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No, Virginia, we're not libertarians
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by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News Dec. 13, 2005
Now and then we hear from libertarians, scratching their heads because we're passionate about freedom but we don't call ourselves libertarians. 'Tis the season, so let's explain it again:
In Europe and much of the world, 'libertarian' is a synonym for a certain stripe of socialist. We're capitalists, so we're not the European kind of libertarian.
But in America, 'libertarian' has developed a different, generally opposite meaning. It's a lot of lofty talk about freedom, but in the end freedom is secondary to libertarians ... or lower on the list.
I'm an ex-libertarian, so I'm immune to most of the libertarian line. I've spent hundreds of hours hanging out with hard-core libertarians, marched with libertarians at tax protests, gotten drunk with libertarians, slept with libertarians, and had breakfast with libertarians the morning after. I know better than to think libertarians' priority is freedom. It ain't.
It's money. It's wealth. For all their lofty rhetoric, money and wealth are what most libertarians hold as life's paramount value.
Attend a libertarians' meeting, and you'll hear them talk about freedom. That's what drew me in, and that's what we respected and still respect about libertarians. They take pro-freedom positions: Against prohibition, supporting gay rights, opposing a draft, supporting gun rights, generally favoring peace over war, and so forth. We believe they're sincere about these things, and of course we agree about all those issues.
But when the libertarians' meeting is over, when they're relaxing with a cup of coffee and chatting from the heart about their concerns, the conversation devolves into sheer nuttiness.
With much more passion than their talk of freedom, they'll go on at length about restoring the gold standard, abolishing the Federal Reserve, how to avoid paying taxes, how property rights should trump laws against pollution, and most loudly, they'll argue that whatever a corporation does, why, it has the "freedom" to do it. Export labor to nations where workers get two dollars a month? Sure. Dump toxic chemicals in the back lot? Sure, as long as the corporation owns the property. On and on, the bottom line seems to be the bottom line: If a corporation has the money, owns the land, pays its employees, it has the right to do just about anything.
For most libertarians, there's a deep-seated distrust of government -- something everyone should share -- but there's no corresponding distrust of corporations and gazillionaires. Quite the contrary, the libertarian perspective carries an almost unquestioned assumption that the rich and powerful earned every penny of their riches and power fair and square. And having earned it, it would be unAmerican, perhaps communism, to regulate or tax away a penny of it.
Do you think Citibank and General Electric have earned wealth and power fair and square? Do you think ExxonMobil and American International Group should be able to do whatever their stockholders wish with their billions?
I haven't taken a scientific poll, but I'd wager that most libertarians would say yes -- Giant corporations should have the "freedom" to operate without regulation, or with regulations so minimal and toothless it amounts to no regulation at all. On the factory line, for example, they'd say there should be no safety regulations and no OSHA inspections. Instead, if a worker is maimed by a machine, he or she can sue to prove liability, and if the worker wins then the company will learn an expensive lesson and make the factory more safe.
We'd answer the same question with a loud no and a sarcastic "get real." Joe Schmoe v. Boeing is never going to be a fair lawsuit, and only the most fantastically, obviously aggrieved Schmoe could ever defeat Boeing's fleet of lawyers in court.
We think freedom is for people, not for corporations.
If giant corporations are allowed to exist at all, they must be regulated, taxed, punished when they break the law, and held liable when they harm customers, employees, or anyone else -- and not just in court, but by government overseers. Government is the only entity that can plausibly make giant corporations give a damn about safety, pollution, or anything else that would otherwise be shunted aside in the pursuit of profit.
But anywhere libertarians gather, you'll hear the proposal, in all seriousness, that corporations should have minimal or no government oversight. And you'll hear other libertarians say, yup, that sounds good to me.
As if Wal-Mart and Halliburton aren't stealing more in coerced tax breaks and no-bid contracts than every Congressman, every Senator. As if the evils of government and big business weren't as commingled and in cahoots as the Republicans and Democrats.
To advocate that corporations should have minimal or no government oversight, is to advocate for maximum theft and corruption, and minimal rights and freedom for real people.
Lots of libertarians are attracted by the writings of Ayn Rand, and we own all her books, including a first edition of Atlas Shrugged. But Bill Gates is not Howard Roark, and Dagny Taggart is not running United Airlines. Ayn Rand was famous first and foremost for her fiction, and fiction is what she wrote.
It's fiction to think of corporations as the good guys of capitalism, as silly as saying men who own mansions are inherently trustworthy. Lots of libertarians believe that, but we don't. You might as well ask if we believe in Santa Claus.
