Philip Pilkington examines the meteoric rise of newly elected president of Argentina’s Javier Milei and asks whether his “anarcho-capitalism” offers any real solutions to our economic dysfunction.
Libertarianism is racist now? C'mon, that's ridiculous! I'm not a libertarian in any way, but this assertion about libertarianism is pathetic. It's such a leftist tactic to cry racism all the time. There's something uniquely deranged about equalitarians. Wishing the world what it will never be. "Just one more social program! Just one more expert-led intervention!" Such childish nonsense. Good grief!
Overall a good article and reminder that libertarianism, far from being right wing, is just a dissident branch of liberalism, arguably even a "purer" form of liberalism. Whereas mainline liberalism tries to use state power to bring about the principles of equality/fraternity/freedom that underlay liberalism, libertarians are so convinced of liberalism that they think these values will naturally arise if the state gets out of the way and the market is allowed to act unfettered. Though, as you bring up, the new libertarians, with echoes back to Ayn Rand and Nietzsche, may be less convinced of equality and fraternity, and more inclined to think that a free market is the mechanism by which natural hierarchies can be re-established.
It is on this point of natural hierarchies that I have a slight disagreement with the article. You say that the idea of different races having different IQs by nature/genetics is racist psuedoscience. Without claiming one way or the other whether races Do have different average IQs due to nature rather than nurture, why is this a racist claim? I think the postliberal/new right needs to get smarter about issues of race. What if it turns out intelligence, much like eye color, skin color, athletic prowess, etc. is partially or substantially hereditary? That would just be a fact, but it should have no bearing on the value of human worth/dignity. Our society already has high racial tensions, it's true, but trying to suppress claims of fact as Racist will not help. In fact, right now we claim that the difference in outcomes between races must be due to systematic white oppression. Tell me how this alternative theory leads to any less racial tension? Multi-ethnic societies will basically always have racial tensions; if anything, this is a good argument against multi-ethnic society in general.
When I first read this a couple weeks ago, I was very disappointed but just let it go because I figured it was pointless to dissent in a "post-liberal" echo chamber and that no one could really know until Milei's policies and tactics bore fruit. But then I was impressed by Feser's piece today and thought I'd revisit this piece. I was surprised to find it had a tepid response and only a few comments which were on the whole critical, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad to air my misgivings here.
Because I have a strong Austro-libertarian bent (favorable towards Hoppe), tempered somewhat by the arguments of the consequentialists like Bryan Caplan and David D. Friedman, I part ways with most mainstream/beltway/regime libertarians — meaning that few people understand what I (and people like me) are about. He can call us liberal all he wants, but given that our faction (which currently dominates the LP) is the most likely to eschew democracy, public education, the federal reserve, etc. while adhering more consistently to private property (which would fix the immigration issue) and taking seriously the matter of incentives in all facets of life, I feel very comfortable saying that there are numerous positions on which libertarians can attack "right-wingers" from the right. Even our policies of de-criminalizing drugs and sex, while they can be seen as compassionate by not aggressing upon people for victimless crimes, this also allows for a natural societal cleaning process: those who lack self-control in the face of their liberty will naturally invite ruin upon their lives and realize the hard way the issue with profligacy (ideally with the aid of their community) — only those who learn their lesson making it back into polite society. But of course in the presence of the welfare state this is prevented from happening, and they continue to live irresponsibly but subsidized by the citizenry. In short, newer generations of libertarians are big on liberty and fraternity but are content to do away with egalitarianism and equalitarian assumptions about human nature and so can't really be considered liberals given how many liberal assumptions and values we reject. Going back to a classical liberal education, as advocated for by Deneen, will only take us back to an earlier state which gave way to the current cultural moment. Something needs to give if you want the trajectory to be different.
