TaraElla Report:: The Moral Libertarian: February 2020

Best For Humanity: Libertarianism Plus Communitarianism | Moral Libertarian Talk

Welcome to Moral Libertarian Talk, where we explore political ideas, issues and misunderstandings in depth, from the Moral Libertarian viewpoint. Subscribe if you are interested. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century. Link is in the description.

Libertarianism is all about individual liberty. Communitarianism is all about building strong communities. Libertarianism sees the key to human thriving in individual freedom. Communitarianism sees the key to human thriving in strong families, healthy communities, and shared bonds. With all these differences, libertarianism and communitarianism have sometimes been seen as opposites. However, they are actually not incompatible at all. In fact, they are complementary, with one enhancing the other.

While libertarianism prizes individual liberty above all, the fact is that individual liberty does not exist in a vacuum. Using a simple example to illustrate the point, in societies and times where there is a complete break down of social order, there is no room for individual liberty. In such situations, the basic need of security is required to be satisfied first, and in prioritizing safety and security above all, individual liberty is inevitably sacrificed. Likewise, where the social fabric is diseased and social trust is very low, people will also prioritize security and sacrifice liberty. Furthermore, the 'free market of ideas', as well as the whole process of free debate and democratic decision making, would become distrusted by many people, which would lead to the devaluation of associated values like free speech. The fact is, individual liberty is simply unsustainable without the right social environment. The project of communitarianism, in putting an emphasis on strong families, healthy communities and a strong and healthy social fabric, creates and maintains the social conditions under which individual liberty can thrive. This is why libertarianism ultimately needs communitarianism.

On the other hand, a community can only be strong if there is mutual respect and a healthy level of mutual trust between its members. This requires that there be as little 'power play' as possible, a condition that is effectively achieved if (and only if) there is maximum liberty for every individual, so that nobody can wield massive power over anyone else in any case. Furthermore, for a community to serve the needs of its members effectively over time, its culture must be adaptive. This would be achieved only where there is free debate for every issue. Finally, to ensure long term harmony among people with diverse values and ideas, everyone should be allowed to 'do their thing' as much as possible, as long as it doesn't harm another's right to do similarly. As we can see, for a communitarian project to be successful, especially in the longer term, a strong and fundamental respect for individual liberty is required.

The fact is, individual liberty and community building need each other. A libertarianism without communitarianism is unsustainable, and so is a communitarianism without libertarianism. This is why we must stop entertaining the notion that libertarianism and communitarianism are somehow opposites. The two ideals are stronger when they are linked together.

Why Free Speech is Morally Required At All Costs | Moral Libertarian Talk

A Morality Based Framing of Liberty | Moral Libertarian Talk

Welcome to Moral Libertarian Talk, where we explore political ideas, issues and misunderstandings in depth, from the Moral Libertarian viewpoint. Subscribe if you are interested. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century. Link is in the description.

Classical Liberalism is the ideology that is primarily concerned with liberty, above all else. Putting liberty first is the defining feature of liberalism, therefore. However, this cannot be liberalism's only feature, for liberty is also found in various forms in other ideologies. For example, in traditional feudal societies with absolute monarchies, the King had almost unlimited liberty. The lords also had an amount of liberty much greater than any citizen in a modern liberal democracy: for example, they had the 'liberty' to own and trade slaves. The unique thing about liberalism is that it aims to distribute as equally as possible the liberty of each person in society. Therefore, while nobody can have the liberties of kings and nobles past, everyone can have their fair share of liberty. While liberals disagree on how liberty can be distributed most equally, with some arguing for NAP-based libertarianism and others arguing for a strong welfare state, this often unspoken shared principle is what we have in common.

How does liberalism's dedication to distributing liberty equally make it a moral ideology? To answer this question, we need to first look at what liberty is. Liberty is the power an individual has over their own actions, their ability to put their ideas into action. Therefore, looking at it from a moral perspective, liberty is moral agency, i.e. the ability to act in accordance with one's moral compass. An equitable distribution of liberty therefore ensures an equitable distribution of moral agency. In this way, liberalism ensures that every individual in society has an equal share of moral agency.

