Libertarianism, Philosophically Speaking

Oh yes, a big old title for a Sunday to be sure, but what the hell.

Some may have watched a documentary on BBC2 last night about life behind the Berlin Wall and the efforts and counter-efforts of those therein. It was the usual story of man talks about freedom gets spied on by friend goes on march knocks wall down gets freedom. You know, one of those stories.

But one of the things that struck me was not so much the tales of yesteryear from those that were there, interesting as they were, but the images that were shown. The marches against the Stasi with people bravely chanting 'Stasi Out!' in broad daylight before undercover agents amongst them ripped down the banners and carried protesters away, no doubt for good. Others showed the sheer passion of the people of Hungary who literally ran thorough the newly removed Iron Curtain and into Austria.

Their faces were almost in a panic, the mixture of fear and excitement you get when you do something you were always told not to. Would they get caught? Would they get all the way to the line and then it was all a big trick? Or was this really, really it, freedom?

Of course it was the latter and the traffic jams and huge numbers of people making their way to the West are testament to that. It was a picture of the desire for freedom, what freedom means to human beings when denied it for so long. Not restricted, denied. That is an important distinction that must be made.

We live in a free country. We may argue and protest for our freedoms, out liberty, but it cannot kid ourselves that we live in the USSR. I know that many may disagree, but when all is said and done you can work where you want, say what you want (mainly), buy what you want and, most importantly, have the choice to choose or not choose. There are far too many restrictions upon us and the cry for real freedom is what the libertarian movement fundamentally represents, but we do not live in the East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

What made those people scream for freedom as if for water in the desert was not Health and Safety laws or the EU, or even too much tax, it was the total removal of free choice. Their reaction to being offered the freedom they craved was to run like demented children to their dream. These are people that risked their lives for this dream and now they had it offered. And we must remember, the freedom they were being offered was not a libertarian society by any means, it was the Western Europe of 20 years ago.

Marx stated that in order for a communist utopia to be realised, a fully fledged capitalist one must first occur and be reacted against with socialism. That is, before we can get what we want lads we must allow the people what they want so that may realise it to be the opposite before it all implodes. Like letting a child stuff themselves stupid with chocolate so they feel sick as a parrot, in order for you to say 'I told you so'.

This theory was obviously flawed and unachievable. The ideal that Marx and Engels envisioned was never going to be realised as long as man has the desire for power that can so easily be sated by socialism. The result of the ever controlling world of socialism, in a supposed bid to re-order society in preparation for the coming New Age, was the pictures witnessed at the fall of the Berlin Wall.

However, is the reverse of this what libertarianism requires?

Here we have long argued a pragmatic vision of increased social and economic liberty. We want more but realise that it quite simply isn't going to happen, no one is going to vote for the scale of reforms that some propose. That's fine, there should be a realist and idealist vision, it's healthy in many ways. The main reason, as I said, that the kind of full blown libertarianism that some call for not happening is that people are scared of that kind of freedom when the world we have allows them to have everything that really want.

On an everyday basis the vast amount of people, in my view, do not concern themselves with the restriction on their liberty that some others see all too clearly. They have their house, their kids, they have jobs and holidays. They may moan about the EU, or taxes, or the government, but for the majority the day to day, real life world is one they just want to get through.

It could easily be argued that this very attitude is what is causing the West to decline as it is: we are all too comfy.

So, in order for a libertarian ideal to be achieved, do we need the opposite of what Marx called for? That is, Marx. Witnessing the desire for freedom that was created by the true removal of it by the former communist states, and indeed the increasing desire for freedom we are seeing China slowly giving way to, maybe we need that very state of affairs to happen first.

Should Britain, maybe even all of Europe, react to the current economic issues and political disillusionment by shifting to the Left, proper freedom would cease.

This is not so fanciful as may be first thought. Prior to 1914 it was commonly held that war was abolished, that peace was achieved and democracy (of that era) was established. Then the war happened. Then states fell, the communists seized their chances, what they saw as the war being the culmination of capitalist society heralding the dawn of a socialist one. Post-1918 a sudden rise in communist and fascist thought occurred that very few, such as Hayek and later Orwell, argued against. They foresore the nightmare that could occur, they were dismissed. Europe went on a socialist bender that we are still living through, like the party goers heaped in the corner with a bottle of Gin at two in the morning. It's all gone wrong, but we're going to keep on partying all the same. Even if we can't stand up and we're covered in our vomit.

All it takes is a reaction. Jobs and houses are lost, maybe war is threatened. These events can trigger an unexpected chain of events that can very easily result in our country becoming a communist or fascist dictatorship.

But maybe that is what is required to have people realise what they really want. Maybe people need to have their freedoms literally taken away before they realise that they want a properly free country. Just like Marx felt that they needed to be shown the full horrors of a totally capitalist society and to let capitalism destroy itself before his communist dream could occur.

Obviously, as the title implies, this is theoretical and I am not necessarily arguing for a full blown take over by the BNP in response to war with China simply to herald a bright new era of liberty. But I get the feeling that this is precisely the situation we will be confronted with in our lifetimes, probably in the not too distant future.

Huxley and Orwell both created protagonists that saw the light through the darkness of a some future distopia and were willing to sacrifice everything to achieve or regain it. But in our own reality we have witnessed the same thing through the Berlin Wall.

Freedom through revolution is not something that can be imposed on a people, libertarianism must be validated by democratic means and not by the destruction of the current state through violent means. Freedom is somethign that pepole must want, must be willing to do anything for and that when they get the chance of it they will run to the ends of the Earth. That isn't going to happen in our current state of affairs and it won't happen until something drastic happens.