Corporations are not naturally good, or even naturally-occurring entities. They're not human, even as American law grants corporations more civil rights than Iraqis or most Americans will ever have. The whole notion of incorporation -- "limited liability" -- is a creation of law, and it's every bit as invalid as other unjust laws written by purchased politicians.
Corporations are nothing but concentrations of wealth and power, and here in the real world, wealth and power are often accumulated through theft and corruption. Wealth and power are often used to stomp on people's rights and freedom. Wealth and power are what ordinary people don't have, and what they need to be protected against.
Corporations cannot be blindly trusted to live up to the standards of integrity and neighborliness seen in their TV commercials, any more than you'd trust any politician's promises. We don't get freedom by trusting politicians, and we don't get freedom by trusting corporations. Chances are, we don't get freedom period, but whatever freedom we get comes by keeping a close eye on government, and keeping a close eye on corporations.
We don't trust George Bush, and we don't trust Philip Morris.
Power corrupts. Politicians are powerful and corrupt, and giant corporations are powerful and corrupt -- more powerful than many or most politicians. It's tyranny of a different type, that's all.
We're for close oversight of government and corporations, so we're not libertarians.
We're for freedom instead.
© by the author.
What do you think?
I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I pound my anger into a weekly column here.
Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of DoveTM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.
This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.
About the authors
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Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.
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Lots of libertarians are attracted by the writings of Ayn Rand, and we own all her books, including a first edition of Atlas Shrugged.
But Bill Gates is not Howard Roark, and Dagny Taggart is not running United Airlines.
Ayn Rand was famous first and foremost for her fiction, and fiction is what she wrote.
It's fiction to think of corporations as the good guys of capitalism, as silly as saying men who own mansions are inherently trustworthy.
Lots of libertarians believe that, but we don't.
You might as well ask if we believe in Santa Claus.
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Previous articles by Helen & Harry Highwater:
Letter to the editor
by Proud American, with a response from Helen & Harry Highwater
A whisper of optimism
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Muhammad Ali is a scumbag
by Helen & Harry Highwater
On behalf of God Himself, I endorse Alito for Supreme Court
by Helen & Harry Highwater, as Jerry Falwell
The old guy in a sweatshirt
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The emperor wears no mental clothes
by Helen & Harry Highwater
I'm filing bankruptcy
by Helen Highwater
Our long national nightmare is just beginning
by Helen & Harry Highwater
"Mission accomplished" for FEMA
by Harry Highwater
Police roadblock freedom in America
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our phone number
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Fuck you, George W. Bush
by Helen & Harry Highwater
A forgotten man, one of many
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The daily compromise
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Are you for freedom, or against it?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
The unspoken subtext of Karl Rove's treason:
Support your local CIA
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Cabbages don't count
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Back to basics: Question authority
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Anatomy of another lie
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Constipated and liquefied logic
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Be careful crossing the street, ya damn kids!
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Monsters in America,
from Deep Throat to James Watt to Christopher Cox
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Mainstream media:
Completely on board with Bush administration lies
by Helen & Harry Highwater
A Pope to be ashamed of
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What can we do about the stolen election?
by Atomicktom and
Helen & Harry Highwater
The President who cried "wolf!"
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Defeating terrorists without wars
by Helen & Harry Highwater
If you're not for Bush, you're French ... or al Qaeda
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Rescuing America from tyranny
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Separation of church and state
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Who would Jesus vote for?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Godless hippie scumbag
traitors who hate the troops
by Helen & Harry Highwater
To tell the truth
by Helen & Harry Highwater
What kind of bloody savages
would kill people and drag
their corpses along the road?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our serial killer nation
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Judging Judging Amy
by Helen & Harry Highwater
An apology and an endorsement
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Rights, responsibilities, and acknowledgement
by Peace-Thru-Reason and
Helen & Harry Highwater
Los Angeles Times memo orders reporters to fudge the truth
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Our perspective on Terri Schiavo
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Who deserves freedom of speech? And who doesn't?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Two years of lies about Sept. 11
The new Warren Commission
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Criticizing Israel
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Is it terrorism to be a patriot?
Or is it just like Red Dawn, only with turbans?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Bush knocks on Armageddon's back door
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Why I won't be at the victory parade
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Company fined $6,000 for
answering customer's questions
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Clint Eastwood, and US foreign policy
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Do you love America? Do you?
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Google refuses our ad
by Helen & Harry Highwater
Reasonable deaths in a nonsense war
by Helen & Harry Highwater
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We don't get freedom by trusting politicians, and we don't get freedom by trusting corporations.
Chances are, we don't get freedom period, but whatever freedom we get comes by keeping a close eye on government, and keeping a close eye on corporations.
We don't trust George Bush, and we don't trust Philip Morris.
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