[Clips] Tribal Politics

[R. A. Hettinga]

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  Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 20:36:23 -0500
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  From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
  Subject: [Clips] Tribal Politics
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  <http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=040306B>


  TCS Daily -


  Tribal Politics


  By Arnold Kling : BIO| 03 Apr 2006



  "Suppose you could give American high school dropouts a 1000% raise by
  exterminating every man, woman, and child in Latin America. Would that be
  the right thing to do?

  No? Why not? Your answer, hopefully, is that murder is wrong, even if it
  financially benefits low-skilled Americans. In fact, when you put it that
  way, it's hard not to exclaim, 'What's so great about low-skilled
  Americans? Are they the master race, in whose service any crime is
  justified?'

  OK, suppose you could give American high school dropouts an 8% raise by
  deporting every man, woman, and child from Latin America back to their home
  countries. Would that be the right thing to do?"
  -- Bryan Caplan

  In today's political discourse, the term "Nazi" serves no intellectual
  purpose. It is merely an epithet, used to indicate anger. Calling someone a
  Nazi is like calling someone a bleeping bleep.

  For me, this creates a problem of terminology. I want to describe the
  beliefs of someone like George Bush, who worries about "national
  competitiveness" (fear the peril of Asian scientists!) and who wants No
  (American) Child Left Behind. I want to describe the beliefs of someone
  like Paul Krugman, who is worried about the wages of "our" unskilled
  workers, or who wants "our" health care to be paid for by taxes.

  What should you call someone who wants government to provide for our
  education, competitiveness, and health care but whose concern about "us"
  stops at the border? The obvious label would be national socialist. But
  George Bush and Paul Krugman are not Nazis. So, I need an alternative term.
  Call their ideology statist-collectivist.

  Transnational Libertarianism

  The alternative ideology that I would propose might be called transnational
  libertarianism. The ideal libertarian world would have no economic borders.
  There would be no problem of illegal immigration, because all forms of
  immigration would be legal.

  If transnational libertarianism were to become sufficiently popular to
  emerge as the ideology that determines the world's institutions, then
  governments would be local rather than national. Their main role would be
  to prevent outbreaks of violence among individuals or groups. In the
  nightclub of life, government would be the bouncer, not the owner or the
  manager or the dance instructor or the disk jockey.

  Transnational libertarianism would be based on a system of individual
  rights, like our Bill of Rights. The purpose of individual rights is solely
  to protect individuals from abuse of government power. We would not have a
  "right to health care" or a "right to education." We would have rights to
  freedom of speech and freedom of association. I would like to see these
  individual rights made fully portable, so that freedom of movement becomes
  a basic right. I would like to see Hispanics free to live and work in the
  United States, Palestinian Arabs free to live and work in Israel, and Jews
  free to live and work in Palestinian territory or other Arab lands.

  Individuals would have the right to choose to live under strict religious
  law. However, no one could be forced to live under strict religious law.
  Any conflict between religious law and the basic rights of the individual
  would be resolved in favor of the rights of the individual.

  Individuals would have the right to associate only with people who have
  similar ethnic origins, although I believe it is in one's best interest
  instead to have an inclusive set of associates. What is important is that
  government not engage in or support ethnic discrimination.

  Governments should be strong enough to protect basic rights, and no
  stronger. Today's national governments are too strong. A "world government"
  that is even stronger would be a transnational libertarian's worst
  nightmare. Local governments, with plenty of checks and balances, would be
  better. To improve accountability and reduce government over-reach, I have
  suggested breaking up the United States into 250 states.

  Tribal Identity

  I believe that people have a strong need for tribal identity. We want to
  belong to a group that has common customs and rituals that distinguish the
  group from other groups. One sees this phenomenon at work in all forms of
  human social organizations, from ethnic groups to sports fans to religions
  to corporate departments to professional associations.

