, in principle, opposed to government regulations of the market, regardless of the harm being done?"
You can always go straight to the matter by asking a libertarian if they think taxation is theft. (Note - libertarians will often tip themselves off by saying something like "I don't believe government should steal people's money to pay for ...... fill in the blank"). If the libertarian is honest, he or she will say "yes," and then you can go all out. Don't be aggressive, just act curious and allow the libertarian, in their hubris, to sideline themselves -- "So (to the libertarian) I take it that means no public universities, no interstate highway system, no national parks, no army, navy, air force, or marines." At this point, the blossom of libertarianism-as-an-attractive-alternative will begin to wilt for most people listening in.
There are standard fall-back positions libertarians can take, such as "We believe that government should provide for an effective criminal justice system and for national defense, but we wouldn't have the government breaking into your private phone conversations or intervening in every conflict around the globe." If you're a liberal you could still respond, "that's something I agree with, but an effective criminal justice system at the local, state, and federal levels, plus a national defense would still require billions of dollars - how would you pay for that without taxes?"
Always remember that we have at least 70 years of modern liberal democracies around the world demonstrating that they can effectively govern and be reformed, either way - left or right - while providing arguably the greatest prosperity and freedom for their people ever known, all during a time of incredible social and technological change. Liberal democratic governments, including their myriad interventions into the marketplace, not only have worked, but have allowed modern markets to exist and prosper. Libertarians, especially on economic matters, should be the ones put on the defensive. They are fundamentalists, as profoundly irrational in their belief in a governmentless Holy Market as any religious fanatic. And you know that feeling you get when you suddenly realize that the person you're having a conversation with is a religious fundamentalist, right? You want to either leave the room or at least change the subject to something relatively harmless like "how about those Orioles?"
Focus on libertarian ethics when debating a libertarian and you can use their honest enthusiasm and hubris for their cause to present such a profoundly unrealistic and unattractive vision that everyone listening really just wants to change the subject or leave that room all together.
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