Just to be clear, it makes complete sense that liberalism is susceptible to attacks by Marxists given liberals' weak spot for the downtrodden and their emphasis on equality of opportunity, which I also reject (cf. Danny Duchamp's YT video "Against Equality (Yes, Even That Kind)"). This is in line with and related to Feser's piece, and for those aware of the spat between Carl Benjamin and James Lindsay, I'm firmly on Benjamin's side. As for Hanania, I'm not too well-versed on his work and views more broadly, but his investigations into the ties between anti-discrimination law and wokeness are particularly valuable. If he's as pro-liberalism as insinuated, then I'd push back, but he's a valuable asset to the right now in its attempts to extirpate wokeness. Perhaps he ideologically is trying to marry things which ought not be married, but I feel similarly about the slipshod nature of liberalism and post-liberalism.
That said, I honestly don't see how someone can learn about libertarian political theory and come away with the impression that it's slipshod. I suppose if you feel the need to associate libertarianism with liberalism that you could find it hard to see how libertarianism is consistent with the liberal writers and the system they expounded upon, but the political philosophy of libertarianism as developed by Rothbard — apart from classical liberalism, though retaining the natural rights tradition — is remarkably clear and consistent. For reference, I come from a theoretical math background, so I know just how high a bar there is to being rigorous. While all social sciences and philosophies fail to reach that bar, Austro-libertarian theory does a pretty good job. I can absolutely understand the criticism of being too rigid, dogmatic, or autistic, but those are all because of how consistent the philosophy tries to be. As for the criticism of being based on a "false anthropology" with the conception of man in the "state of nature," yes these are the basis for our liberties (negative freedoms) but don't at all preclude responsibilities to family and community. I'm used to socialists slandering us as not caring about community to try and push for compulsory community (the state), but I'm disappointed hearing it from those on the right. The obvious rebuttal is that humans are naturally social creatures and that you need not force them to form groups because that's something we favor. I agree that liberalism pursued an ideal of independence at the expense of community, but taking away those subsidies for "deracinated" living levied by the state is an important precursor to rebuilding community.
I also agree that the Austrian school is limited in its scope as a school of economic thought, but no one seems to take seriously those contributions they were able to make and actually act on them. We finally have Milei making an attempt to move in the right direction via aggressive measures, and the impression this piece gives is that Pilkington is borderline hoping that Milei fails. From my discussions with conservative friends, I cynically have come to believe that conservatives don't want libertarianism to work and that they are just authoritarian on different matters. To put it succinctly, progressives favor economic central planning while conservatives favor social central planning (according to the Bible). That said, while I have retained my Austro-libertarian bent, I now favor a more mathematical approach to economics because I do think there is more to the story which cannot be unearthed by qualitative logical reasoning alone; models can be edifying even if imperfect. Hopefully some day I will get the opportunity to study it in depth, but for now I just have my math and data science.
About Milei's steps, he's massively deregulated on a variety of fronts which is slowly bringing back capital and business investment into the country while also helping to alleviate some of the housing woes they have been going through. I hadn't heard of the de-valuing of the Peso, but the focus needs to be on business and growth because the money has already been printed. He has been frank that there will be pain before things get better, so we will just need to see how things turn out, but I think it is incumbent upon me to support him instead of being critical from the get. Perhaps things will not turn out well, but so far things seem to be going in the right direction. If/when the recession hits this year, that will be a massive confound because it will likely be international in scope (as it usually is). That said, what I wonder is if Pilkington will recant should Argentina turn out better on the other side.
Finally, the most frustrating part of this piece was the accusation of racism, which as Skeptical1 pointed out is unbecoming and a cheap leftist tactic. Perhaps he's right, but his example of the Irish doesn't even contradict the race realist view that there are genetic group differences in intelligence since the Irish are European. Even in America we've seen black IQs go up in the 20th century as a result of better nutrition and living conditions, but the point is that those gaps have shrunk but have since stagnated at around 1 SD below that of west Europeans. Given how much research it seems has been done on this in the past, not just in the American context, as well as the evolutionary reasoning that adaptations to different environments would likely result in differences above the neck to, I would be surprised if there wasn't some teeth to that assertion. Plus this is just as lazy as most of the detractors of Charles Murray were. We will see (and have been seeing) many of these results from the classical school of psychometricians being vindicated by studies involving direct measurement of genes. Aporia (here on substack) is an excellent resource about sociobiology that's worth checking out.
