An unknown Ball State University student advertised on Oct. 15 the presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul, a Republican with libertarian qualities, with chalk writing around Teachers College and the Scramble Light. Paul is a long-shot candidate, but the amount of attention he has received indicates a specter is haunting Ball State: the specter of libertarianism.
While it has many variations, libertarianism is a political philosophy that usually combines free-market economics with a hands-off approach to individual rights.
It has become somewhat fashionable lately. Many well-meaning people embrace its promises of low taxes, free enterprise and a permissive approach to drugs and sex. But its overall crackpot senselessness seems to escape notice.
Libertarianism - particularly its economics - bears some troubling similarities to Marxism, fascism and anarchism. Like its mutually estranged brethren, libertarianism is a utopian ideology, proposing radical transformations that will supposedly create a better society. It often blames problems on one culprit, the government, and prescribes one solution, private enterprise. It displays inconsistencies and indulges in irresponsible historical revisionism. Libertarian arguments often rely on far-fetched assumptions inconsistent with evidence.
On environmental policy, the Libertarian Party condemns Yellowstone National Park for once trapping predators so the hoofed animals popular among visitors could flourish, a market-driven policy, but assumes that selling government land to private ranchers would ensure its sustainable use. It does not take into account that market-driven entrepreneurs, pursuing profit, are just as likely to harm the environment as the government. Otherwise, we wouldn't have pollution.
Testifying before the Wisconsin State Assembly's healthcare reform committee, Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute said any reform should "not destroy those things that make our healthcare system so effective -¡- individual choice and free markets. In particular, you should avoid the temptation to increase government regulation and control over the state's healthcare system." Paul and the Libertarian Party blame the healthcare crisis on government intervention. They seem to forget that healthcare isn't expensive due to government intervention, but HMOs gleaning patients' wallets and denying coverage whenever possible to fulfill what late libertarian economist Milton Friedman considered their only duty: turning a profit for their shareholders.
The Libertarian Party's welfare policy proposes replacing the system with a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for people who donate to social welfare charities. It assumes that with the elimination of welfare and its replacement by a de facto tax cut, rich people will gladly pick up the slack.
Recent trends suggest otherwise. According to a July 22 article in "The Guardian," tax cuts for the wealthy and rising profits have led to increased buying of luxury goods and the return of the butler industry. According to the "New York Times," roughly three-quarters of charitable donations of $50 million or more in 2002 went to universities, private foundations, hospitals and art museums, but few went to organizations that seek to alleviate poverty, even though they offer identical tax deductibility.
The Libertarian Party promises it will help fight poverty, but laissez-faire has a track record of creating wealth for few and poverty for many.
After seizing power in a 1973 coup, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet let economists trained by Friedman at the University of Chicago to dictate economic policy. Their free-market policies made Chile's economy highly advanced, but highly unequal, with a Gini index of 53.8 as of 2003, according to the CIA World Factbook. Another paragon of economic freedom, Hong Kong, has a Gini index of 52.3. The index measures income distribution, with a high index, such as Chile's or Hong Kong's, indicating high inequality.
Libertarianism would languish in the same loony bin as the Lyndon LaRouche movement, if not for a political party and network of think tanks winning mainstream respectability in politics and among the public. This country has lots of problems the Democrats and the Republicans have failed to solve and have often created. But problems need realistic solutions, not radical ones that substitute dogmatism for pragmatism.
Write to Alaric at ajdearment@bsu.edu
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