While these modern Libertarians often bemoan corporate regulations and taxation as redistributionist, anti-capitalist, and success punishing examples of government activism that are targeted at destroying the free market, this view ignores the major premise that corporations are, by their very nature, State-manufactured creatures. Given that the existence of corporations, artificial creatures endowed by the State with legal rights and protections, can only be possible with significant government interference in the free market to begin with, it would be nonsensical to claim a Libertarian defense with regards to their regulation after having already set an arbitrary baseline that allows for significant State interference in the market (Crane, 2005).
Additionally, the Conservative-Libertarian argument that government market regulations infringe on individual liberty relies on the selective reasoning that only the government has the ability to engage in coercion, when in reality any large concentration of power, such as an artificial entity granted exclusive power and privilege by the government, may do so (Crane, 2005). This is as true for large corporations as it is for private militia, private police forces, illegal cartels, and organized crime syndicates. The accurate Libertarian stance in all of these instances is that it is the State's almost exclusive responsibility to protect individual liberty from such coercive and authoritarian concentrations of power.
"After hearing American Bad Ass I thought 'Finally! Uneducated, violent, meth addict white supremacists have found their champion in Kid Rock!'"
The current American system of State-capitalism, or corporatism, is fundamentally authoritarian, as it funnels capital into the hands of a select few, who then use their power and influence to minimize competition and immunize themselves from failure in an increasingly exclusive and unassailable shell of corporate welfare and government protection (Goetting, 2010). This involves any number of mechanisms that either protect corporate interests at the expense of individual liberty or selectively favor certain corporations over others.
This system of corporatism, viewed from a Libertarian standpoint, is inherently flawed in that it self-corrects only where increasing profits and market dominance are concerned, the long term effects of which invariably lead to less competition, lower wages, and, once a certain level of success is reached, an ever-decreasing possibility of failure, all of which are antithetical to a free market. Such a system cannot act individually and will not act collectively to promote individual liberty (Chomsky, 2002).
This trend is not, as with authoritarian government power structures, caused by individual inequity, greed, or corruption, but is a mechanism enforced by the system itself. Individual corporate acts, undertaken by the CEO or Board of Directors, that seek to promote competition, equality or the betterment of the market or society as a whole are routinely weeded out to protect the corporation from market loss, takeover, and failure. This is accomplished by the gradual process of egalitarian management being superseded by officers that will act more in accordance with the shareholders' desires, which are collectively divorced from the well-being of society as a whole beyond the government regulations and employment laws that Right-Libertarians are currently lobbying against.
When corporate officers are allowed to continue acting for the good of society and not the good of the corporation for any length of time, then the corporation almost invariably suffers for it, and if it does not soon fail in the cutthroat market of corporatism, it will be so weakened that it will usually be either bought out or taken over by another corporation that is better able to fulfill its primary functions: to increase stakeholder profit, ensure market dominance, and minimize competition (Chomsky, 2002).
This authoritarian, coercive system masquerading in the guise and language of free market ideology is further exacerbated by the tendencies of those most opposed to such systems also being of the most politically dissatisfied and inactive socioeconomic classes, while the perception of public opinion is largely dictated by members of higher socioeconomic classes that place greater priority on the individualistic policies that most benefit themselves, than on equality-promoting policies that benefit society as a whole (Bobo, 1991). This has led to a self-perpetuating cycle in which those that stand to gain the most from a truly Libertarian market, the majority in the laboring class, become increasingly jaded and indifferent to market struggles and political representation and more acquiescent of exploitative and coercive practices, while those already benefiting the most from the current system are the most involved, have the greatest influence, routinely receive more favorable media attention, and have access to the resources necessary to influence policymakers and public opinion.
This trend does much to explain Tea Party Libertarian politicians and spokespersons that selectively defend policies that give unfair advantage to large, private concentrations of power (such as corporate person-hood and campaign contributions,) while attacking policies that protect individual liberty from those same concentrations of power (such as the calls for privatized public education and social security, or the abolition of minimum wage and child labor laws). Additionally, while the rhetoric used to defend these stances may sound like the same rhetoric used to argue for a small, limited government and to promote liberty, in practice it is merely shifting the power structure from a publicly accountable
system to a private, unaccountable system.
While historically and globally Libertarianism is viewed as a Liberal political ideology, the language has been co-opted in the American political arena to be synonymous with far-Right Conservatism. This new far-Right movement has been found to be predominately composed of older, white males that largely identify as Republican or Republican-leaning (Williamson et al, 2010). Given that the Tea Party message, (contradictory claims, logical inconsistencies, and conflated terminology aside,) mirrors closely the Republican/Conservative message over the past thirty years it should come as no surprise that just beneath the free-market rhetoric and Libertarian language there exists a strong pro-corporate message. This pervasive conflation of laissez-faire free market language with corporate welfare and intervention on the behalf of big business has led to a large and increasing misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the Libertarian stance in American politics, and has rendered the true Libertarian stance effectively non-existent (Long, 2008).