Libertarianism is racist now? C'mon, that's ridiculous! I'm not a libertarian in any way, but this assertion about libertarianism is pathetic. It's such a leftist tactic to cry racism all the time. There's something uniquely deranged about equalitarians. Wishing the world what it will never be. "Just one more social program! Just one more expert-led intervention!" Such childish nonsense. Good grief!
A lot of talk about libertarianism but not a single sentence that felt like a steel man. Seems disingenuous
Overall a good article and reminder that libertarianism, far from being right wing, is just a dissident branch of liberalism, arguably even a "purer" form of liberalism. Whereas mainline liberalism tries to use state power to bring about the principles of equality/fraternity/freedom that underlay liberalism, libertarians are so convinced of liberalism that they think these values will naturally arise if the state gets out of the way and the market is allowed to act unfettered. Though, as you bring up, the new libertarians, with echoes back to Ayn Rand and Nietzsche, may be less convinced of equality and fraternity, and more inclined to think that a free market is the mechanism by which natural hierarchies can be re-established.
It is on this point of natural hierarchies that I have a slight disagreement with the article. You say that the idea of different races having different IQs by nature/genetics is racist psuedoscience. Without claiming one way or the other whether races Do have different average IQs due to nature rather than nurture, why is this a racist claim? I think the postliberal/new right needs to get smarter about issues of race. What if it turns out intelligence, much like eye color, skin color, athletic prowess, etc. is partially or substantially hereditary? That would just be a fact, but it should have no bearing on the value of human worth/dignity. Our society already has high racial tensions, it's true, but trying to suppress claims of fact as Racist will not help. In fact, right now we claim that the difference in outcomes between races must be due to systematic white oppression. Tell me how this alternative theory leads to any less racial tension? Multi-ethnic societies will basically always have racial tensions; if anything, this is a good argument against multi-ethnic society in general.
When I first read this a couple weeks ago, I was very disappointed but just let it go because I figured it was pointless to dissent in a "post-liberal" echo chamber and that no one could really know until Milei's policies and tactics bore fruit. But then I was impressed by Feser's piece today and thought I'd revisit this piece. I was surprised to find it had a tepid response and only a few comments which were on the whole critical, so I figured it wouldn't be so bad to air my misgivings here.
Because I have a strong Austro-libertarian bent (favorable towards Hoppe), tempered somewhat by the arguments of the consequentialists like Bryan Caplan and David D. Friedman, I part ways with most mainstream/beltway/regime libertarians — meaning that few people understand what I (and people like me) are about. He can call us liberal all he wants, but given that our faction (which currently dominates the LP) is the most likely to eschew democracy, public education, the federal reserve, etc. while adhering more consistently to private property (which would fix the immigration issue) and taking seriously the matter of incentives in all facets of life, I feel very comfortable saying that there are numerous positions on which libertarians can attack "right-wingers" from the right. Even our policies of de-criminalizing drugs and sex, while they can be seen as compassionate by not aggressing upon people for victimless crimes, this also allows for a natural societal cleaning process: those who lack self-control in the face of their liberty will naturally invite ruin upon their lives and realize the hard way the issue with profligacy (ideally with the aid of their community) — only those who learn their lesson making it back into polite society. But of course in the presence of the welfare state this is prevented from happening, and they continue to live irresponsibly but subsidized by the citizenry. In short, newer generations of libertarians are big on liberty and fraternity but are content to do away with egalitarianism and equalitarian assumptions about human nature and so can't really be considered liberals given how many liberal assumptions and values we reject. Going back to a classical liberal education, as advocated for by Deneen, will only take us back to an earlier state which gave way to the current cultural moment. Something needs to give if you want the trajectory to be different.
