Smart people could use a dose of libertarianism

There are plenty of very intelligent thinkers on the left. Intelligence is even making a comeback in the popular consciousness -- look at the popularity of Criminal Minds (Dr. Reid), The Eleventh Hour, The Mentalist, Numbers, and so forth.  So, it makes one wonder how the most obvious realities escape these thinkers' noetic prowess. Does political ideology somehow limit what should be comprehensive and objective? 

Take for exampe the fact that our country is filled with diverse people who possess different desires and embrace different lifestyles. When I consider various debates regarding poverty in the US, I understand the position that reveals the powerlessness of those who have been born into unfortunate circumstances and through poor nurturing find themselves as adults lacking the social skills, knowledge, emotional development and spiritual foundation to mesh is a complex society that has left them behind to struggle in poverty and social dysfunction. Then add the fact that many of these people are members of a minority with cultural differences that clash with predominantly white culture which holds the key to acceptance in the middle class and upper class clubs of success and it complicates matters even more.  

Anyone with an ounce of compassion would wish for the best solutions for such people and some system or organization that could assist in helping to habilitate (in the old sense of the word) their lives, find a niche and succeed in happiness. So, when the left uses these examples to justify a statist effort to actively assist such people by violating the rights of the ones more fortunate and successful, it appeals to most people's since of justice and equality -- but the thinking is not comprehensive -- Dr. Reid would do better.

To throw everyone who lives below the poverty line into the basket of the above example is to misunderstand diversity and to overlook values, pursuits and chosen lifestyles. And, as I've written, there is also the mistaken assumption that inequality in wealth and social status requires the government to take money from those who have a good bit and give it to those don't, in comparison, have much . Even if we all agreed it's the government's responsibility to address this problem, money should be just one of the means to the solution and not the primary focus -- money should be a temporary form of assistance to accomplish a much higher goal -- if the goals are clearly understood and not just assumed by politicians who think all people are working toward the same goals. Financial equality is not a rational goal and very smart people should realize this -- surely, they do.

Even if we ceated financial equality by force, financial situations of individuals would quickly shift because of the same inequalities of ambition, interests, talents, values and goals that now exist, unless government was constantly tinkering to prevent people from making free choices based on value judgements. Government would have to constantly adjust everyone's actions and finances to the point of absurdity. I know many people who aren't concerned with having lots of money, and others who want lots of money -- government would have to change by force these individuals' value judgements in order to maintain financial equality.

So, it shifts the problem from a broad idea of financial equality to temporary financial assistance for people who have critical financial needs to provide for shelter, food and clothing. Redistribution is based on an idea of "fairness", not so much assistance to help people get to the point where they can pursue their own happiness based on their value judgements. There is no way for government to know each individuals goals in life and how much money they desire to have to accomplish these goals. Not everyone is concerned with having more money than they need. The real problem is how do people save for retirement or afford needed healthcare should they become ill and need expensive medical treatment, not how does government create financial equality. The very smart people who spend quite a bit of time and energy concerned with the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer and how resdistribution will remedy this injustice would do much better to consider how the market can be freed to develop affordable healthcare and a growing economy where people can invest small amounts to turn into large amounts for retirement purposes.

Providing more opportunities is a better goal than the goal to create an impossible equality that never asks people what they really want. Does a couple living on a small piece of land out in the quiet countryside in south Georgia, happy with their life and small community, living just fine off an amount of money below the established poverty line, want to deal with the hassles and pressures of a Wall Street broker?  No, not even if they had the talent for it. Their names are Marvin and Pearl, and believe me, they don't give a rat's ass about Wall Street and don't want any unnecessary hassles. There are myriad examples of lifestyles which don't require lots of money.

This is not a rationalization for poverty, just a realistic accounting for choices, goals and lifestyles. There are people who suffer in dire poverty who want a better life and aren't able to achieve it -- giving them a few thousand dollars extra a year will help their situation, but it won't address the fundamental problem. Actually, taking $250,000 from someone who has a million dollars and giving it to someone else who needs money would create immediate comfort but it wouldn't solve the societal problem of poverty. Even such a radical redistribution would cause more unintended problems than the problems it solved -- the economic havoc it would create would penalize those who are targeted for help. Our government would have to establish a totalitarian order where constant adjustments of all aspects of the economy are micro-managed every minute of each day -- and this would lead to government collapse and economic ruin for everyone.

First of all, we need plenty of jobs, private job training and opportunity to choose based on individual goals, not preset goals determined by politicians. Everyone should have the opportunity to design their lifestyle based on what they decide it costs to maintain that lifestyle -- only free individuals in free markets can determine this. A booming, free economy will create enough wealth that charity organizations can help the ones who are truly unable to help themselves. Creative healthcare and retirement solutions will arise from the free interactions of free people in a free market -- how do I know this? Because I know free people, and I know if government intervention is rolled back and we are challenged to come up with solutions, we will. If it requires a choice between having faith in the government to come up with solutions or the free market, I choose the free market. It's based on more than faith, though, it's based on evidence of innovative solutions already created by free markets and free people. I don't have to know the particulars of a solution to a problem, just that a problem is better resolved by free minds with no partisan bias or political impairment than by government which is partisan biased and politcally impaired.

The point is not to have all the solutions before we begin curtailing government intervention and control, the point is to undergo a psychic change which understands that government has failed and the private sector needs to be freed and challenged to develop solutions (we're a good, smart people, regardless of what politicians fear from the private sector) -- a great transition from government control to private solutions needs to begin. Solutions will come about in spontaneous order guided by liberty, not the central planning of politically-impaired government officials. Let the conversation, the transition, the research, begin -- it's already begun in many think-tanks which have started developing ideas and solutions to healthcare, education, social security, etc., but we're still stuck in a government-solution mindset. Seriously, smart people should know better.

(the inspiration for some of these thoughts comes from Tibor Machan's book, Libertarianism Defended, although I've been considering this line of thought for years, long before I read Machan. Machan helped clarify some of my thoughts, to the extent they are clear :))