Dear Professor Krugman – how to cut the libertarians’ leash

This week in Las Vegas, Freedom Fest will feature the “debate of the century!” pitting Keynsian economist and Nobelist Professor Paul Krugman against Steve Moore, supply-sider and Wall Street Journal columnist.  

(And here's a late news flash... Freedom Fest will also feature visits from Marco Rubio and... Donald Trump. See below where I explain why the Hijackers of Conservatism are so desperate to reach out to libertarians, and maintain a special effects fantasy-illusion that the two movements are somehow siblings.  Desperate, indeed.)

Let me start by saying Freedom Fest is way-fun!  I was invited to speak at last year’s event, and I found that my message – as a lonely acolyte of Adam Smith among fervid followers of Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard – was both rare and greeted with attentive respect. The Smith-Heinlein branch of libertarianism is rarely heard, nowadays, but I can think of few conclaves of political zealotry where a dissenting voice would be treated so courteously. Certainly not in gatherings of today's fervid far-left or today’s raving, fanatical entire-right.

I expect Professor Krugman – famed in sci fi circles more as an acolyte of Isaac Asimov, than for his Nobel – will be similarly welcomed. Though, if you look at the Freedom Fest web site, you can see that the masters of (hijacked) conservatism are pulling out the stops, sparing no expense or effort to keep libertarianism tethered, like a dog who is deeply unhappy, but cannot break the masters' leash.

Severing that chain was my own aim, last year. It is forged out of lies, misconceptions and manipulations… but also by the neglect of moderate liberals who have shrugged and assumed that outreach to libertarians will be a lost cause.  This is foolishness of the highest order. Especially since Adam Smith was the founder of both liberalism and libertarianism.

And hence, I wrote to Paul Krugman, offering him suggested “bullet points” for his upcoming debate with one of the front men for Rupert Murdoch and the ongoing attempted oligarchic putsch.  Points that truly strike home with sincere and openminded libertarians.

 Ways to make his debate less like a sumo match, in which the right always wins, through sheer obstinacy and mountains of cash… and more like judo, in which the right wing dinosaur must stumble over its own inconsistencies.

Alas, though we have exchanged correspondence, in the past, Krugman never answered me, this time.  Well, well. Famous people and all that.  I have a backup plan, then…

…to share my advice right here, publicly.  Hoping that the message somehow will get through.

== Judo tools for separating libertarians from the mad right ==

Dear Professor Krugman,

We’ve corresponded. I’m the astronomer/science fiction author who Janet and Robin Asimov asked to tie up Isaac’s loose ends in the Foundation universe, with my novel Foundation’s Triumph.  

I see you’ll debate Steven Moore at Freedom Fest, where I spoke last year, ministering to libertarians, a movement that’s been (alas) largely hijacked by oligarchy.  

May I offer suggestions? After years trying to draw out the Rand-Rothbard poison, I’ve discovered some effective counter-catechisms that you are welcome to use.

1) The word “competition” is key! It underpins the saner libertarianism of Adam Smith and Robert Heinlein, not the present cult’s substitute obsession with -- “propertarianism.”

When I point this out, the truly intelligent libertarians get guilty looks. They know these two words can be opposites!

All good things – oxygen, water, food... and property – become toxic when overly-concentrated. Smart libertarians know this. They suspect, inside, that the Murdochian hyperbole for utterly unlimited concentrations of economic power cannot be justified.

Propertarianism -- beloved of Forbes, Norquist, Murdoch and would-be feudal lords -- is opposite to the teachings of Smith and the American founders, who knew competition is only effective/creative when it is flat-open-fair. 

(The Founders seized and redistributed 1/3 of the land in the former colonies, for example, far more “leveling” than FDR ever tried.) 

Friedrich Hayek himself called for maximizing the number of knowledgable decision makers, which is not what you get when the economy is controlled by a secretive cabal of 3,000 mutually-conniving CEO golf-buddies.

Smith showed that competitive-creative arenas fail when cheaters can manipulate, as lords did in every feudal society for 6000 years. He despised feudalism far more than socialism. So why is no one using Adam Smith and “competition” against the right? I find it effective to juxtapose Smith against Rand, showing them to be opposites! With Rand's "lords" inevitably leading to feudalism's repetitiously boring and destructive song.

Were democrats to reclaim Smith, it could be a prodigious judo move. (See: Liberals Must Reclaim Adam Smith.)

Key to this… Steve Moore won’t expect it! Show that all GOP efforts -- especially Supply Side -- actually undermine competition. Top to bottom and in all ways. Today’s version of conservatism is the diametric opposite of libertarianism. At least Adam Smith’s kind.

