Why I'm not a Libertopian

Today's political right-wing, which refers to itself as 'conservatism' while advocating a rewriting of the rules of civil society as radical as any communist utopia (but regressive rather than progressive in nature), is built on a confluence of three distinct movements.  The first is a Christian theocratic ideal which would have certain people's idea of 'biblical' principles written into the law of the land (but with considerably less emphasis on the feeding of the hungry or replacing violence and retribution with peace and love, and considerable more on the harassment of gays and the social control of women's bodies); the second is a simple, petty technocratic fascist oligarchy concerned primarily with increasing the ability of the extremely wealthy to dictate the terms on which we live our lives and removing the power of the less wealthy to engage in any kind of collective action.  These ideologies are fairly easy to dismiss, provided that one is neither extremely rich nor fanatically fundamentalist.  The third leg of the tripod, however, and the one which gives the neo-conservative ideology most of its political energy and psychological appeal, is Libertarianism.

The Libertarian ideology is based on a very simple and very appealing principle: that life would be better for everyone if we all just let each other do whatever we wanted with our own lives and property, provided nobody was using it to cause direct harm to each other.  It should come immediately obvious that this principle is fundamentally incompatible with the other two ideas it has allowed itself to become bound up with, and so its place in the contemporary right is more or less as an ideological hit-man in service of its thuggish masters, a silk glove of principle over the iron fist of pure brutality; within this milieu it is reduced to justifying racism in the name of 'free association', class warfare in the name of 'property rights', and the gutting of progressive social policies in the name of 'small government' or 'fiscal austerity'.  The modern Libertarian ideal as a running-dog of neoconservative Christianist fascism is similarly easy to dismiss, poor tortured thing that it is.

But there are still numerous and vocal proponents of a much more pure strain of Libertarianism (which I will henceforth refer to as 'Libertopianism' to avoid confusion with the more common fascist-apologetic strain of Libertarianism).  This simple and principled approach to political questions can be intensely appealing, which is what gives the affectation of Libertarianism such weight when used as a rhetorical club by those who argue against progressive democratic-socialist positions.  It is a particularly attractive position to those like myself who view morality through an egoistic lens -- indeed, the establishment of the cult of Randism has made egoistic morality practically synonymous in political discourse with extreme capitalist Libertopianism, and LaVey was heavily influenced by it.  I, on the other hand, tend to see this embrace of Libertopian ideals by egoists as intensely shortsighted, so I'm going to take a moment to lay out the reasons why I reject simplistic Libertopian arguments in favour of a more nuanced market-socialist anarcho-mutualism.

The most basic problem I have with Libertopianism is that it has no real answer that I can see to the problem of economic inequality.  A fellow egoist might shrug and say that this is no real problem at all, that as long as one ends up on the top of the slagheap, the lives of those on the bottom are of no concern.  I would beg to differ.  Set aside for the moment the simple question of human empathy for the suffering of others (which is a factor a real egoist must take into account provided they are not a sociopathic narcissist -- but a question for a different post), or the fact that the more unequal a society the less likely one is to be able to make it to the top of that heap if one is not born there, or the intense insecurity of being a member of a powerful and privileged class awash in a sea of the poor and oppressed and the continual paranoid fear and sacrifice of time and resources to ensuring personal security that it necessitates.  The fact remains that life is simply better in a society where economic inequality is minimized.  The economy is more productive when everyone has access to food, housing and health care.  One is less likely to be the victim of a crime when large swathes of the population are neither destitute nor unemployed, or to encounter frustratingly uneducated and ignorant people when the masses have access to adequate education.  Even absent any kind of social safety net (and I have yet to encounter an actual example of a society which has achieved significant reductions to inequality by reducing redistributive social policies), a society with less inequality provides the individual with a wider network of relatives, friends and acquaintances, or private charitable givers to approach if they find theirself in adverse circumstances, and a less centralized and therefore more flexible wealth base from which to potentially borrow if they desire to better themself by means of entrepreneurship.  Furthermore, economic class inequality is often intrinsically bound up in regimes of systemic oppression, such as racism and sexism, that have their own distorting effects on society.

Libertopian arguments tend to rely on the concept of a 'really free market' (as opposed to the 'free market' of oligarchical neoconservative rhetoric) in which, among other things, equality of economic opportunity seems to be a given.  The premise is that, given equality of opportunity and complete freedom from coercion, the poor through hard work and shrewd marketing will be able to raise themselves up by their own bootstraps, and that continuous economic growth will raise the standard of living for everyone -- 'a rising tide floats all boats', as it is said.  Leaving aside for a moment how exactly we are to achieve the complete erasure of all kinds of unequal opportunities caused by for example racial prejudice, I'm actually go one better and assume a social condition in which every individual participant in the market starts off with absolutely equal wealth.  The slate is wiped clean of both prejudice and inequality completely, and everyone is free to do what they will with their own property.  Under such conditions, those who have a greater talent for amassing profit will inevitably begin to accumulate a greater share of the available wealth, while others who are lazy, spendthrift, foolish with money, or simply talented in areas that are not particularly helpful in the accumulation of lucre will lose their share and become impoverished.  Arguments, at this point, tend to be made about the moral implications of such a situation -- arguments in which I, as an egoist, am not particularly interested; the simple pragmatic fact is that a portion of the population will be losing access to the things which make them productive individuals, and thus to some portion of their capacity to contribute to the general welfare.  At the absolute best, they will starve or die of exposure and others will be burdened with the trouble and expense of disposing of their corpses in a sanitary fashion.  (Let it never be said that Libertarians have a monopoly on callousness regarding the suffering of the poor.)  What's more, as some people gain a greater share of wealth, they will also gain a greater share of power, because wealth is power; particularly in situations where there are others with considerably less share of wealth, and especially in situations where there are a significant number of people who have difficulty affording basic necessities, wealth is leverage.  People can be bribed to support changes in the rules under which the market operates which favour the accumulation of further wealth by the wealthy and impose barriers to upward economic mobility on the poor, or the wealthy can pay those with flexible ethics and a greater capacity for violence to begin coercing the masses to support those policies.  At this point, points are customarily made about self-defence; but, again, those with less resources and leisure have less access to both the means of acquiring superior firepower and the training to effectively use it; those with superior coercive skill will doubtless number many among them who have their price and can be welded into a disciplined force; and even assuming as given that the wealthy will not engage in direct coercive actions, the simple venality and desperation of the masses is more than sufficient to lead, in due time, to the same outcome.

I would consider such a path a simple and inevitable consequence of the realities of human nature.  If such a situation evolves so naturally from a situation of complete and perfect equality, what chance does the Libertopian ideal have against the realities of systemic inequality and prejudice in our society?