A New Way to Fail

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Around a decade ago, when I was in grad school, a column I'd written in a student newspaper -- quite contrary to my pessimistic expectations -- helped a Libertarian, as he put it, "see the light." Said recovering Libertarian and I subsequently engaged in a back-and-forth correspondence that he initiated with "You'd make a good Libertarian," and ended with his saying, "Chalk one up to pamphleteering." Enjoying the exchange, but finding my time at a premium, I finally ended up recommending Peter Schwartz's Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty, and letting him read my copy.

I was on the verge of asking for him to return it after quite some time when I finally did hear back from him. Also, to my great surprise, he went on to found a campus Objectivist club which even had decent regular attendance. There wasn't a club before? I and a good friend were, I thought, the only two Objectivists on campus, and didn't see the point. My lesson on the importance of holding correct principles was more than repaid with one on the importance of communicating them effectively.

I recall this story, because something I encountered this morning at the web site of the New York Times reminded me of an email one of the members of this club once sent me about a libertarianesque scheme to build artificial islands in the middle of the sea and, with them, fully free societies out of whole cloth. That fantasy has never really died down and, thanks to new technology, it seems to be growing new legs.

Such dreamers aren't alone, or the first, as several articles note (links below). "For decades, an assortment of romantics and whack jobs have fantasized about fleeing the oppressive strictures of modern government and creating a laissez-faire society on the high seas," Wired observed earlier this year. "Over the decades, they've tried everything from fortified sandbars to mammoth cruise ships. Nearly all have been disasters."

True, but one difference today is improved knowhow, as The Futurist notes -- be it in the design of floating utopias or built-up artificial islands (the latter a specialty of Dubai, above).
The pertinent question here is "Disasters? By what standard?" Certainly, technology makes us able to create artificial land more readily, but a society is much more than the land it sits on. I have argued repeatedly here that technology is no substitute for a rational culture (or thinking for oneself) among the denizens of any such society.

At this point, the casual reader might think I am making the same pessimism-inducing mistake I was making years ago by discounting this movement, but he would be wrong on that count. It is, in fact, the people who want to build such island-states who are the pessimists: They are the ones not developing a solid understanding of the theoretical basis and justification for freedom so that they can make its case to the rational people in their very midst. (They do exist.) The island-builders are the ones giving up without a fight (of the intellectual variety).

They are, in fact, deliriously and recklessly pessimistic.

One moment's thought about the viability of such islands as states should make the point. Even assuming one achieves a capitalist society on such an island, which is no trivial feat, what of self-defense? How would one stop the pirate island ten miles away from enslaving or laying waste to his? With weapons? Purchased from where? The now-socialist United States one fled? Before or after the pirates strike? Before or after Obama invades your island instead, seeing it as a threat to hope and change? You started out with nukes? How nice: So did the pirates. And Obama.

When dealing with other men, we all have two fundamental choices that technology will never change: reasoned persuasion or force. The island builders aren't even giving reasoned persuasion a chance, and are defaulting to force, and with a poor strategy at that. That is, if they aren't guilty of an even greater sin, which is basically pretending that conflict will pass them by if they pretend that other men don't exist.

Certainly, freedom must be won by guns, as the American Revolution demonstrated, but it cannot exist at all within a society that does not understand and value it -- as the same war and our misguided and fruitless occupation of Iraq both make clear. This is why it is important to make the case for freedom in America, and, incidentally, why fleeing to an island really isn't a guarantee of having freedom even there for very long.

Principles are like maps. If I had to flee an oncoming hurricane, I'd take a good map and a working Model T over a blindfold and a Lamborghini any day. The island-builders are spending too much time ogling fancy technology and ignoring the theoretical basis that makes it -- and their lives as free men -- possible.

-- CAV

6 comments:

Ryan said...

This libertarian seasteading fantasy reminds me of the video game Bioshock. What was meant as a slap at the supposed utopian vision of Objectivism ended up more of a slap at the ideas of Libertarianism. In the game the founder sets up a laissez-faire society in an underwater facility with very little government. There was no screening of entrants other than being mostly brilliant people. Thus, none of these people were guaranteed to have a philosophical outlook conducive to a capitalist society. A portion of the society revolted because they didn't like being normal workers. Many turned to outright crime and other more destructive activities.

