A Debate on Government (and the Nature of Man)

I very much enjoyed watching today's First Principles debate between Ayn Rand Institute President Yaron Brook and Demos President Miles Rapoport on "Government: What is its proper role?". The event was announced, advertised, and livestreamed on Facebook, yet another example of the many benefits of this at times maligned forum.

As an aside, it is interesting to recall that back in the 1980s John Ridpath, Harry Binswanger, and other Objectivists would participate in debates. However, the debates were between Objectivists and Marxists. Watching the debates back then (which were also quite good) I always thought that a much more relevant debate would be between an Objectivist and a welfare-statists, i.e., a liberal. Well, the views of Mr. Rapoport were indeed those of an run of the mill welfare-statist. We have come a long way from debating Marxists.

But something else struck me about this debate. Mr. Rapoport kept coming back to the issue of rich vs. poor. A free society (free of regulations) would allow only a few rich people to flourish. It seems clear that Mr. Rapoport thinks that the majority of individuals in society are helpless without the endless series of government programs and regulations that he supports and would either die or live out their miserable lives in severe poverty unable to rise above subsistence that the only rich might grant them. Yaron Brook had a far more optimistic view of human capabilities.

This contrast reminded me of Dennis Prager's oft repeated contention that one of the basic differences between liberals and conservatives is that liberals think people are basically good, while conservatives are considerably less sanguine about the inherent nature of man. I have never quite accepted that that was in fact the basic difference between these two camps. It always seemed to me there were other, more important issues here. The contrasting views of Brook and Rapoport have given me a lead to what I think is a more basic issue, at least between liberals and Objectivists.

Liberals think man, the individual, is weak and helpless. Yes, there might be a few "supermen" out there who could flourish under any conditions but the vast majority of people cannot fend for themselves or stand up for their rights without the protection of a gang. That gang is government and if one takes altruism as one's basic moral code (as all good liberals do) then government must do everything it can to help the majority weak as against the minority strong. Thus force is necessary to fight off the strong who would otherwise walk all over the weak.

By contrast, Objectivists think that man, at his essence, is strong and capable. Yes, there might be a few men who cannot fend for themselves but they are easily taken care of through the generosity of the vast majority of strong, independent men. Most men will flourish by their own actions and via trade to mutual advantage with other men. The only issue that government must address is the banishment of force from human relations so that only free voluntary cooperation is allowed. The banishment of force, and thus, protection of individual rights, follows naturally from an egoistic ethics in which the moral purpose of each individual is the fulfillment of his life, and therefore the role of government is limited to the protection of the free action of each individual in pursuing of his own happiness.

It is heartening that the debate was well attended online there were upwards of 850 viewers of the live stream. I am very much looking forward to the next debate which will take place on April 7, 2011 and in which the topic will be "Freedom: For Whom and from What?".

Conservatives vs. Idealism

Despite the vaguely united opposition to Obama, important fundamental differences remain between the various different groups. For a reminder that Objectivists have a lot less in common with Conservatives than it sometimes seems look no further than Bill Whittle's latest video essay:
A Tale of Two Revolutions: The War of Ideas & the Tragedy of the Unconstrained Vision
or shorter URL: http://tinyurl.com/m3mo6a.
I disagree with his analysis of the essential difference between the American and French revolutions, as well as his implicit claim that the Founding Fathers were really "Conservative" thinkers who did not think very highly of human nature. Whittle relies on Thomas Sowell but this is also Dennis Prager's favorite topic: Liberals think people are basically good and Conservatives do not.

It's not that there's not some truth in the criticism of Rousseau and his followers. Certainly they had a corrupt concept of human nature as changeable and that ultimately lead to attempts to make a new man through indoctrination and mass terror. More importantly they were less individualistic than the Americans who relied on Locke. And most importantly, Rousseau was the beginning of the reaction to the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. He explicitly rejected much of those periods stood for.

However, my main problem with Whittle's argument is that he's saying that human beings are basically low, corrupt, and miserable people who deserve no better than freedom. I completely agree with Ayn Rand that that is a completely immoral and uninspiring argument that will continue to drive anybody with an ounce of self esteem into the left. Man may have chosen to do much evil at various points in history but human nature is not defined by statistics but by its essence, namely by the fact that man survives by the use of reason, a faculty that he can choose to use or not. It is because throughout much of history people have not thought nor acted rationally (despite much recent rhetoric to the contrary) that numerous disasters have been imposed on men throughout history. But there were many times when men did act rationally and morally and laid the foundation for a much better future, personal or global. It is those men that ought to be regarded, not as supermen or isolated aberrations, but man at his best, the potential that is available for anybody to achieve, through his own efforts, as long as he commits to think and act accordingly.