At this point, we need to turn to the fact that liberty (and hence moral agency) are also finite resources: if some have more, others must have less. If lords can command slaves (therefore having more liberty), slaves will not be able to act according to their own moral compass, and thus have no moral agency. Therefore, in an equal distribution of liberty (and hence moral agency), everyone can have full moral agency over their own beliefs and actions, but nobody can have moral agency over another. This, I would argue, makes liberalism the ONLY morally valid ideology.

Since all human beings are morally flawed to some extent, allowing some humans to have moral agency over others is morally impermissible. Allowing a lord to command a slave as he pleases means that the slave must commit an immoral act even if the act is both objectively immoral (as in absolute truth) and known to be immoral by the slave, as long as the act is not known to be immoral by the lord (or alternatively he is a depraved lord and does not care). This has several consequences. On an individual level, the slave would be morally responsible (at least in his conscience, and also by the laws of religion for those of us who are religious) for committing a moral wrong, knowing that it is wrong, but not being able to resist anyway. On a societal level, it also means that those holding power can commit severe atrocities, without the moral consciences of other people acting as a brake. Which was actually how tragedies like the holocaust happened.

One may be tempted to argue that, as long as we prevent having bad governments by being vigilant voters and by putting in place national and international regulations, nothing as bad will happen again. But this is naive, because the ability to judge if governments are good is limited by the fact that politicians often lie their way into power and manipulate the political landscape once in office. It is also still true that no human being can perfectly know the absolute truth of what is morally right or wrong, and therefore, if we simply let those in power decide for everyone, there will still be plenty of injustices, even if nowhere as great as the holocaust. The principle of Equal Moral Agency is the only thing that will prevent such injustices.

Why Only Tulsi Gabbard & Andrew Yang are Truly Anti-Establishment in 2020 | TaraElla Report S5 E9

NOTE: While I did support certain candidates in the 2019–20 Democratic primaries because of their ideas (e.g. UBI, anti-war, broad tent approach), it doesn't mean I endorse their other positions.

Today, I am going to discuss the concept of anti-establishment, and why, contrary to popular belief, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang are the only truly anti-establishment candidates for this year's US presidential elections. Yes, you've heard right. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump are fully anti-establishment in the holistic picture, even if they have anti-establishment credentials in some areas. In fact, this difference explains why Trump is now President, Bernie is doing quite well and may yet be President next year, while Yang has already dropped out.

The thing is, to be truly anti-establishment, one has to refuse to accept any established ideological framework. This includes both economic ideology, as in corporate neo-liberalism or hawkish neo-conservatism for example, as well as cultural ideology, as in most of the stuff that is championed by activist establishments and/or comes out of academic humanities. One should also not be linked too strongly to any established political faction, left or right.

Let me explain. Let's start with what 'the establishment' is. Almost everyone hates 'the establishment' these days, but nobody seems to be able to define it in a complete way. In particular, left-leaning people seem to define it as the 'economic establishment', including corporations and politicians who support corporate capitalist interests, and right-leaning people seem to define it as the 'cultural establishment', people who have been able to enforce a set of ideas onto society through their dominance in journalism, media, and certain sections of academia, for example. On the surface, these two definitions appear to be talking about very different things. Hence why leftist anti-establishment people and right-leaning anti-establishment people are rarely on talking terms. For example, when right-leaning anti-establishment people attack the ideological extremes coming out of college campus politics as a kind of 'elite establishment' thinking, left-leaning people often say they're only a distraction, and in turn criticize the right for focusing on immature college students without any formal power while ignoring the economic and political establishments.

