Post by shoreman on Sept 28, 2006 16:42:14 GMT -5
From Far Left to Libertarian
By Arnold Kling : 28 Sep 2006
www.tcsdaily.com/printArticle.aspx?ID=092806A
The question of how I became a libertarian ultimately is a question about how I changed my mental model of the political system from one of "good guys vs. villains" to one of the importance of limited government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. I travelled the route from Far Left to libertarian. I think that quite a few libertarians have travelled that route, and yet I cannot think of anyone who has gone the other direction. This leads me to suspect that:
Far Leftists and libertarianism have much in common.
Libertarians know something that Far Leftists do not.
What I believe that Far Leftists and libertarians have in common includes:
A passion for social and political issues. I grew up in a household where the dinner conversation often was politics. Far Leftists and libertarians both care more than the average person about what goes on in public policy.
Frustration with political incumbents. Far Leftists and libertarians both have a tendency to exaggerate the flaws in Presidents while in office and to overstate the virtues of past leaders. For example, Presidents Clinton and Kennedy are much more popular with the Far Left today than when they were in office. Similarly, during his Administration, President Reagan was considered a disappointment by libertarians.
Anti-elitism. Both Far Leftists and libertarians are willing to reject what they see as elitist views among politicians and political pundits.
What I believe that Libertarians have learned is what social psychologists call the Fundamental Attribution Error. The error is to attribute behavior to a person's character when this behavior is in fact based on context. In one classic experiment, the subject is asked to watch a person read a speech that the subject knows that the speaker did not write. Subjects attribute to the person the beliefs contained in the speech.
The Far Left believes that bad policies come from evil motives. In this view, villains, such as powerful corporations, oppose good policies, and political incumbents lack the strength and courage to overcome the villains.
Libertarians believe that context is more important. We believe that government power is inherently corrupting, regardless of who holds leadership positions or how they are influenced. We believe that the market does a relatively good job of channelling self-interest toward socially desirable ends.
In my journey from Far Left to libertarianism, studying economics played an important role. My undergraduate economics professor, the late Bernie Saffran, exposed students to a variety of viewpoints, from Marxist to libertarian. But he revelled in showing us cases where policy intentions conflicted with policy results. The point that self-interest in a market context can lead to good outcomes, while good intentions in government regulation can lead to bad outcomes, was driven home.
I also feel that I was profoundly affected by reading David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, which is a history of the Vietnam War. My Far Left activism was mostly geared toward opposition to the war. In high school and college, I assumed that the leaders prosecuting the war were villains. I remember listening to speakers argue that it was the pursuit of markets by American corporations that led us into war.
Although Halberstam's book was strongly anti-war, his narrative of how the United States became involved was far from the simplistic theory of imperialism. Instead, he emphasized hubris, the belief of American elites that they could bend a foreign culture to their will. It showed how people who one might think of as "good guys" were capable of blundering into the Vietnam mess.
Some early experiences working in government helped nudge me along the road to libertarianism. As an intern to Senator Hubert Humphrey in 1973, for part of my sophomore year in college, I saw how poorly-informed he and other Senators were about economics, and how little time and energy they spent on understanding public policy. The Senator's best office space, equipment, and personnel were dedicated to doing constituent service, such as helping veterans navigate the bureaucracy to obtain their benefits. In contrast, the legislative assistants were overworked, poorly-equipped, and often given duties more appropriate to a personal aide, such as helping the Senator get from one meeting to the next.
After graduating Swarthmore College in 1975, my first job was with the newly-formed Congressional Budget Office. I worked on simulations of the macroeconomic implications of different energy policies. At the time, there was a Byzantine system of oil price controls in place, in which "old domestic oil" was held to a lower price than "new domestic oil," which in turn had a different price than imported oil. When you stepped back and thought about it, the oil price control system was reminiscent of the Vietnam War in that it was a mess resulting from the attempted cleverness of the elite. When Ronald Reagan was elected President, early decontrol of oil prices proved to be a triumph of simple economics over elitist management.
I might have remained mostly liberal were it not for two intense experiences in business. From 1986 through 1994, I worked for Freddie Mac, as it made the transition from a government agency to a shareholder-owned, profit-driven corporation. I was involved in several major innovations, including the introduction of credit scoring into mortgage underwriting. These experiences were bittersweet at best. I found myself strongly opposed by the bureaucracy when I tried to persuade senior management to undertake the innovations. Then, when senior management finally agreed to move forward, these same bureaucrats would leap aboard the new project and shove me aside. I came away with very mixed feelings about large corporate organizations. I now say that "You would not be so afraid of large corporations if you had ever worked for one."
In 1994, I tried innovating as an entrepreneur, starting one of the first businesses on the World Wide Web, homefair.com, which provided information to consumers undertaking relocations and made money by connecting them with service providers, such as real estate agents or moving companies. This experience also showed me that small start-ups can compete in an environment with large corporations.
I now believe that entrepreneurship and the process of innovation are central elements in economic performance. I believe that innovations are very difficult to sell to people used to doing things the old way. I believe that governments naturally side with incumbents against disruptive innovators.
I have been writing essays on policy for Internet publications for the past five years. Over this period, I have come to believe that politicians are in the business of "marketing" their product to the public, by exaggerating threats and over-selling government solutions.
My goal as a libertarian is to counter the heavy-handed marketing by politicians of bigger government. I want to constantly remind people that personal responsibility and free markets are more powerful forces for progress than is government. For those people who are still on the Far Left, my advice is to study the consequences of policy, not simply the motives and intentions of those who advocate the policy. Once one understands and corrects for the Fundamental Attribution Error, the passion for better public policy translates into a support for libertarian principles.
