The formalists and the libertarians seem to agree that the center of the political problem is that authority without responsibility is a recipe for big, ugly, massive failure.
The libertarian then claims that it is impossible to put responsibility on authority (in a reliable, long-term fashion, say, more than 100 years), and so what needs to be done is to diminish authority.
The formalist claims that it is impossible to diminish authority (in a reliable, long term fashion, say, more than 100 years), and so what needs to be done is to tie responsibility to authority.
Is this a fair description, my dear formalists?
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3 comments:
Not bad, Aretae. Not bad at all.
I'm torn. On the one hand, your defense of libertarianism is righteous and strong. On the other, Moldbug's got history at his back.
Something you said a while back in regard to traditional advice is going to be best for most people, moist of the time has been crouching in the back of my mind, waiting. Could it be, that while the our desired end state is something like what you are advocating - minimal government interference, economic growth, unicorns - requires something more? That the place of a king who is not a dictator is to provide the traditional bulwark for libertarian wackiness?
Back in the late 1700s, as you've argued, we had freedom that was unprecedented, in an intelligent populace largely isolated from danger. This resulted in the growth! growth! growth! that you go on about. It seems that our current system, can't maintain its current vector without running into something ugly sooner or later. We've layered and slathered it with all sorts of things that you, I and Moldbug can all agree are very bad indeed.
The problem with libertarianism for me hasn't been the economics - that, to me, is or should be fairly self evident. But the idea of private security companies does not fill me with joy, exactly. And other like problems. Why not have a king? It would provide something more than an abstraction for the ordinary run of citizen to latch on to, provide a framework of tradition that would provide maximal outcomes for most everyone. We'd have pageantry. Which isn't crucial, but hey, shiny! And still freedom, the "Rights of Englishmen."
To have a monarch that was concerned with foreign relations, maintaining a justice system (with jury nullification, to be sure) and maximizing his profit by creating as close to an ideal business climate, well that would be cool. If someone created a floating Atlantis a la Stephenson's Diamond Age, I'd likely want to move there.
What is lacking, though, is a populace with traditions of living in a society of that sort, the kind that is very aware of their rights as Englishmen even though they do not, and likely never would have the right to vote.
I think this is basically correct.
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