This is a common argument I have seen countless versions of, in fact I have seen it taken to down right attacks on one’s claim to be a libertarian. It will often take the form of something such as, “well you claim to be a libertarian and think everything the government does is wrong but you benefit from pubic roads, use public lands and you even get your water from government run utilities”. The connotation is that the libertarian is either ungrateful and disingenuous or simply all theory and no practice.
The problem from what I have seen is most libertarians have no real idea how to respond to such claims. The general response is to write off the other party or more often to attack them as wanting “government to run their lives”. This exact scenario just played itself out on my website when a person who took exception to libertarianism left a comment with a link to this political cartoon in the comments section of my blog.
The image shows various pets complaining that humans have never done anything for them all while enjoying the benefits of being fully cared for with an attempt at a clever caption titled “If House Pets Were Libertarians”. In the cartoonist’s attempt to be clever he has actually made an exceptional case for libertarians. People are not pets. Now the government is trying to treat us like pets but I sure don’t want to be one; even with good food and free trips to the vet. The animals in the cartoon can’t use logic, reason and forethought, humans can. This stab against libertarians is actually an excellent cartoon with the right interpretation.
The average libertarian actually does know that many things that have been done by government are “useful”, they just know in most cases government wasn’t required to get them done. They know they could have been done for less money and with more efficiency with out big brother. Their anger at government hides this fact and is one of the things that impairs reaching more people with the libertarian message.
Here is a simple way to explain these so called government “successes” and why the libertarian will choose to “benefit” from the results of big government, even while speaking against them. Consider what I would be forced to do if our government some how legally took 50,000 dollars directly from my bank account and then bought me a 25,000 dollar car with my own money. If I had no legal recourse, no way to fight the injustice, I would have no choice but to simply accept and drive the car. Sure it would get me to work every day and the big government types would say, “look see he uses the car and doesn’t acknowledge it”.
Now was this program a success? Is the car useful to me? Does it run when I turn the key, stop when I hit the breaks and will I use it to get where I need to go? Of course I will use the car but the reality is my right to buy the model I wanted at the price I was willing to pay has been taken away from me. I had four choices before I was “helped” by the car program.
If I had been left to my own choices I could have…
1. Purchased a similar car for 25,000 dollars instead of the 50,000 it ended up costing me
2. Purchased a much nicer car with the full 50,000 dollars they took away from me
3. Purchased a less expensive car all together and kept most of my money for other needs
4. Not purchased any car at all and chosen to walk, hell may be I wanted a motor cycle!
The reality of successful government programs is perfectly illustrated in this example where my money is stolen and spent in a way I disapprove of and then they tell me how lucky I am to have the car they over paid for and chose for me. So the next time you are challenged about this type of thing use this example. I had a great friend at one time that called this “eggplant theory”, to quote him, “I hate eggplant, they take my money and feed me eggplant and tell me I should be happy to be fed”.
That sums it up pretty well, sure the libertarian will utilize the few useful things that government has produced but it is only because we have paid for it and have been left with no alternative.
~ Jack Spirko
This is the response I have needed for years. Thanks
This article is bullshit because it uses a fake ridiculous hypothetical to make its point – about government taking $50K and giving you a $25K car.
The point would be better made – if it can be made – by addressing for example how a muncipal water system would or could have been done better AND cheaper by individuals rather than government.
I adhere to much of “libertarian” philosophy, but I think the “movement” has blinders about government. Let me explain if I can: Sometimes, people can get things done better and more cheaply and efficiently by collective action rather than personal action. Government can and should be a useful instrument of that collective action, so long as it is not used for personal benefit and aggrandizement. Government is inevitable. No matter what human grouping you consider throughout history, governments have been and will be formed – governments as ways of organizing and running things, making decisions more or less democratically, setting up hierarchies and chains of command. This will happen in your church, your club, your business and your community – no matter what you think. It is something that people do in all circumstances – organize for the common good, and try to pervert that organization for personal gain. Imagining you can live without government and/or a ruling group is just setting yourself up to be oppressed and robbed. The real problem is not “government.” The problem is human nature, in two aspects: (1) people’s desire for power and wealth, and (2) people’s desire to have benefits without paying (i.e., leave me free to finance my own health care however I want but if I come up short, you can’t turn me away from the hospital ER and you must let me out from under the debt in bankruptcy court). The consequences of human nature are a problem in private enterprise as well, and it is especially a problem in the type of rigged market crony capitalism we have in the modern world.
When you start out with something STUPID, like this article is bullshit you generally are written off from that point forward.
” Imagining you can live without government and/or a ruling group is just setting yourself up to be oppressed and robbed.”