  Tribal identity motivates people to help others. People naturally join
  clubs, religious organizations, and other groups. In the absence of strong
  national governments, these associations could share resources in order to
  alleviate problems among their members, satisfying the needs that today are
  answered by the welfare state.

  Tribal identity is a mixed blessing. For those people who belong to groups
  where norms include resistance to work, school, or responsibility, one
  could argue that tribal identity is a handicap.

  Tribal identity is used to motivate people to engage in violence against
  outsiders. Tribal identity is one of the reasons that we need bouncers in
  the nightclub of life.

  Politicians in nation-states attempt to use tribal identity to foster
  cohesion. In my view, they do this all too well. One result is that
  statist-collectivist ideology has a deep hold on most of us. Often, as in
  the case of Paul Krugman's recent writing on immigration, tribal identity
  is mixed with folk Marxism.

  Another consequence of tribal identity is war. Statist collectivism
  elevates tribal war to a colossal scale. However, pacifism is no refuge in
  a world where violence based on tribal identity is often unchecked and many
  individual thugs as well as mass movements are prepared to trample
  individual rights.

  The Internet Example

  I do not expect the world to move toward transnational libertarianism in
  the foreseeable future. Right now, other ideologies predominate.
  Islamofascism, an ideology of tribal domination, is very prominent.
  Transnational progressivism, which favors world government and socialism,
  is the opposite of transnational libertarianism. And then there is statist
  collectivism, which is far more popular than transnational libertarianism.

  I am cautiously hopeful that the trend might be away from statist
  collectivism and toward transnational libertarianism. This hope is based on
  the Internet.

  First, the Internet itself serves to demonstrate the workability of an
  institution that relies relatively heavily on individual rights and
  responsibilities and relatively little on national government. On the
  Internet, borders tend to be highly porous, and in fact this is
  contributing to the increased porousness of borders in general, as is
  illustrated by the phenomenon of overseas outsourcing of service work.

  Second, the Internet provides a medium that can be used to counter
  statist-collectivist propaganda. The mass-market media of the twentieth
  century were easily and naturally drawn into the service of politicians
  with statist-collectivist agendas. The Internet has allowed other voices to
  challenge the mainstream media, and perhaps some day this will challenge
  the hegemony of mainstream politicians.

  My point is not that we can expect soon to see transnational libertarianism
  put into practice. However, I do think that it represents a more positive
  vision for society than statist collectivism. I think that with the medium
  of the Internet available, those of us who believe in transnational
  libertarianism are better able to articulate our views. As the Internet
  continues to take hold, it will become more difficult to dismiss
  libertarianism than was the case during the era dominated by mass media.

  The Immigration Issue

  Back in the real world, the immigration issue raises some concerns. First,
  there is the issue of assimilation. My idea of an assimilated immigrant is
  someone with a strong commitment to the Bill of Rights, separation of
  powers, and federalism. My opinion is that immigrants who are fleeing from
  ethnic cleansing or political repression are more likely to assimilate,
  because with a first-hand experience of tyranny they can really appreciate
  American liberty and ideals. I would not want to see economically-motivated
  immigrants or guest workers crowd out the more desperate refugees from
  other parts of the world.

  Another concern I have with either immigration or guest workers is
  reconciliation with our welfare state. We do not want immigration or guest
  work to be a way to extract benefits from the welfare state, such as
  Medicaid or public education. But I think we want guest workers to pay
  taxes. One approach, which is rather harsh, would be to tell guest workers
  that they have to pay taxes that help support Social Security, Medicaid,
  and public schools, but they are not allowed to obtain benefits from any of
  these programs.

  If we lived in a transnational libertarian utopia, the issue of immigration
  policy would be simple. Open borders would be the right approach. There
  would be no concern with immigrants coming to take advantage of our welfare
  state, because we would not have one.

  But we do not live in a transnational libertarian utopia. For now,
  immigration policy must cater to the inclinations of national socialists.

  Arnold Kling is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute and author of
  Learning Economics.


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  R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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  "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'