The author is a TCS Daily Contributing Editor.
By Arnold Kling : 28 Sep 2006
www.tcsdaily.com/printArticle.aspx?ID=092806A
The question of how I became a libertarian ultimately is a question about how I changed my mental model of the political system from one of "good guys vs. villains" to one of the importance of limited government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. I travelled the route from Far Left to libertarian. I think that quite a few libertarians have travelled that route, and yet I cannot think of anyone who has gone the other direction. This leads me to suspect that:
Far Leftists and libertarianism have much in common.
Libertarians know something that Far Leftists do not.
What I believe that Far Leftists and libertarians have in common includes:
A passion for social and political issues. I grew up in a household where the dinner conversation often was politics. Far Leftists and libertarians both care more than the average person about what goes on in public policy.
Frustration with political incumbents. Far Leftists and libertarians both have a tendency to exaggerate the flaws in Presidents while in office and to overstate the virtues of past leaders. For example, Presidents Clinton and Kennedy are much more popular with the Far Left today than when they were in office. Similarly, during his Administration, President Reagan was considered a disappointment by libertarians.
Anti-elitism. Both Far Leftists and libertarians are willing to reject what they see as elitist views among politicians and political pundits.
What I believe that Libertarians have learned is what social psychologists call the Fundamental Attribution Error. The error is to attribute behavior to a person's character when this behavior is in fact based on context. In one classic experiment, the subject is asked to watch a person read a speech that the subject knows that the speaker did not write. Subjects attribute to the person the beliefs contained in the speech.
The Far Left believes that bad policies come from evil motives. In this view, villains, such as powerful corporations, oppose good policies, and political incumbents lack the strength and courage to overcome the villains.
Libertarians believe that context is more important. We believe that government power is inherently corrupting, regardless of who holds leadership positions or how they are influenced. We believe that the market does a relatively good job of channelling self-interest toward socially desirable ends.
In my journey from Far Left to libertarianism, studying economics played an important role. My undergraduate economics professor, the late Bernie Saffran, exposed students to a variety of viewpoints, from Marxist to libertarian. But he revelled in showing us cases where policy intentions conflicted with policy results. The point that self-interest in a market context can lead to good outcomes, while good intentions in government regulation can lead to bad outcomes, was driven home.
I also feel that I was profoundly affected by reading David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, which is a history of the Vietnam War. My Far Left activism was mostly geared toward opposition to the war. In high school and college, I assumed that the leaders prosecuting the war were villains. I remember listening to speakers argue that it was the pursuit of markets by American corporations that led us into war.
Although Halberstam's book was strongly anti-war, his narrative of how the United States became involved was far from the simplistic theory of imperialism. Instead, he emphasized hubris, the belief of American elites that they could bend a foreign culture to their will. It showed how people who one might think of as "good guys" were capable of blundering into the Vietnam mess.
Some early experiences working in government helped nudge me along the road to libertarianism. As an intern to Senator Hubert Humphrey in 1973, for part of my sophomore year in college, I saw how poorly-informed he and other Senators were about economics, and how little time and energy they spent on understanding public policy. The Senator's best office space, equipment, and personnel were dedicated to doing constituent service, such as helping veterans navigate the bureaucracy to obtain their benefits. In contrast, the legislative assistants were overworked, poorly-equipped, and often given duties more appropriate to a personal aide, such as helping the Senator get from one meeting to the next.
After graduating Swarthmore College in 1975, my first job was with the newly-formed Congressional Budget Office. I worked on simulations of the macroeconomic implications of different energy policies. At the time, there was a Byzantine system of oil price controls in place, in which "old domestic oil" was held to a lower price than "new domestic oil," which in turn had a different price than imported oil. When you stepped back and thought about it, the oil price control system was reminiscent of the Vietnam War in that it was a mess resulting from the attempted cleverness of the elite. When Ronald Reagan was elected President, early decontrol of oil prices proved to be a triumph of simple economics over elitist management.
I might have remained mostly liberal were it not for two intense experiences in business. From 1986 through 1994, I worked for Freddie Mac, as it made the transition from a government agency to a shareholder-owned, profit-driven corporation. I was involved in several major innovations, including the introduction of credit scoring into mortgage underwriting. These experiences were bittersweet at best. I found myself strongly opposed by the bureaucracy when I tried to persuade senior management to undertake the innovations. Then, when senior management finally agreed to move forward, these same bureaucrats would leap aboard the new project and shove me aside. I came away with very mixed feelings about large corporate organizations. I now say that "You would not be so afraid of large corporations if you had ever worked for one."
In 1994, I tried innovating as an entrepreneur, starting one of the first businesses on the World Wide Web, homefair.com, which provided information to consumers undertaking relocations and made money by connecting them with service providers, such as real estate agents or moving companies. This experience also showed me that small start-ups can compete in an environment with large corporations.
I now believe that entrepreneurship and the process of innovation are central elements in economic performance. I believe that innovations are very difficult to sell to people used to doing things the old way. I believe that governments naturally side with incumbents against disruptive innovators.
I have been writing essays on policy for Internet publications for the past five years. Over this period, I have come to believe that politicians are in the business of "marketing" their product to the public, by exaggerating threats and over-selling government solutions.
My goal as a libertarian is to counter the heavy-handed marketing by politicians of bigger government. I want to constantly remind people that personal responsibility and free markets are more powerful forces for progress than is government. For those people who are still on the Far Left, my advice is to study the consequences of policy, not simply the motives and intentions of those who advocate the policy. Once one understands and corrects for the Fundamental Attribution Error, the passion for better public policy translates into a support for libertarian principles.
The author is a TCS Daily Contributing Editor.