In truth, this kind of debate misses the bigger picture. We're anti-establishment because we want individual freedom, and the establishment wants to control the masses as well as econmically exploit the masses. But the fact is that, in modern society, there's not only one establishment, or one kind of establishment. There are indeed multiple 'establishments' operating to control and exploit people for their own ends, each with their own power derived from their long history, which is what makes them 'the establishment' by definition. The other thing is, political, economic and cultural power all matter, and they are all linked. Therefore, criticizing the establishment, or more accurately, the establishments, in one dimension, while ignoring the other dimensions, provides an inadequate picture. This is because all three types of establishment power seek to limit the freedom of individuals, and they often act in concert to ensure that the people only have limited choice for change, often swapping more freedom in one domain for accepting the status quo or even more oppression in another, packaging these trade-offs in the form of ideology labelled as 'left-wing' or 'right-wing'. For example, they may make you choose between either having more free speech but less health care coverage, or more health care but less free speech. After multiple rounds of such choices, what generally happens is that the establishments retain all their power, and the people have none. That's why even partially anti-establishment choices are still playing into their trap, in many ways.

Let's take Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders for example. Political opposites in many ways, yet they are both anti-establishment in some areas but still cling to the establishment in others. Trump is certainly against the cultural establishment, which means he has had some effectiveness in taking a stand for free speech, for example. However, he still represents the establishment in many matters of economic interests, which has meant that he hasn't been able or willing to sufficiently make things better for many economically struggling people. Furthermore, while he's partially against the political establishment, including the pro-war neoconservative faction in his own party, he also partially leans on the political establishment and its polarized two-party system to get to where he is, which has hamstrung his ability to take on the neoconservative hawks or to enact a better health care plan. On the other hand, Bernie is thoroughly anti-establishment in economic matters, which is why he is able to be bolder in economic reform. However, he effectively relies on the institutionalized left, which overlaps a lot with the cultural establishment, to get to where he is, which is why he can't push back very much on postmodern, Marcusean or anti-free speech agendas that come from the cultural elite. It's why he's essentially much softer now on open borders, even though it hurts workers, and he knows it's bad. Furthermore, like Trump, he also partially leans on the polarized two-party system to get to where he is, which will again limit his ability to end the wars. So either way, the endless wars continue, you get a choice of tradeoff between freedom and oppression that is labelled 'left' or 'right', when you're tired of one you can pick the other, and the cycle goes on forever.

With someone like Tulsi Gabbard or Andrew Yang, you're not forced to make any trade-offs, or give anything up to any part of the establishment. You can have your economic reform, you can have your free speech, and with a big tent encompassing the whole political spectrum, there's hope for popular will to end the endless wars. In this way, this is neither the 'left' package nor the 'right' package of partial freedom, truly 'not left, not right, but foward' as Yang puts it. Of course, the downside is that, they don't get the institutional power of either the right-leaning economic establishment or the left-leaning cultural establishment to boost their campaign. It's why they've suffered from media blackouts, and it's why Yang has already dropped out and Tulsi is struggling. The establishment likes to control people, and it seems that in 2020, at least so far, they are succeeding in doing just that, using their multiple levers of power.

So what can we do now? I guess raising consciousness of the real nature of the establishment, as I've just described, is the first step. The more people realize that the so-called 'left' and 'right' choices are just the establishments' way to make us give up our agency and obey them in some way, the better. Even more importantly, we need to make people see that the left-right-left-right cycle, resulting from the action-reaction impulse, ultimately ends up with the establishment having even more power and control. When people realize all this, they will see why we need to go 'not left, not right, but forward'. They will fight the political, economic and cultural establishments simultaneously, and they will no longer only fight against one dimension but leave another alone. When this consciousness is firmly in place in the general population, I think that's when someone like Yang or Tulsi will be able to succeed without relying on any dimension of the establishment.

A 'Humanity First' View on the Bernie Sanders Movement, Part 2 | TaraElla Report S5 E8

TaraElla: Hi everyone, welcome again to the TaraElla Report. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century. Link is in the description.

As I said two episodes back, many of us feel particularly conflicted about Bernie the man vs the movement behind him. The fact is, many family orientated people, including some conservatives, like my friend Allison, have been warming to Bernie's economic reforms quite a bit. However, they often don't feel comfortable about the culture of the Bernie movement. That's why some of them have found the Tulsi Train much more hospitable, for example.

Allison: As a practical conservative, I clearly see that the past few decades of so-called conservative politics has produced results in direct opposition to the conservative goals of strong families, strong social fabric, and preservation of our cherished insitutions like marriage. Trickle-down economics has clearly failed, and they have left millions of broken families behind. Bernie's determination to take us away from this failed economics, and towards more humane policies that will help working families and repair our social fabric, is truly inspirational.