Just to be clear, it makes complete sense that liberalism is susceptible to attacks by Marxists given liberals' weak spot for the downtrodden and their emphasis on equality of opportunity, which I also reject (cf. Danny Duchamp's YT video "Against Equality (Yes, Even That Kind)"). This is in line with and related to Feser's piece, and for those aware of the spat between Carl Benjamin and James Lindsay, I'm firmly on Benjamin's side. As for Hanania, I'm not too well-versed on his work and views more broadly, but his investigations into the ties between anti-discrimination law and wokeness are particularly valuable. If he's as pro-liberalism as insinuated, then I'd push back, but he's a valuable asset to the right now in its attempts to extirpate wokeness. Perhaps he ideologically is trying to marry things which ought not be married, but I feel similarly about the slipshod nature of liberalism and post-liberalism.
That said, I honestly don't see how someone can learn about libertarian political theory and come away with the impression that it's slipshod. I suppose if you feel the need to associate libertarianism with liberalism that you could find it hard to see how libertarianism is consistent with the liberal writers and the system they expounded upon, but the political philosophy of libertarianism as developed by Rothbard — apart from classical liberalism, though retaining the natural rights tradition — is remarkably clear and consistent. For reference, I come from a theoretical math background, so I know just how high a bar there is to being rigorous. While all social sciences and philosophies fail to reach that bar, Austro-libertarian theory does a pretty good job. I can absolutely understand the criticism of being too rigid, dogmatic, or autistic, but those are all because of how consistent the philosophy tries to be. As for the criticism of being based on a "false anthropology" with the conception of man in the "state of nature," yes these are the basis for our liberties (negative freedoms) but don't at all preclude responsibilities to family and community. I'm used to socialists slandering us as not caring about community to try and push for compulsory community (the state), but I'm disappointed hearing it from those on the right. The obvious rebuttal is that humans are naturally social creatures and that you need not force them to form groups because that's something we favor. I agree that liberalism pursued an ideal of independence at the expense of community, but taking away those subsidies for "deracinated" living levied by the state is an important precursor to rebuilding community.
I also agree that the Austrian school is limited in its scope as a school of economic thought, but no one seems to take seriously those contributions they were able to make and actually act on them. We finally have Milei making an attempt to move in the right direction via aggressive measures, and the impression this piece gives is that Pilkington is borderline hoping that Milei fails. From my discussions with conservative friends, I cynically have come to believe that conservatives don't want libertarianism to work and that they are just authoritarian on different matters. To put it succinctly, progressives favor economic central planning while conservatives favor social central planning (according to the Bible). That said, while I have retained my Austro-libertarian bent, I now favor a more mathematical approach to economics because I do think there is more to the story which cannot be unearthed by qualitative logical reasoning alone; models can be edifying even if imperfect. Hopefully some day I will get the opportunity to study it in depth, but for now I just have my math and data science.
About Milei's steps, he's massively deregulated on a variety of fronts which is slowly bringing back capital and business investment into the country while also helping to alleviate some of the housing woes they have been going through. I hadn't heard of the de-valuing of the Peso, but the focus needs to be on business and growth because the money has already been printed. He has been frank that there will be pain before things get better, so we will just need to see how things turn out, but I think it is incumbent upon me to support him instead of being critical from the get. Perhaps things will not turn out well, but so far things seem to be going in the right direction. If/when the recession hits this year, that will be a massive confound because it will likely be international in scope (as it usually is). That said, what I wonder is if Pilkington will recant should Argentina turn out better on the other side.
Finally, the most frustrating part of this piece was the accusation of racism, which as Skeptical1 pointed out is unbecoming and a cheap leftist tactic. Perhaps he's right, but his example of the Irish doesn't even contradict the race realist view that there are genetic group differences in intelligence since the Irish are European. Even in America we've seen black IQs go up in the 20th century as a result of better nutrition and living conditions, but the point is that those gaps have shrunk but have since stagnated at around 1 SD below that of west Europeans. Given how much research it seems has been done on this in the past, not just in the American context, as well as the evolutionary reasoning that adaptations to different environments would likely result in differences above the neck to, I would be surprised if there wasn't some teeth to that assertion. Plus this is just as lazy as most of the detractors of Charles Murray were. We will see (and have been seeing) many of these results from the classical school of psychometricians being vindicated by studies involving direct measurement of genes. Aporia (here on substack) is an excellent resource about sociobiology that's worth checking out.