Wednesday, November 19th, 2008...11:44 am
Trouble in the Right-Libertarian “Paradise”
Helen Rittelmeyer, on feminism and libertarianism:
I notice that my libertarian paradise can only sustain itself in a world with stable communities and self-governing individuals, and the only thing capable of producing either is tradition. If I want to live among mature individuals capable of citizenship in a libertarian state, I’d better defend the social norms that make it possible to bring up those people. If I think that organic communities obviate the need for government intervention, then I’d better preserve those communities, even if they engage in soft coercion. If some of their norms treat women differently or even disadvantageously, that might be good or bad but, in any event, is a matter for that community to decide for itself.
This, concludes Helen, “suggests that feminism and libertarianism (or at least certain brands of it) might be at odds.”
I’ll confess that I don’t know what it means to say that “the only thing capable of producing self-governing individuals is tradition.” With a broad enough definition of “tradition” — as in, tradition discourages the outsourcing of parental responsibilities to rabid dogs — I’m on board here. But since Helen is trying to argue that feminism and libertarianism are somehow mutually exclusive, I guess we can take “tradition” to mean “traditional gender roles.” Have people become less adept at self-governing since women entered the workforce? Again, what is meant by self-governing? It certainly seems odd to characterize a culture that encourages women to be financially independent as less supportive of “self-governance” than one that advises them to stay home, watch Passions, and let the other 49 percent of the population suss out the whole money thing. Is the idea that in a left-libertarian paradise pair-bonding would be obsolete? Or that gay marriages kill productivity? Are we talking about a particular population here? Specifics please.
The libertarian antifeminist position seem strange to me, given the emphasis libertarians place on economic growth, and the tendency of growth to upset traditionalist familial arrangements. (Except on a purely individual level, as in “Go have your abortions, I’ll be right here on my FLDS compound.”) Nothing wreaks havoc on your birth rate like a tripling of GDP, as the Singaporeans can tell you. Someone actually interested in enforcing traditional gender roles across the broader culture would be trying to diminish the opportunity cost of staying home by decreasing the returns to employment, rather than, you know, hand-waving and complaining about the decline of the culture in First Things. Open economies aren’t so helpful there; I suggest checking in with the Kingdom of Bhutan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, because they seem to be doing a bang-up job of it.
3 Comments
November 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
[…] Rittelmayer says that.</a> When Kerry Howley says that she doesn’t “know what it means to say that ‘the only thing capable of […]
November 20th, 2008 at 6:41 am
“The libertarian antifeminist position seem strange to me…”
Perhaps it seems strange because there is no such thing. The last several years have seen a peculiar appropriation of the the term “libertarian” by those with sharply discordant views. We have seen libertarians for pre-emptive war and occupation. Libertarians for trillion dollar bail outs of investment bankers, and, of course, libertarians for various “social positions.”
Again, there is just no such thing. With respect to this issue, libertarianism is a bare political/economic ideology. It has nothing at all to say about dictating to people how they should be running their personal lives. In fact, nothing could be more antilibertarian than an ideology that attempts to prescribe such things.
It should be added that libertarians have, “traditionally” been very suspicious of Burkean appeals to tradition. Here is what Ludwig von Mises had to say about such views in his treatise entitled Human Action:
“Traditionalism as an Ideology
Traditionalism is an ideology which considers loyalty to valuations, customs, and methods of procedure handed down or allegedly handed down from ancestors both right and expedient. It is not an essential mark of traditionalism that these forefathers were the ancestors in the biological meaning of the term or can be fairly considered such; they were sometimes only the previous inhabitants of the country concerned or supporters of the same religious creed or only precursors in the exercise of some special task. Who is to be considered an ancestor and what is the content of the body of tradition handed down are determined by the concrete teachings of each variety of traditionalism. The ideology brings into prominence some of the ancestors and relegates others to oblivion; it sometimes calls ancestors people who had nothing to do with the alleged posterity. It often constructs a “traditional” doctrine which is of recent origin and is at variance with the ideologies really held by the ancestors.
“Traditionalism tries to justify its tenets by citing the success they secured in the past. Whether this assertion conforms with the facts, is another question. Research could sometimes unmask errors in the historical statements of a traditional belief. However, this did not always explode the traditional doctrine. For the core of traditionalism is not real historical facts, but an opinion about them, however mistaken, and a will to believe things to which the authority of ancient origin is attributed.”
November 21st, 2008 at 10:10 pm
You know Kerry, I really think it may have come time to say goodbye to Anglo-Saxon pragmatic feminism. In my impression, it may be the most useless, failed political movement of the last, I don’t know, 60 years. I warm more and more to the French feminists in attitude, if not their politics. But we can talk about this if you want.
I mention this a propos of “tradition.” Because you know we can have rather traditional gender roles in many ways, but still have equality in opportunity, true respect, and recognition as full moral agents. But someone might want to mention this to Helen, since it seems to have escaped her.
As for being “a self-governing individual,” Kerry, I spent some of my childhood in a real honest-to-goodness commune, with LSD, nekkid hippies, and cold fried chicken for breakfast. Somehow I think that would distress my new friend Helen, but I assure her it ensured that I emerged both as “self-governing” and with a doubt, fully “individual!”
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