Todd Seavey accuses me of “rhetoric unbecoming a libertarian” and argues that “mere social forces” cannot be freedom-constraining. Thus, a black man who cannot hold employment by law is unfree, but a black man who cannot hold employment because social custom is such that no one will hire him is as free as any white man. A gay couple who must stay closeted to avoid social ostracism is as free as any hetero couple. A woman who has to choose between purdah and exile from her village is basically living in a libertarian paradise, so long as no one writes the rules down.
This may be true in some parallel world, or under some as-yet-unknown definition of the word freedom, but it’s pretty clearly not true given the world we have and the language we use.
I understand the temptation to describe the world strategically rather than accurately. Certainly a lot of people fear admitting the existence of liberty-limiting discrimination lest they aid and abet the forces of regulation. But it’s really quite easy to acknowledge the existence of, say, unconscious bias, and to argue that regulation isn’t a viable solution. I also understand that acknowledging the existence of norms introduces all sorts of complex, unpleasant, difficult variables into the clean calculus some libertarians prefer. Social planners like to simplify the world to conform to their systems as well.
Todd continues to insist that I think everything antifeminist is unlibertarian, and vice versa. That’s obviously a stupid thing to think; the fact that ideologies share considerable overlap does not render them identical. My point is merely that various historical contingencies—the particularly puritanical brand of feminism popular three decades back, the ill-fated conservative/libertarian alliance forged in response to the cold war—mask the affinity between libertarianism and feminism, and that that’s a shame. It’s also a generational blind spot that won’t last.
[...] Posted by Matt Zeitlin on November 10, 2008 I’m not going to write a detailed summary of the interlibertarian squabble between Todd Seavey and Kerry Howley re: whether libertarians can be feminists and vice versa, but if you want catch up, click here, here, here and here. [...]
seems to me that libertarianism is what it is because it picks and chooses when it comes to freedom, that’s what keeps it so clean. If you’re repulsed by the simplification of the world for the sake of ideological integrity and you’re interested in seeking out and dealing with complex, unpleasant and difficult variables, why bother with ideological identity? Isn’t deciding that you are a “libertarian” the first step toward ignoring, distorting, disputing those difficult variables?
anyway, kudos for pushing the ideology on this one.
Yes. Please write more often.
The fact that you’re trying to have this argument with a libertarian make me wonder if you’ve ever MET a living, breathing libertarian.
None of them GIVE A SHIT about anyone else’s problems. They just hate the gubberment cause it’s takin der monies and won’t let em smoke up.
How have you not noticed this?
[...] •…as noted by Will’s girlfriend Kerry Howley, who, as it happens, I’d been criticizing on this blog for completely unrelated reasons — namely for not seeing why feminism (in most forms) is fundamentally at odds with the diverse and inevitably inegalitarian (though not necessarily predictable) outcomes tolerated by libertarianism, which normally describes people as free so long as their property rights and bodily integrity are not violated. Kerry objected. I responded. Kerry objected again. [...]
I’m sympathetic to Kerry’s point of view- refusing to acknowledge non-state intrusions on individual freedom (or claiming that these intrusions are unimportant) skates the line between obtuse and dishonest.
However, I’m held back by the possibility that most statist solutions to purely social fetters on liberty inevitably do more harm than good. The state can only ever act through the application, or threat, of physical violence. Social pressure is usually not so ferocious. Having one’s property confiscated at gunpoint is a burden of an entirely different sort than being systematically undervalued by one’s employer.
These worries can’t be universal, of course- most libertarians would acknowledge that the Civil Rights Act was a net gain for liberty, but it’s fair to say that if fixing an injustice requires enlisting the aid of men with guns, that injustice should be egregious indeed.
I think the problem here Ms. Howley, is that you seem to be mistaking libertarianism for a complete moral philosophy, which it isn’t. Libertarianism SHOULD only be concerned with coercion. Freedom is a political concept that doesn’t apply to non-coercive situations. A gay man, forced through social pressure, to live in the closet but doesn’t suffer from state coersion IS free, in the political sense, the only manner that is relevant to libertarianism. Social pressure is not a libertarian question… it is a question of social morality – a question of ethics and morality, not politics.
Your language IS unbecoming a libertarian in that sense because it isn’t political, it is sociological. It is somewhat amusing to me that you often make the same mistake… of associating state power with collective social power. They are similar but they aren’t the same.
The question as to whether or not libertarianism suffers from having no underlying philosophy is not a new one – see Ayn Rand – but it is beyond dispute that libertarianism, currently, is philosophically incomplete.