It is this ideal that ought to be promoted by lovers of liberty if they hope to inspire people to fight for their freedom. It is profoundly uninspiring to fight, as apparently Bill Whittle and Thomas Sowell do, with Hobbes' view of human nature as the most that can be achieved and freedom as the condition we have to settle for because we are no good. Freedom is the condition of the proud rational individualist who esteems himself and expects others to do the same. Whatever the condition appropriate for those who regard themselves as imperfect, flawed beings, who dare not aspire to any ideals, it is not freedom.

Conservatives and Afghanistan

Conservatives frequently portray themselves as the pro-defense alternative to liberals. It goes without saying, that it is very difficult to regard the current liberal administration as in any way representing the national interest of the United States as far as security is concerned. But are the Conservatives really substantially better?

In fact, Conservatives are frequently pragmatic and focused on non-essentials, and as a result despite some exceptions frequently fall short of a principled stand for national security. Let's look at the current situation in Afghanistan as described in recent instructive article in the Wall Street Journal appropriately entitled Taliban Now Winning:

The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency's spiritual home.
...
The militants are mounting sophisticated attacks that combine roadside bombs with ambushes by small teams of heavily armed militants, causing significant numbers of U.S. fatalities, he said. July was the bloodiest month of the war for American and British forces, and 12 more American troops have already been killed in August.

Clearly the situation in Afghanistan is quite bad. Conservatives such as Stephen F. Hayes of The Weekly Standard, think this is Obama's problem:

For months, we've been hearing about deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan. Insurgent attacks are up. Coalition casualties are increasing. Poppy crops are flourishing. The Taliban is expanding its presence. Parts of the country are ungovernable. And where there is government, it's corrupt.

The public perception created by such reports is that Afghanistan is a disaster. The problem is that it's not a disaster. It's much, much worse.

And that's very bad news for Barack Obama. As a candidate, he argued that Afghanistan was the good war and that winning there was critical to U.S. national security. This fall, we will see whether he meant it.

The question to ask, however, is how could we let it get to this point, almost 8 years after the initial overthrow of the Taliban regime. A clue is provided by a column that Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote back in December 2004:

Before our astonishing success in Afghanistan goes completely down the memory hole, let's recall some very recent history.

For almost a decade before 9/11, we did absolutely nothing about Afghanistan. A few cruise missiles hurled into empty tents, followed by expressions of satisfaction about the ``message'' we had sent. It was, in fact, a message of utter passivity and unseriousness.

Then comes our Pearl Harbor and the sleeping giant awakes. Within 100 days, al Qaeda is routed and the Taliban overthrown. Then the first election in Afghanistan's history. Now the inauguration of a deeply respected democrat who, upon being sworn in as legitimate president of his country, thanks America for its liberation.

This, in Afghanistan, just three years ago not just hostile but untouchable. What do liberals have to say about this singular achievement by the Bush administration? That Afghanistan is growing poppies.

Good grief. This is news? ``Afghanistan grows poppies'' is the sun rising in the east. ``Afghanistan inaugurates democratically elected president'' is the sun rising in the west. Afghanistan has always grown poppies. What is Bush supposed to do? Send 100,000 GIs to eradicate the crop and incite a popular rebellion?

The other complaint is that Karzai really does not rule the whole country. Again the sun rises in the east. Afghanistan has never had a government that controlled the whole country. It has always had a central government weak by Western standards.

But Afghanistan's decentralized system works. Karzai controls Kabul, most of the major cities, and much in between. And he is successfully leveraging his power to gradually extend his authority as he creates entirely new federal institutions and an entirely new military.

The naiveté displayed by Krauthammer here in his enthusiasm at condemning the Liberal's lack of appreciation for the Afghanistan "miracle" would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. One would think that Conservatives, with their emphasis on tradition and history would know better. I would argue in fact that it is precisely such pragmatic, polemical thinking of clinging to the successful holding of elections as some kind of major achievement is exactly what got us into the situation we are in today.

What is missing from the the ideas of Conservatives such as Krauthammer is any concept of victory such as was used during World War II. Some better Conservatives, such as Daniel Pipes do recognize that such a concept is needed and were far more skeptical of Bush's war effort and overly ambitious democratic goals early on. However, even they at times fall short of a fully principled approach.

In fact, Conservatives do not present a real alternative to the appeasement engaged in by Liberals. The most consistent advocates for a principled foreign policy of self interest are Objectivists, who from the time of 9/11 attacks (and in fact long before) have advocated a policy of destruction for terrorists and their sponsors. Objectivists were also among the first to recognize that the nature of the enemy needed to be identified and that the goal ought to be victory.