Libertarianism: Just a Smoke Screen for Avarice and Racism?

Spontaneous order is one of two major assumptions in Libertarian thought. The other is the necessity of voluntary relationships. The two are closely related and make assumptions that are simply not true. These assumptions lead to outright lies.

Spontaneous order was a concept developed by Adam Smith. He believed that order arises in society spontaneously through the invisible hand of self regulation. He cites the development of language, the market economy, and the development of law. Regarding law, judges were to find the law rather than make the law. The natural law was out their lurking about, and all one had to do was to find it!

Natural law is a concept that was popular with the rise of historic liberalism, which was similar to today's libertarianism. Libertarians count as fathers, John Locke and Adam Smith. Adam Smith did not say that benefits from government could not exist, but rather were not the best way to help the poor. George H. W. Bush's thousand points of light and the importance of charity would have been praised by Adam Smith.

I support the concept of private charity. But my view of natural law is that men do have conscience but that conscience is often times violated. Therefore, while some aspects of man's progression have come through spontaneous order, many aspects of man's cruelty, greed, and racism have also been manifested by spontaneous disorder. Just as you need umpires at a baseball game, you cannot rely on self regulation when it comes to racism, markets, drug enforcement, etc.

It is a lie to say we must trust spontaneous order as civilized nations no matter what. While much of mankind's bad behavior comes from war, and so libertarians are for peace, some comes from the outworking of regular society. I am for peace as well, which would limit much of the dark behavior of man but would not eliminate it.

But spontaneous order has failed in three major areas of life:

1. Racism was not eradicated by spontaneous order. Many libertarians, such as Peter Schiff, have not just fought against affirmative action, but have also adopted the belief that employers should be able to discriminate due to race. There are videos on YouTube at the time of this posting that show Peter Schiff stating in his own words that employers should be able to discriminate due to race. I don't happen to like the videos, so the reader can search for them, but the proof is there.

I heard Peter Schiff in his own voice state the doctrine. He said, and I quote: "I think it should be legal for employers to discriminate based upon race." Schiff has claimed he belongs to the 1 percent so his comments are significant.

Needless to say, these libertarians are opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act which stopped the practice. How would you feel if you were a minority and were hungry and were turned away from such a basic necessity as food? If there is a natural law, those refusing to serve are certainly violating it! While I do not believe that all libertarians are racist, and Peter Schiff is not a racist, his zeal for the ideal of self regulation clouds his judgement, in my opinion.

2. Spontaneous order has failed in the market place. I think of Ronald Reagan, who turned away from his basic New Deal values to promote more freedom and deregulation of capitalism. I wonder what Reagan would have said regarding the destruction of the middle class through financial deregulation and the Repeal of Glass-Steagall, allowing for all manner of toxic and hurtful lending and the credit crisis? He trusted big business, even though Eisenhower did not and warned about the war machine and the financial and industrial complex.

Now we seem to have perpetual war as Ike's concerns have become reality. All Republicans do these days is to try to trump one another regarding war. The champion of libertarian spontaneous order in the markets, Ronald Reagan, was deceived badly, and spontaneous order in the market place was a big, big failure. Alan Greenspan believed in that same spontaneous order, or at least he used the concept to blow financial bubbles and steal on behalf of the banking community. The result are protests on Wall Street and all over the world.

What a terrible legacy Greenspan left. He never saw a market that needed regulation and he will go down in history as the libertarian who destroyed the wealth of many, as he said you could get a "better deal" by taking out an adjustable mortgage. He said so in February of 2004.

Plus, he was involved in the plunge protection team, a way to keep the stock market propped up until it wasn't. How about that behavior libertarians? I have decided that most libertarians are more greedy than they are moral. Libertarianism is just a smoke screen for theft and avarice and racism! To use the concept of higher law for one's own selfishness as an end in itself is just wicked.

3. Spontaneous order really will not help the poor and the elderly. Civilization has years of practice failing these people while waiting around for spontaneous order to kick in. Spontaneous order is just a way for wealthy people to justify dodging their taxes and responsibility. Dickens vilified Scrooge for a reason. He was a villain! So was Mr Potter in A Wonderful Life.

The reason that these stories are held in high esteem is because libertarianism is evil. There can be no other conclusion. There is a higher law, but it is revealed as mercy over justice. It is revealed as compassion over greed. It was once said, the wealthy have their reward already. Those are ominous words.

So government must exist to keep these merchants of greed in line. As the nations lose their sovereignty to the financial cabal, they will lose the ability to force societal responsibility on the wealthy. We know the answer is not communism because it failed.

The answer is a regulated capitalism, with government in charge rather than the capitalists. We have seen what happens when the capitalists are in charge. Ike warned us. You can find the speech on You Tube. Readers would do well to listen to it once again and ponder the words.

So, in summary, the spontaneous order so highly touted by libertarians is certain to fail in many instances. And the concept of voluntary relationships will bring strife to the nation. Indeed, the concept is flawed as well, as racism cannot be stopped by the hope that society will just not buy food at the restaurant that does not serve minorities. On the contrary, many racists will delight in the opportunity to shun major parts of the population in order to feed their moral decay.

Here is a partial list of men who believe in the libertarian (classical liberal) view of Spontaneous Order:

Adam Smith

Carl Menger

Friedrich Hayek

Milton Friedman

Paul Staines (Guy Fawkes Blogger)

John Stossel

David Stockman

Larry Summers

Ron Paul

Alan Greenspan

Peter Schiff

ludwig Von Mises

John Locke

Thomas Sowell

Murray Rothbard

Alex Jones

No one is saying that many goods produced are the result of central planning, but clearly, racism and the credit crisis and child labor abuses are examples of the failure of spontaneous order and must be fixed by government.