I can’t fathom why someone as clever as you seems incapable of contextualizing concepts such as freedom and understanding the inherent limitations of the concept. Freedom doesn’t apply to moral situations… right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and bad do but not freedom. In your examples, the only political freedom is the freedom to choose – not the freedom to choose from two more palatable options. The situations you describe are moral problems, not political ones.
so let me get this straight, PFJO, you’re arguing that libertarianism can’t address social problems because freedom isn’t a moral concept. That is as long as freedom = political, and moral problems = non-political, and social problems = moral. I mean it all stands on a big fat tautological “because I said so.” You’re not engaging Kerry’s point that these lines are drawn “strategically rather than accurately.”
What is the risk of including social problems in libertarian conversations while maintaining an aversion to state solutions? Are you reluctant to recognize that social norms exist? Or are you reluctant to evaluate them? Because if you allow that they exist but refuse to venture an analysis of whether they are problematic or not, well that sounds like an eerie strain of compulsion to me. (Or are you allowed to recognize/evaluate social norms, just not with your, um, libertarian hat on?)
I’m really eager to hear what’s at stake for those who hold so tightly to these boundaries you’ve constructed, which, by your own admission, stand upon an “incomplete” foundation. It reminds me of people who get really upset if the mashed potatoes on their plate touch the stuffing. which is to say, it reminds me of a missed opportunity.
From my point of view, both Todd and Kerry are right.
Todd is right in what the law should concern itself with. A black man who cannot hold employment because social custom is such that no one will hire him should not be made whole by the law. Freedom and coercion, as far as the role of the government and the courts are concerned ought to be defined in the strict libertarian sense. Anything else leads to vagueness, logical inconsistency, slippery-slope effects, practical difficulties and other problems.
Kerry is right in that a black man who cannot hold employment because social custom is such that no one will hire him is indeed un-free, at least in the way the word is commonly used. However the lack of freedom here is social and redressal should be social too.
There is nothing in libertarianism that prevents one from acknowledging that situations exist that do not involve coercion in the libertarian sense of the world but nonetheless needs to be addressed. The question is what is the right way to address these problems. If Kerry believes the correct way is through voluntary, social means, then I am completely with her. If, on the other hand, she thinks that the law should step in, then I agree with Todd that her views are incompatible with libertarianism,
PFJO:
“I think the problem here Ms. Howley, is that you seem to be mistaking libertarianism for a complete moral philosophy, which it isn’t. Libertarianism SHOULD only be concerned with coercion.”
Why?
Suppose, for example, that there are certain ideas or noncoercive social customs which will make it easier to eliminate coercion from society, and other ideas or noncoercive social customs which will make it hard or impossible to eliminate coercion from society. If so, don’t libertarians have strategic reasons to try to promote the libertarian-friendly ideas and customs, and to work (nonviolently) against the libertarian-unfriendly ideas and customs, even though both of them are non-coercive per se?
You’re setting out a thin conception of libertarianism here, as if it were obvious that anything not strictly logically entailed by the non-initiation of force is therefore completely irrelevant to libertarian politics. But I think it’s not at all obvious that this is the case. In any case, it needs much more argument than you’ve given it so far (since the rest of your comments after what I quoted merely elaborate the way you draw a distinction between “moral” and “political” questions — without an argument to justify drawing the distinction the way you draw it).
Kerry,
After reading over the recent series of posts, I think the difficulty here may have something to do with the fact that Todd Seavey can apparently read a post the explicit and entire point of which is to argue that, while nonviolent discriminatory social pressures are not coercive per se, “No thinking libertarian is only concerned with coercion,” and then immediately reply, without a hint of sarcasm, that it “seems” to him that you are claiming that social pressures are “literally coercive” (!) and that “you have a right to tax me or sue me in response” to purely verbal misogyny.
Or, to put it in other words, Todd Seavey is quite comfortable with just making shit up in the course of a conversation. He also feels free to attribute the opposite of your stated views to you, and then to treat his attack on that ridiculous strawman as a successful response to your comments, and then to go on to give you a lecture about his 20 years in This Movement Of Ours and his knowledge of movement figures and philosophy, which apparently doesn’t reach beyond the middle of the Eisenhower administration.
Or, to put it in other words, he’s lying and generally acting like a perfect jackass.
Thank you for these posts. Besides admiring your lucidity, I also admire your patience. Not because I think it’s going to do anything to change Todd Seavey’s mind; he’s hardly deserving your time. But rather because it has produced some very good posts on an important issue, in spite of the undeserving interlocutor.
