Libertarianism is like an ancient manuscript; kept in a glass case at vast expense, away from the light of day and protected from human touch, it gives the impression of being a source of profound wisdom. However if we bother to decypher those strange hieroglyphs, what we find is a fairy story written to support the delusions of people who knew next to nothing about this world we live in. Take it out of the glass case and we discover that it is incredibly brittle, fragile. Expose it to the sunlight, to the oxygen and intemperate weather of the outside world, and it swiftly crumbles into dust.
Rand Paul’s absurd brand of corporate-friendly anarcho-syndicalism contains (roughly speaking) three peculiar strains of idiocy that appeal on an emotive and / or pseudo-intellectual level. First there is the businessman-as-white-knight. This vision of the entrepeneur as a uniquely virtuous and wholly benign soldier-saint fighting for a free market eden just happens, by happy accident, to stroke the egos of a particularly useful section of society, namely wealthy potential campaign donors. History is littered with cultic movements that flourished not by common consensus or intellectual persuasion but by getting a leg-up via a little flattery of the powers-that-be, and Libertarianism is such a movement.
Secondly, there is the core tenet of Libertarian faith, that all our problems- poverty, inequality and yes, racism- simply fix themselves if left the hell alone. The market is an afterlasting and universally comprehensive band-aid; let a small government fix its’ own small problems, let individuals fix their problems individually, and all will be healed in time. This bizarre notion has vast appeal to those looking for a seemingly safe harbor for their resentments; hate the civil rights bill, medicare, the minimum wage, welfare or Affirmative Action but don’t want to appear racist or selfish? Then convince yourself that ridding the world of such things will ultimately do more good for the people they exist to help than these cumbersome government interventions ever will. Problem solved.
Thirdly, Libertarianism has a singularly American selling-point (or rather, a singularly southern selling-point) that allows it to present itself as a new twist on an old tune. It is that fanciful Wild West nostalgia; that yearning for a time when the lawman was just another cowboy with a tin star, that, “simpler time” of liberty and adventure when Sam Colt made us equal and no pesky varmint needed a handout. It’s strange that conservatives rail against what they percieve as a Liberal Hollywood agenda when they themselves cherish a view of the old west that is 100% unadulterated Hollywood. A sizable section of the US population is so in love with laughable cartoon cowboys roaming free under wandering stars that grown men in the 21st century turn up for work in Houston boardrooms wearing ten-gallon hats and spurs. Do French people go to the office dressed as sans-culottes? Do English people stand around the water cooler dressed as Wat Tyler? Of course not. But for such a new nation, with such a limited history (and most of it appallingly murky, not to say evil) there is a tremendous need to manufacture history, a living history of which one can be proud. Particularly, a white history of which white people can be proud. Libertarianism builds upon this cowboy construct, adding new myths in modern economic jargon to haul that image of the happy homesteader into a new age.
Libertarianism only makes sense in the boiling tea pot of right-wing populism, or in the safe haven of campus abstraction where teachers and students can toy with country club anarchism between lunch breaks. Applied to the real world, the wheels fall off in seconds. Taken seriously, in whole or in part, it brings chaos, pain and disaster to millions, but hey, it also brings incredible wealth to literally hundreds. Libertarianism, regardless of its romantic beauty on the page, is an incubator of feudalistic inequality, and as such it is the friend of the racist, the mean-spirited and greedy corporate-egotist, the hapless patriotic fantasist.
Rand Paul is not a racist. His worldview is not racist. But if his world came to be, and the, “whites only” signs begin to appear, does he suppose that we will accept that? Well no, he doesn’t. He thinks that we will boycott these racist businesses and they will subsequently see the error of their ways. It doesn’t occur to him that racists will drive from miles around to purposely bring their custom to their fellow bigots, and far from learning their lesson such businesses will be emboldened and possibly even thrive. White racists do not have a monopoly on reactionary behaviour of course. The, “whites only” signs would be followed by other signs; “blacks only”, “hispanics only”, “gays only”, “christians only”, “atheists only”, “muslims only”. There would be an anti-segregation movement, angrier and stronger than before. There would be violent clashes, thousands of them… in a country that is awash with firearms. How much bloodshed would be necessary to convince us that we must once again place equal rights before the autonomy of privateers? None at all, actually. This world does not exist and never will exist, at least not in this country. Even Libertarians cannot bear to contemplate it, which is why Rand Paul is back-peddling right now.
In every country where Libertarianism has been taken seriously (the US included), there has been conflict. Their paradise of free enterprise and equality is only possible in some hypothetical Sim City, and lamentably we cannot start humanity from scratch. The level playing field it requires does not exist, and cannot exist, not only because some people have wealth and privilege due simply to an accident of birth but also because the romantic notion that people are fundamentally good is forever subverted by the fact that some people are fundamentally unscrupulous. We have such things as governments, with all those damn laws and regulations, because without them the good people will be ripped-off by the unscrupulous to a greater extent than they already are.
And that is why, not necessarily by design but in consequence, Libertarianism is absolutely undemocratic and insidiously destructive. It puts more wealth and more power into fewer and fewer hands, leaving the majority with less power over their destiny, not more. It does not expand the middle class; it expands the underclass, the perfect conditions for racist scapegoating and civic unrest. And how do we respond to race riots, food riots, civil disobedience? With the only thing that can do the job: the police and the military, in short, the strong arm of government. That is what happens if we buy Rand Paul’s product, the bitter irony of Libertarianism; it offers us freedom from government, but it needs government to make this, “freedom” in any way viable. Speaking of Libertarianism’s adventures in South America, Eduardo Galeano wrote, “people were in prison so that prices could be free”. In Rand Paul’s country, the sweet serenity of his pure vision would require the very same thing; beautiful numbers flickering on PC screens, telling of a bright new economic miracle… while on the street the police are brutally suppressing rioters and swelling the prison populations, and in the ever-growing ghettos poor people tear each other to pieces.
Rand Paul’s performance on Maddow has greater impart than a mere gaffe on civil rights that serves to fill up a news cycle. This is Libertarianism, right here. Not racist, or sexist or homophobic, but nevertheless a la-la land where human beings do not exist save as romantic heroes… and if not, as beans to be counted.