The Tea Party arguments, inasmuch as they can be made sense of, seem to stem from a misunderstanding or outright perversion of the Libertarian concept of the free market, largely influenced by the writings of Adam Smith, and as such fail to account for the inevitable outcome of this form of unfettered capitalism. As Smith himself stated in 1776, when writing about the results of the division of labor in the system that would eventual become corporatism, that unless the laboring class is protected from exploitation in some way by their government, then eventually these private concentrations of wealth and power will lead to a stupid, ignorant, irrational and hopelessly corrupted laboring class.
These pro-corporatist arguments, largely made by informed politicians and pundits either intentionally misrepresenting or unintentionally misunderstanding the Libertarian stance, set the stage for far-Right Conservatism in America. These views have been reinforced in the public mind by Tea Partiers and other Conservative Libertarian groups, as well as pseudo-journalistic organizations with an unapologetically Conservative message, under even more nebulous, poorly-defined, and arbitrary concepts, such as 'freeloaders,' and 'hard-working taxpayers,' which seem to be applied based more on factors such as religion, race, nationality and physical appearance than on factors such as employment, welfare receipt, or tax bracket (Williamson et al, 2011). These beliefs, such as they are, seem to be based far more on straw-man arguments, moving goalposts, special pleading, conspiracy mongering, false dichotomies, jingoistic scapegoating, and appeals to emotion than on any sort of rational, well-reasoned, or even internally coherent and logically consistent arguments, goals, or philosophy drawn from the available facts. Given this, regardless of what individual Tea Party members may believe, as a whole the movement has been manipulated and spun, perhaps unwittingly, into the role of mouthpiece and shill for pro-corporatist, plutocratic policy hiding behind the language of small government fiscal conservatism.
While calling for a smaller and more limited government, particularly in the area of the market, these groups, although failing to address the inherent problems with corporatism as a whole, often speak out against government bailouts, such as the recent banking and auto industry crises. However, this narrow stance fails to address the more pervasive and invasive problems with the current Market/State dynamic, such as subsidies, eminent domain, grants of privilege or monopoly, selective tax breaks, excessive intellectual property laws, military intervention, and inflationary monetary policies (Long 2008). Beyond these examples of obvious government assistance, the state routinely implements prohibitive regulations, fees, and standards that have a disproportionate negative impact on smaller, less well-funded, and newer concerns than the giant, entrenched corporations that lobby for them (Long, 2008).
Therefore, while the most likely outcome of the current corporate system, at least following the logic of the modern Conservative-Libertarian movement, would involve a smaller government, it would also be a more selective government that does less to protect individual liberty. The price for this, of course, would be greater concentrations of authoritative power and influence in the private market, hardly a favorable outcome for a group that claims to value individual liberty, self-ownership, and the level playing field of laissez-faire capitalism.
Self-sovereignty, the idea that an individual has absolute ownership of their own person, cannot be practiced in a system of hierarchical, authoritative power structures. Whether that power structure is an unaccountable government body or an unaccountable private institution that can only exist with the government's sanction is irrelevant, as the outcome invariably leads to less individual sovereignty the more exclusive and entrenched the power structure becomes.
Additionally, the principle of individual liberty, represented by voluntary association and free contract, is only possible in a non-coercive, competitive free market. This cannot be practiced in the current system of corporations, as choosing between death and sub-poverty servitude with no guarantee of security can not be said to be a decision free from coercion. Similarly, a market can only be said to be free if all participants are free to fail or succeed based on their individual merit. This is certainly not true in the current system, as evidenced by the decades long trend of corporate welfare, bailouts, and unequal tax breaks and subsidies, as well as stagnating wages for laborers, increased layoffs, rising income disparity, and the outsourcing of jobs overseas, while the management of those same companies report record profits and award seven figure bonuses to their corporate officers in a class of business that, in a market free from government interference, wouldn't exist.
Finally, while modern Tea Party Libertarians may call for smaller government, in actuality a limited, minimal governing body is antithetical to their own ideals, as those ideals rely on selectively defending policies that award unfair advantage to large, private concentrations of power at the expense of individual liberty. Similarly, while attacking policies viewed as intrusive and anti-capitalist, modern Libertarians are, in actuality, not calling for competition with the government in the fields of education and healthcare, but are rather seeking to privatize those concentrations of power through government sanctioned and protected grants of privilege and monopoly. The result of all of this, at least so far, has not been smaller government in the sense of a less powerful government accountable to a greater number of people, but a smaller government in the sense of a less accountable government controlled by fewer people that has, in effect, outsourced the public welfare to private institutions.
In conclusion, while groups such as the Tea Party Patriots and Americans For Prosperity, as well as their representatives in the public and private sectors, may use Libertarian language and free market ideology, in reality and practice this rhetoric is merely a misleading and confusing attempt on behalf of private corporations and their beneficiaries to impede the practice of such Libertarian principles as self-sovereignty, voluntary association, and a limited, minimal government
So that's that. I'll be posting the references later if I don't lose interest.
No comments:
Post a Comment