One of the fascinating phenomena in the libertarian movement for the last several decades has been the division of libertarians into those who have decided to settle for advocating welfare-warfare-state reform and those of us who have decided to continue trying to achieve liberty.
The reformers have thrown in the towel with respect to achieving liberty. They have concluded that liberty is simply too difficult, even impossible, to achieve. The federal and state welfare state and the warfare state have become too massive, too well-established, too ingrained in people’s minds, and too powerful. There is no reasonable possibility, the libertarian reformers have concluded, of achieving freedom and so there is no point in wasting our time, energy, and resources trying to achieve freedom. Better to do what is practical — work within the system to make our serfdom better and more palatable.
After all, it’s important to keep something in mind: Freedom necessarily entails a dismantling of infringements on freedom, not the reform of infringements on freedom. If all we do is reform infringements on freedom, the most we accomplish is an improved serfdom, but we don’t achieve freedom.
Think about 19th-century American slaves. A group of reform-oriented libertarians in 1855 Alabama exclaim, “Slavery is too deeply ingrained in Alabama life. It’s protected by the state constitution as well as by the U.S. Constitution. Popular sentiment, especially here in Alabama, is in favor of continuing slavery. We have to be practical. We are not going to get rid of slavery any time soon. We need to devote our efforts to reforming slavery, making it better and more palatable. We need to promote legislation that will bring about fewer lashings, shorter work hours, better food and healthcare, and even a modicum of education for the slaves.”
The liberty-minded libertarians say otherwise. They say, “Slavery is wrong. We need to end it, not reform it. It doesn’t matter how deeply established it is or how popular it is. We need to continue standing squarely against it. Constitutions, both state and federal, can be amended. We need to continue making the case for immediately ending slavery. We cannot settle for reform.”
Serfdom is not exactly like slavery, but it comes pretty close. In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote his popular book The Road to Serfdom. People can debate on when the end of that road was achieved for Americans but there is no doubt that by the time the late 1960s arrived, Americans had become full-fledged serfs on the U.S. welfare-warfare-state plantation. Ever since, Americans have lived their lives to support the welfare-warfare state. That’s our role in life — to work and toil to maintain the structure of serfdom under which everyone is born and raised and under which they ultimately die.
Libertarians who have thrown in the towel on achieving freedom say to those of us who are still fighting for freedom, “What’s the big deal? You all can continue fighting for freedom while the rest of us have settled for reform of our serfdom. What difference does it make?”
It makes a huge amount of difference!
Let’s hypothesize. Let’s say that we need 125,000 libertarians who want freedom to bring about a paradigm shift to freedom. Let’s assume that we currently have 100,000 libertarians. Theoretically, we need to find only 25,000 more to achieve the genuinely free society.
But let’s assume that out of those 100,000 libertarians, 90,000 have thrown in the towel and have decided to settle for reform. Obviously, that makes it much more difficult for those of us 10,000 who are still fighting for freedom. We now have to find an additional 90,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to reach the 125,000 critical mass that will bring us freedom.
Now, let’s turn things around. Let’s say that out of those 100,000 libertarians, only 10,000 have thrown in the towel in favor of serfdom reform and 90,000 are still committed to achieving freedom. That means that those 90,000 only have to find an additional 10,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to achieve freedom. Moreover, with 90,000 libertarians making the case for freedom, rather that reform, it becomes a much easier task to find those additional 35,000 libertarians who want freedom.
One thing is for certain: The more libertarians who throw in the towel and settle for serfdom reform, the more diminished becomes the libertarian light of freedom. If 100 percent of libertarians decide to settle for serfdom reform, the possibility of achieving freedom is virtually nonexistent. In that case, the libertarian light of liberty is extinguished.