2)  One relentless conservative meme is nostalgia, especially for the 1940s, 50s and 60s, when America was led by the stalwart "Greatest Generation." Only there's a rub. Our parents in the Greatest Generation adored one man above all others -- the very same person who moguls of the right now call antichrist. 

Our purported golden era of capitalism – the 1950s and 1960s – happened when FDR’s tax rates kept things flat-open-fair.  These are facts that demolish the nostalgia part of the right’s hypnotic mantra.

3) Refer to science fiction!  These geeks mostly love the stuff. (It’s why they invite me, even knowing I’ll diss their icons.) Talk about the future. Mention Heinlein, who was as much a liberal as a libertarian. Then ask why they ally themselves with the most reactionary, anti-science and anti-future forces in America.

4) “If this society is so awful, how come it made more libertarians than any other?” In fact, the more children of the poor and disadvantaged get healthy and educated, the more of them will become libertarians, too!

5) This one is potent. Yes, democrats and Keynsians want the state to help people… and yet, which party DE-regulates bloated government, more often?

Challenge them to name an industry the GOP - for all its ranting - ever actually de-regulated! Other than Wall Street/Finance and Resource Extraction – and those two exceptions only unleashed moguls to rape us all.

In contrast: when the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) became festered-captured wreckers of competition… Democrats abolished them!

And they deregulated Trucking, too. Or take Bill Clinton’s deregulation of the GPS system, freeing it for use by all. AT&T’s breakup ignited a golden age of cell-phone competition.

Above all, Al Gore’s bill unleashing the Internet was the greatest deregulation in history! Make them face that irony! Then demand to see the GOP's de-regulatory history, by comparison... and recall the Republicans owned every single lever of power from 2001 through 2007.  They passed anything they really cared about.  And deregulation got only lip service. Anyone who believes their promises, this time, is simply a fool.

6) Then ask why only blue states are backing away from the damned Drug War. This really makes libertarians sit up.

7) Distinguish between “liberals” and “leftists.” Yes, the latter can act crazy, supplying anecdotes for Fox to claim “Dems are even worse than Republicans! So come home to the GOP on election day you libertarians!”

But the DP is not run by its lefty radicals!  It is run by millions of moderates who want only to negotiate. (E.g. leftists may want “equalized outcomes” but liberals want all children uplifted to equal starting blocks for subsequent fair competition. A huge difference, and the reason why Adam Smith was “The First Liberal.”)

In contrast, the Republican Party is the most disciplined partisan force since 1865. (Use that word – disciplined – libertarians know it is true. And facing that truth about the GOP, they will recoil!) The so-called "differences" among GOP candidates are minuscule bits of meaningless theater. All of them repeat Roger Ailes talking points, daily. And Barry Goldwater is spinning now, at 5000 RPM. 

8) Just as "competition" is a better word to focus on than "propertarianism," so we need to address the current libertarian reflex that the word "government" is the sole and entire human sin.  

Sure, go ahead and have a reflex to hold that elite under suspicion!  (I share it!)  We need the libertarian  impulse to worry about Big Government, since that is one (but only one) of the possible ways Big Brother might arrive.

But also do look at 6000 years of human history. Recall that freedom and flat-fair competition and opportunity were repressed FAR more often by owner-oligarchies. Adam Smith recommended neutral civil servants as counters to the old, feudal sickness. 

Here is the plain fact: 
Bureaucrats can stifle flat-fair competition, if not carefully watched.  
Oligarchs always stifle flat-fair competition.

The reflex to always pour hate only at "government" (and on scientists) is being pushed by... can you guess who? That's right. Owner-oligarchs.

9) Sure, liberals and libertarians will always disagree.  We both want a better world than this one.  Libertarians think it will happen through unleashing the maximum number of free and empowered competitors into flat-fair-open markets. 

Guess what… so do liberals!  Where they differ is that liberals see a central need for committed investment… in infrastructure, education and public health... in order to maximize the number of 25 year olds who reach equal starting blocks in that flat-open-fair arena!  

And without the slightest doubt, many past Rooseveltean efforts have increased the fraction of kids reaching that free and confident readiness to compete.  Do you guys want to try some more market-oriented ways to eliminate poverty and disadvantage?  Great! Bring your plans to the table.  But remember, today's mad conservatism does everything in its power to destroy the negotiating table! 