How is acquiescing to live under a government and/or a ruling group not just setting yourself up to be oppressed and robbed? This is the strong man argument that is as bogus as any other argument against libertarians or anarchists. How many of the worlds worst oppressors were not elected? People simply get the government they deserve by demanding that there be one with the power to suppress them.
The two problems in human nature you mentioned are not prevented, or even mitigated by government, but are encouraged and facillitated by it.
Also, I would add – part of the problem of human nature is (3) people’s desire to have other people do the work but still reap the benefits – the old 80-20 rule, that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. This also will be true in your church, your business, your club, your community. It is part of the innate baseness of human nature. People want to think they are more important than they are. People want to have their cake and eat it too. People want to believe in a free lunch.
I for one am tired of paying for other people’s health care through my health insurance premiums being higher than otherwise because of the insurer’s required contribution to the uncompensated care pool, and the insurer paying insanely excessive compensation to its top executives.
If I am going to pay for other people’s health care (which I already do through the private system), I would rather do it by way of “Medicare for all.” Not Obamacare, which is too effing complex – but “Medicare for all.”
Someone will call me a socialist for that I am sure, but I’ll tell you who I think is the real socialist – the person who wants me to contribute to his/her family’s health care but pretend I’m not because it’s hidden in the private health insurance system.
If we don’t have the clarity of mind to do “Medicare for all,” then my libertarian solution to our health care issues is (1) if health insurance is too expensive, don’t buy health insurance, and (2) if you can’t afford to pay for your medical care as you go, then don’t go to the doctor or hospital! If everybody did this you would see health care costs go down. That’s free market, baby, not the bullshit we have in the so-called “private” system we have today of health insurers colluding with politicians in typically crony (un)capitalist style.
The private sector would love to get control of the roads and water systems. As a 20 year public employee who builds roads, I know how much they cost and how much you pay. If your car gets 20 MPG, you pay less than a penny a mile to tool along to work. If they were owned by a private business, do you think it would cost a penny a mile?
I guess you think pack animals and trails would be a better solution.
@Chris, and where do you get this number from? I guess gas taxes vs. 100% of the cost of roads? I mean don’t get me wrong I think roads are one of the few, very few legitimate functions of government but if I can make one cent a mile on every single car in the private sector on roads, I bet I can do a better job and make so much money your head would spin.
Roads are not only funded with gas taxes. Even if they were the waste in government support of road construction and maintainence far exceeds any PRODUCTIVE tax payer the one cent a mile you cite.
It’s easy. Federal taxes are 19 cents per gallon. If your car gets 20 mpg, there you go. The roads must be owned by us. (We own the roads) Not a private business or corporation. Do you think a corporation would build a road to ten farmhouses in the country at a cost of a million a mile? No.
As late as the 70′s and 80′s many rural areas still had no phone service and some had no electric because there was no financial incentive to do so. So we (the taxpayer) had to form cooperatives (See intermountain rural electrification association for an example)
This is our government and if we could get people to care and vote with some common sense (And keep corporations from making multimillion dollar donations to candidates) we could take out country back without throwing away things such as roads that have served us well.
@Chris Baum, See that’s what I thought! You actually believe 100% of road construction and maintenance is paid for with that 19 cents. Wow man, really. Do you believe there is money in the social security trust fund too?
I would argue the Constitution explicitly states what the government is supposed to do right. Here are some of the basics.
Defend states from foreign invasion, coin money and fix the standard, pay for post offices, roads, militias/military spending and needful buildings, art and science museums. That is pretty much everything the government is supposed to do better than the private sector.
I had a professor from my University ask me “Do you want to go back to a time America followed the Constitution?” “Do you want States to have control over FAA?”
I said, yes. I prefer the States or the people to handle control of anything not empowered by the Federal Government under the Constitution.
I believe getting into these type of argument distracts from the real issue and question which should be “where in the U.S. Constitution does it state (place the institution or practice of your choice) is authorized to be administered by the government?
@Sage of Monticello
Actually I don’t like most of the regulations that come from the State OR the states. Now roads, yea I am actually fine with government managing the roads. I do see a role for government and national defense is another one we agree on.
However, the Constitution isn’t necessarily the solution. Much of the abuse in government is empowered by the Constitution. Barack Obama says the Constitution is a document of “negative liberties” because it says what the government can’t do to you but no much about what it must do for you.
Well the reality is it isn’t nearly “negative” enough! Those who pushed for the bill of rights were correct anything we don’t say they can’t do, doesn’t mean they won’t.
In the constitution the government has the power to TAX and pass ANY LAW not in direct conflict with the Constitution. And with such many of the abuses of power today are in fact quite constitutional.