However, I have also seen people who claim to support Bernie having worldviews and goals that are incompatible with mine. For example, I have seen Bernie supporters who make jokes about free speech. That's very dangerous, I think. Another time, one Bernie supporter introduced me to some socialist literature, including a British publication about a 'future socialist society', which said that families would essentially be abolished under socialism because they would no longer be relevant. You can't deny that's scary stuff. Furthermore, there's the whole BreadTube subculture, and frankly they sometimes have culturally radical views like how family values should be deconstructed. Those people seem to often be Bernie supporters too. My concern is that, if I sign up to the Bernie movement, am I signing up for these things too?

Ashley: You know, the Bernie movement is a broad church, and there are all sorts of people in there. So, if you decide to support Bernie, you are definitely not signing up to the agenda of these fringe activists. The vast majority of Bernie supporters are not anti-free speech or anti-family, and they certainly don't want to deconstruct family values either. What gives me confidence about the Bernie movement is that it is popular, mass politics. The more people participate in a movement, the broader the tent, the less likely it is to be affected by fringe minorities. A truly popular mass movement will be dominated by the common sense of everyday working people, therefore fringe philosophies won't get too much of a hearing.

Allison: But I still have some lingering concern. You know, the most extreme fringes of movements often get to spread their ideas into the mainstream and end up controlling the mainstream agenda, simply because they are the loudest and the most committed. It's how many well-meaning movements end up getting derailed by extremism. With Tulsi, at least I can know that an extremist fringe doesn't exist. How can I have confidence that the Bernie movement won't be taken over by its extremist fringe?

TaraElla: Like I said two episodes back, unlike the Tulsi Train or the Yang Gang, the Bernie movement is much more firmly located in the leftist political superorganism, and is both much closer to and much more hospitable to certain fringe ideas that are bad for humanity and liberty. Once again, this isn't about Bernie himself, which I quite like as a person; this is about where the movement is situated in the broader political scene.

As for whether that would affect my view of the Bernie movement, I guess it will have to depend on whether the Bernie movement looks more like a real mass movement or an elitist movement dominated by people from certain cultural backgrounds. I guess a truly popular movement will always be kept sane by the common sense of everyday working people. There is perhaps no better way to keep the fringe and harmful ideas out. On the other hand, throughout history, there have been movements that claimed to represent the masses but clearly had an elite in control of the culture and the direction of the movement. Sometimes, they even made excuses like how the masses are not educated enough, and so on. This kind of movement is clearly not a real mass movement, but rather mass manipulation by a small cultural elite.

I guess for some people then, whether they could support Bernie would depend on whether the Bernie movement actually resembles a real broad based movement, that is responsive to the concerns, needs and desires of everyday working families, without being compromised by the agenda of fringe cultural elites like postmodernists and critical theorists. Right now, I think we're not entirely confident either way as yet. What I want to see is more people with diverse backgrounds and diverse cultural views supporting Bernie. I guess that's what will give us confidence.

Many Leftists Don't Understand 'Classical Liberalism' | Moral Libertarian Talk

Welcome to the first episode of Moral Libertarian Talk, where we explore political ideas, issues and misunderstandings in depth, from the Moral Libertarian viewpoint. Subscribe if you are interested. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century. Link is in the description.

Today, I want to talk about my understanding of the term 'classical liberalism', its relationship with the Moral Libertarian idea, and why I identify as a 'classical liberal'. Right now, in 2020, the word 'liberal' is pretty unpopular: both conservatives and leftists hate it. 'Liberal', without qualification, is associated with corporate power, elites trampling on everyday working people, neoliberal identity politics, and so on. The term 'classical liberal', increasingly popular in the past few years, is an attempt to reclaim the liberal heritage, the tradition of Locke, Smith, Mill and others, from these evils. In fact, 'classical liberalism' stands in stark contrast to the elitist, corporatist so-called 'liberalism' that the establishment embodies, and I believe we can expose and defeat that fake 'liberalism' by re-asserting the 'classical liberal' tradition.