First, great series. Second, what Rad Geek said (his and Roderick Long’s work on thick libertarianism would be very helpful to the argument you’re making). I agree that it’s very frustrating the way some male libertarians parcel out freedom into the “relevant” and “non-relevant” categories. There is more to life than being free of the state, and it’s a weak libertarianism that can only abide narrow discussion of the first category. What bothers me isn’t Seavey’s position so much as the hostility. I actually agree with him that libertarianism is a narrow focus on state power; but (A) applying libertarianism in the real world requires one to understand the interconnected relationship between social norms and systemic coercion, and (B) it’s no wonder many consider libertarians to be assholes when all they can mount in defense of their version of the philosophy is to insult and cling to definitional brow-beating.
A libertarianism that cannot engage with the total culture cannot function, even to curb state aggression as Seavey seems to prioritize.
Hmmm… Rad Greek, it does seem that my post was a bit rambling and out of sorts… of course, I had been up all night drinking and was likely, at that point still a bit trashed so let me try this sober:
You ask why? Because it does. Point of fact. As it stands right now, libertarianism is an isolated political philosophy and not a complete philosophy. If Ms. Howley wants to argue that it should evolve into a complete philosophical system then she needs to lay down the appropriate epistemological, and metaphysical arguments. She has, as far as I know, made no such attempt. In fact, Libertarians historically are hostile to such attempts (although I am not).
The next problem is that her line of argument isn’t an attempt to characterize certain social pressure as immoral and to encourage libertarians to speak out against them (which is fine and I agree), rather she is simply trying to expand the definition of coercive force to fit her pet issues. It’s intellectual lazy at best, and dishonest at worst.
You, Rad Greek, and Ms. Howley are attempting to expand the definition and scope of libertarianism without an appropriate philosophical framework. Libertarianism is fundamentally defined by the limitation of coercive force which logically leads it to a political philosophy that restricts the state and protects natural rights. It’s consistent. It is also limited as a result… it cannot delve into areas of human interaction where there is no coercive force.
In order to address the issues that both you and Kerry Howley seek to address you must move beyond the current philosophical foundation of libertarianism (limitation of coercive force) and articulate a more encompassing fundamental premise. You can’t just change the definition of coercive force and thereby expand the sphere of libertarianism.
That’s cheating and it isn’t allowed.
Oh for the love of god. Actually, PFJO, there isn’t any uncontroversial definition of “coercion”; see this SEP article for a nice overview.
Quite frankly, any definition of libertarianism that reads J.S. Mill out of the movement deserves to be mocked, not argued with.
PFJO,
First, I notice that you haven’t answered my question. I mentioned one specific case in which people who advocate a “thick” conception of libertarianism (including Howley, myself, Roderick Long, Wendy McElroy, Hans Hoppe, Chris Sciabarra, Ayn Rand, Benjamin Tucker, Herbert Spencer, and a lot of other people from many different wings of the mvement) often stress the importance of non-coercive cultural phenomena to libertarian politics: cases in which there are important causal preconditions for a flourishing free society. Here it seems that libertarians have strategic reasons for favoring some non-coercive cultural arrangements over other non-coercive cultural arrangements, even though neither arrangement involves an initiation of force against identifiable victims. Do you disagree? If so, why? Or do you agree, but think that strategic commitments are somehow unimportant for libertarians to consider? If so, why?
Second, rather than responding to this question, at all, you have simply repeated a set of completely unsupported definitional claims. I don’t know what expertise or authority you think you have that would justify these from-the-mountaintop declarations. It certainly has nothing to do with the history of the word “libertarian” (or the French “libertaire,” from which “libertarian” was derived). The word has meant all kinds of different things throughout its history: it was originally coined by Joseph Dejacque as a euphemism for anarchistic socialism (which is still the primary use of the term in Europe); it has been used as a general contrast term for “authoritarianism”; American free marketeers and Constitutionalists started using it as a replacement term for “classical liberal” in the mid-20th century; about a decade later, a few (e.g. Murray Rothbard, later on Walter Block) started using it to specifically describe an axiomatic ethico-political system deriving from the non-aggression principle. The last of these definitions is the only one that systematically excludes consideration of any social question other than those having to do with the legitimate use of force. Some other meanings of the term (e.g. the understanding of “libertarianism” as more or less synonymous with “classical liberalism”) tend to minimize but not do away with other considerations; others (e.g. the identification of libertarianism with anti-authoritarianism or anarchism specifically) tend to put quite a bit of attention on broader questions about the desirability of different non-coercive social structures. You can find out some of the history behind these kinds of debates from books like Chris Sciabarra’s Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical and Total Freedom; I already linked an article of my own (from FEE’s The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty) which discusses some of the philosophical aspects of the debate and mentions some of the history of debates within the movement along the way. Of course you’re under no obligation to agree with me on the matter (lots of libertarians don’t–Walter Block, for example, has recently written against “thick” conceptions of libertarianism) but the position is certainly out there, and has been out there for a good century and a half or so, and it’s a bit much for you to simply hand down unsupported declarations about the “definition” of libertarianism (as if there were a single uncontested definition!).