Many libertarians seem to believe that all that is required for a perfect society is for a structural change in society. As if the only thing stopping a capitalist society is that people are too lazy to change things. The reality is that we have this government because of the moral premises most people have accepted. Until this changes, it doesn't matter how perfectly a society is setup.

Gus Van Horn said...

How could I forget the commotion about Bioshock?

Thanks for bringing that up!

Kyle Haight said...

Peter Schwartz once observed that what falls out of Libertarianism is a standard Marxist worldview. Ryan's point that "many libertarians seem to believe that all that is required for a perfect society is for a structural change in society" is a perfect example -- this is just a twist on the Marxist idea that people's ideas are caused by the political economy of the culture in which they live.

Gus Van Horn said...

Nice connection: Thanks for pointing that out.

Raman Gupta said...

Essentially, you are arguing against the idea of a Galt's Gulch -- a place where people of strong morals can go so that they can live together in true freedom -- and ignore those people in "wider society" that would have them sacrifice themselves. Of course there are practical issues to solve, such as defense, but that doesn't make the *idea* worthless. In Atlas Shrugged, technology was invented by Galt, and used to shield the Gulch from the wider world -- while this technology invented by Galt is (so far) a fiction, why would a similar technological approach to creating a Galt's Gulch in reality be so wrong?

America itself was a sort of "island state" for many who believed that Europe would never become a place of freedom -- somewhere where the Declaration of Independence would never be accepted. Those men were right. Are those men to be indicted for not using reasoned persuasion to convince their fellow Europeans of their convictions? Or celebrated for founding a new state based (mostly) on the principles of individual rights?

You say: When dealing with other men, we all have two fundamental choices that technology will never change: reasoned persuasion or force. The island builders aren't even giving reasoned persuasion a chance, and are defaulting to force, and with a poor strategy at that.

It cannot be force to withdraw oneself from a society that idealizes sacrifice -- this is exactly what the strikers did in Atlas Shrugged. Calling this force would imply that each of us has some duty to the society in which we live. The timing of such withdrawal could be, and should be, debated. Whether or not America is yet fully committed to sacrifice as an ideal, I tend to think it is dangerously close, and I very much sympathise with the "island builders" when I think of all the ways my life could be better in a truly free society.

Your underlying message that any society must always make the case for freedom and rationality is valid. It is self-evident that the success of such as "island society" would depend on its ability to defend itself, but more fundamentally on the morality of its citizens. That doesn't make the idea of such an "island society" wrong -- it only makes the idea of an "island society" with bad morals wrong.

Gus Van Horn said...

"Essentially, you are arguing against the idea of a Galt's Gulch -- a place where people of strong morals can go so that they can live together in true freedom -- and ignore those people in "wider society" that would have them sacrifice themselves."

How? Because I point out the "practical problems" inherent in libertarian island-building fantasies? These don't even amount to a half-assed attempt at the same thing.

I am talking about a bunch of people who have little or no clue about the rational foundations of a free society (and that includes a rational morality) deciding to build an island -- rather than learn what those foundations are.

Having said that, there is an interesting issue here: Even assuming such a "Galt's Gulch" were possible in the sense of its inhabitants being able to be alive without fear of bodily harm from the savages of the outside world, the self-imposed exile of its inhabitants would represent a limitation in their ability to live their lives as free men.

They would not be free to travel wherever they wanted. If there were few enough of them, they would suffer from simply not having a big enough society to premit a very comprehensive division of labor. They would always be at risk of betrayal. They would STILL be better off if they had a way to eliminate or civilize the savages of the "outside world" they will have found themselves looking into.

Your example of America differs from "Galt's Gulch" in being large-enough in scale not to suffer from many of the problems I just delineated AND through craftiness early on and sheer might later, its inhabitants were able to keep the savages at bay.

Thanks for your thought-provoking comment.