For some reason, it appears that right-leaning people tend to get the meaning of 'classical liberalism' in this context, even if they don't fully embrace the actual ideals of classical liberalism. However, many leftists don't even seem to know that 'classical liberalism' is opposed to elitist establishment fake 'liberalism', and often bundle the two together. As a classical liberal, I oppose the market fundamentalism of establishment neo-liberals, because I strongly oppose the idea that humanity should be reduced to the logic of capitalist markets controlled by global elites. As a classical liberal, I also oppose the divisive identity politics and disrespect for free speech and rational discourse associated with those we increasingly call 'radlibs'. As a classical liberal, my vision is one of true individual liberty for all, and a communitarian spirit that I believe will thrive under conditions of true individual liberty. And it's not just me. Classical liberals throughout history have generally believed similarly.

Some leftists may be surprised that, wow, classical liberals share a lot of ideas with classical leftists. And that's true. I think the libertarian socialist Noam Chomsky once said that historical classical liberals shared a lot of his ideals, and I agree. In turn, I also admire leftist thinkers like Chomsky. In fact, all historical classical liberal thinkers were on the left of the political spectrum for their time. Furthermore, before the corruption of liberalism during the ultra-capitalist age starting in the 1980s, as well as the corrpution of academic leftism due to the influence of postmodernism and postmodernist-adjacent ideas starting in the late 1960s, old-school liberals and old-school lefists were often allies. It wasn't that long ago that libertarians were on the left of politics. In fact, as recently as my college days in the mid-2000s, about half of all Americans who identified as libertarians voted Democratic, this probably only changed when free speech became an issue starting from around 2013. And even today, I see the part of the left that is about liberty, workers' rights and so on, the part of the left that rejects postmodern philosophical nonsense, as allies.

As a classical liberal, I'm most interested in individual liberty, things like free speech, freedom of conscience, and so on. As a leftist, you may be more interested in the material wellbeing of workers, whether they have health care, whether they can enjoy a good standard of living even as we move into the fourth industrial revolution, and ultimately whether they have a fair and democratic say in the workplace. But then, one really cannot exist without the other. So where we're different is mostly a perspective thing. Surely, our political worldview could be quite different, with most leftists being materialists and classical liberals being idealists. But in the real world, this really doesn't matter, because our goals are really not in conflict as a result. The pursuit of health care coverage for all, a living wage for all, and increased workplace democracy doesn't care about if you are an idealist or a materialist.

In fact, I suspect why many lefists are skeptical towards idealist liberals, is because some self-identified liberals or libertarians have almost deliberately neglected the material conditions of everyday workers. Some so-called libertarians reduce everything down to smaller government, and the more extreme ones even say that they wouldn't have a problem with the whole world turning into private property, with all the anti-liberty consequences for those without property. From there, it's really just a small step into neoreactionarism. These people should really read some Adam Smith. Smith would be horrified by their idea of what counts as liberty! Indeed, The Wealth Of Nations is full of warnings against such a vision of theoretical liberty coupled with actual tyranny. Instead, all serious and sincere classical liberal thinkers focus on actual liberty for individuals, liberty of conscience, liberty of action, rather than liberty for the rich to accumulate as much private property as possible!

Which is why the Moral Libertarian idea is, I believe, the best embodiment of what classical liberals actually want. We want every individual to have equal and maximum moral agency. Sometimes this will require collective efforts to stop the whole world being turned into the private property of global elites, so that we can preserve freedom of movement and freedom of assembly. Sometimes this will require the provision of both Medicare For All and either a UBI or a job guarantee to individuals, so that their free speech isn't at the mercy of their employers. These decisions may in fact not produce the smallest government. Some conventional libertarians may even say they violate the NAP on the surface, but in my view, upholding the ideal of Equal Moral Agency for all is the best way to honor the NAP in its fullest spirit. Furthermore, these would be decisions that bring practical liberty, because they take into account everything that could affect liberty, including material factors. And this line of thinking, I believe, is the one most consistent with historical classical liberals like Locke, Smith and Mill.

TaraElla Report:: The Moral Libertarian

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