Third, you make the following specific claim about what Kery Howley has been doing in her posts on libertarianism and feminism: “her line of argument isn’t an attempt to characterize certain social pressure as immoral and to encourage libertarians to speak out against them (which is fine and I agree), rather she is simply trying to expand the definition of coercive force to fit her pet issues. It’s intellectual lazy at best, and dishonest at worst.”
As far as I can tell, this characterization of what Kerry has done in her posts is completely inaccurate. It’s an accurate description of the position Todd Seavey dishonestly attributed to her, but has nothing to do with what she says here, and nothing to do with what she says in “Libertarian Feminism versus Monarchist Anarchism,” in which she explicitly states that, while certain forms of misogyny may operate through “social pressure” rather than coercive force, “No thinking libertarian is only concerned with coercion; most of us worry just as much about conformity and passivity.” (That last sentence is, in fact, the only time in either post in which she mentions coercion at all — to deny that all of her concerns as a libertarian have to do with coercion.) For Seavey, and then you, to repeatedly claim that she is trying to describe purely verbal misogyny as “literally coercive” (Seavey) or “trying to expand the definition of coercive force to fit her pet issues” (you), when she states in so many words that her position is exactly the opposite, that she’s concerned with these so-called “pet issues” even though they do not involve the use of coercion — and then to have you, to crown all, accuse her of intellectual laziness or dishonesty on the basis of this up-is-down, black-is-white strawman of her position — is something that is utterly outrageous. I wish I could call it extraordinary, but in fact it is my experience that there is nothing extraordinary of feminists being treated with this kind of dismissive contempt and indifference as to basic accuracy about their stated positions.
I’m well familiar with the so-called controversial definitions of coercion. The problem there is that philosophy has degraded into nonsense or asinine semantic babbling. Coercion has only one functional definition for philosophical purposes but let’s forget about that for now and make up a whole new word, which we’ll call “gaxcaf.” This new word is defined as “the power to use physical force against individuals and their property.”
This is what’s wrong with modern academia… people trying to destroy meaning and concepts through semantic gibber-jabber. At some point there is no reason to even try and communicate.
And another thing… Mill was just doing something similar to that of Ms. Howley, i.e. stretching a definition – which is fine in context. He was re-defining coercion for his purposes and applying it after the fact. Kerry is attempting to take an already accepted definition, which underlies Libertarianism, and redefine it AFTER the fact. That is cheating, what Mill did was fine.
Can’t you see the difference between redefining, applying versus applying, redefining. Does order of operations mean nothing to you?
If ‘gaxcaf’ is supposed to be your preferred term, the one you claim is the only functional definition–well, sorry, but it’s not a very useful one. It references a *power* rather than a particular exercise of that power, or a certain sort of threat to do so; this makes it broader than I think you’d really like. It also references property (morally legitimate property, I assume), which means that it is only as precise as your conception of property–which, again, is a hugely controversial concept, for good reasons.
Howley isn’t cheating. You’re simply mistaken about the degree of controversially that has always existed, both within and outside the movement that came to be called libertarian, over these concepts.
I was being glib over what I hoped was simply a missed intellectual point.
This is purely a matter of context. There are numerous definitions of every word and the only thing that makes for concrete meaning is context.
Libertarianism also has multiple meanings as does coercion. That being said, neither have multiple meanings in reference to Libertarianism as an American Political movement. Coercion for that purpose was appropriately defined (and narrowly to exclude Ms. Howley’s use of it) and thus any use of Libertarianism within that context implicitly accepts that definition.
Ms. Howley has regularly and consistently used the term with that implicit understanding and is now trying to broaden it. She is free to broaden he definition of coercion and apply it to a Libertarianesque political movement but that isn’t the movement that has historically associated itself with the term Libertarian versus simply describing themselves as libertarian.
[...] the line of Kerry Howley’s spot-on debunking of the Libertarian philosophy, Will Wilkinson gives a succinct, reasonable dismissal of [...]
[...] of an earlier debate between Todd Seavey & Keri Howley, which you may read here, here, here and here. Essentially Ms. Howley argued that libertarianism ought be concerned with maximizing freedom and [...]
[...] In a recent post Howley stands her ground: [...]
[...] younger libertarians happily combine libertarian economics with support for cultural diversity, feminism and permissiveness. Lindsey argues that libertarians should abandon the culture war and consider a [...]
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