(10) The crux:

a) Liberals are not leftists!  The latter want to equalize outcomes.  The former want just enough common action to ensure that talent is not wasted by poverty and so we'll get more equality of opportunity and starting blocks.  Sometimes this boundary is fuzzy and confused.  But in their hearts, liberals can be negotiated with, and even talked into ending obsolete programs. Liberals can be talked into emphasizing programs for the young and old and leaving adults much less coddled. Leftists make no such distinctions.

b) Libertarians are not right wingers!  Or, they wouldn’t be, if they remembered Adam Smith. If they recalled 6000 years of awful feudalism. If they weren’t suckered by propaganda financed by oligarchs and confederate fanatics.

If liberals and libertarians argued, debated fairly and negotiated, they might find surprising common ground. Overlaps that the mad-dogmatic far-left and the raving insane entire-right will never perceive.  But these distinctions need to be made, first. 

Paramount is this – libertarians must sever the oligarchy’s leash on their movement. Just look at the money that the oligarchy is spending, sending missionaries to Freedom Fest. They are terrified you all might wake up and rebel.

Libertarians must banish this notion that “I know the Republicans betray us, every time, but they are still home.”

No, they are not home.  

They are puppetmasters. 

Tell us they are ‘home’ when you can show us pro-freedom measures they ever took. 

All right. Guns. I’ll admit they talk more about guns. Talk. 

Meanwhile, it’s the dems who dissolved the CAB and ICC and ATT and unleashed GPS and the Internet and are ending the Drug War… and dems aren't even proposing much more than some tepid-tiny ideas about guns.  And scientists, the smartest folks alive, are fleeing the party of oligarchy as fast as they can.

Come on guys.  Look at actual facts.

Laugh at the oligarchic shills they keep sending to events like Freedom Fest. Tell them you won't be holding your nose and "coming home" in 2016.  The Murdochians need you in order to supply a gloss of intellect atop their heap of rationalizations for a return to feudalism.

The fellow you need to remember - and come home to - is a guy named Adam Smith.

====

Okay that's it.  My "capsule" list of talking points for libertarians.  Sorry, Professor Krugman. I know my input was unsolicited. And I know your own emphasis will be on pointing out that Supply Side (Voodoo) Economics has never been correct in its predictions -- not even once -- across 35 years, a track record that would have invalidated any theory based on science... 

...which is why the right hates science, so.

Still, do not miss this opportunity to reach out in other aspects. My own Freedom Fest experience suggests you might use some rhetorical jiu jitsu.  These polemical tools have been effective. I hope you’ll find use in one or two of them. Especially the contrast between "competition" and "propertarianism," in the contaxt of 10,000 years of feudalism.

Because these folks are worth the effort!  They represent a major streak in the American psyche... one of irascibly independent belief in the creative power of competition. These aren't fools, though oversimplification can make them seem foolish.

They are worth reaching out to, if only to help free them from the puppet masters who would end creative competition forever.

With cordial regards,

David Brin

http://www.davidbrin.com

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*** ADDENDUM for the rest of you, out there:  Sorry, I can't help it.  I see that Glen Beck will be speaking at Freedom Fest.  OMG, the oligarchy truly is cranking up the message that "libertarians and right wingers are cousins! We bicker but we're the same team!" They are terrifed the "libertarian wing" of the GOP may bolt.

Glen Beck.  Eep. I am hoping someone in Beck's audience will draw him out on just one of the ten thousand limbs of deceit that Savanarola has regularly spun. This one is a doozy.

"Mr. Beck, you claim that George Soros is a really scary guy.  So devilishly clever and manipulative that he personally toppled eight foreign governments. Is Soros still worrisome?"

That is just part 1 of the question. It's purpose: getting Beck to scoot down the branch with a fervid rant about Soros.  But the audience questioner should then ask this followup:

"Mr. Beck, not one person in your TV audience... nor a single person at Fox, where they endlessly repeated your truisms about Soros... has ever asked about those eight foreign governments the scary George Soros 'toppled.'  That dittohead failure of curiosity is what I now want to correct.

"Would you now please NAME THEM FOR US? Right now, please NAME the eight foreign governments that George Soros personally toppled?"

Oh, to be there, with a phone cam aimed at Beck's face, when this happens!  Please, oh please someone do this and record it? 

Because yes! George Soros did help to topple eight foreign governments. It's true! On this one occasion, Glen Beck didn't lie!

Only when those "eight toppled foreign govenrments are named - when you stare at the list, in stunned, ironic amazement - you will all despise yourselves for ever having ever listened to a word shouted by Glen Beck or the Fox shills.  You will never again heed a further word they say.  And you will learn the value of asking followup questions. The value of science.