Libertarian Universalism Won’t Be a Successful Strategy

I think libertarian universalism won’t ever turn out to be a successful strategy for several reasons … it requires nuanced thought (strong intellect), it requires high time preference (delayed gratification), it requires the foundations of the political society to be built from philosophical underpinnings rather than individual self-interest. Essentially, we are asking people to be high minded individuals searching for a greater cause and that greater cause requires a lot of thought, nuance, and virtue. I just don’t see it happening.

To some degree, I believed in this strategy from 2002 to several years ago. Only in the last several years have I realized that this isn’t how any great things are created.

We don’t have great products and services because high minded individuals searched for a greater cause that required virtue and nuance. We have great products because of how complex markets works in satisfying consumer desires. Government/society organizing is nothing more than a product/service. Libertarians are spending time trying to do the equivalent of making the Soviet Union create iPhones, Fruity Pebbles, flat screen TVs and Playstations. You are barking up the wrong tree, it won’t work.

Libertarian policy is a waste of time in the grander scheme of things. The incentives and mechanisms of the current governmental paradigm will always suffocate liberty. The only goal is to do what makes great products on the market, decentralize. Create a market for society organizing/government and they will explore with everything to find the best ways to organize societies, and just like with cereal, there won’t be just one option.

There are some government policies that help people greatly right now, I don’t think it is wrong for libertarians to advocate for that, but inspiring a greater movement through political means seems highly problematic. This is partially why I have strayed from Ancap and libertarian in the last several years, and have preferred the term “Decentralist.”

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Aaron White, married to a swell girl, is a business owner and unschooling father of two, going on three. His hobbies are music and poker. He resides in Southern California.