Libertarians and Racism
Dismantling social institutions that guarantee rights for minorities = racist. Who is in favor of dismantling social institutions that guarantee rights for minorities? Libertarians.
A = B. B = C. A = C.
If your magazine is nicknamed Reason, we hope that you can agree with the critical usage of logic.
Many will recognize the above construct as the relatively basic critique that progressives have used to label Tea Party / libertarian activists as racists. It’s a fairly straightforward argument if you are able to agree with the premise that the United States economy tends to behave in functionally racist ways. Just take a look at the data to see the problem staring us in the face - persons of color disproportionately experience suppressed wages and higher unemployment while controlling for level of education.
Libertarians don’t like institutions. Generally. “We would be more equal without institutions” is a fair statement to make if you can successfully argue that our society would be more equitable in their absence. We have yet to see such an argument made persuasively. Persuading us is harder when key members of the movement’s leadership, like Ron Paul, have a clearly-defined past of making overtly racist statements in correspondence.
First, I would encourage everybody to follow The Callus. The Callus has recently undergone a format change that makes me think he’ll stick around long enough that this link won’t go dead within the month. From my perspective, this is a bit awkward for two reasons. First, it means that some of the trollery is gone—which means I’m out an excellent foil. Second, The Callus now seems to be following most of my rules for being a Super Famous Blogger. If The Callus isn’t successfully a Super Famous Blogger in relatively short order, it’s going to look pretty bad for me. People might conclude that the reason I’m not a Super Famous Blogger is that I don’t know how to do it. My reputation is on the line with this one. But I’ve digressed.
I think The Callus is right—at least to the extent that the Libertarians’ race issues go beyond some awful things that Ron Paul may or may not have allowed to be said in his name. I would lay it out a bit differently, though.
- Any real-world political ideology should grapple with the problems of the real world. A political ideology that could only function in a fantasy world is … not very useful.
- In the United States, we see racial disparities in virtually everything. These disparities persist, even after you control for all of the things you would reasonably control for.
- Because systemic racial injustice is a real world problem, any real world political ideology needs to address it. Hoping it will eventually get better is not a solution. Pretending it is already gone away is self-delusion.
- The libertarians do not have a credible approach to confront systemic racial injustice.
- Ignoring systemic racial injustice is either a mark of an incomplete political ideology, an act of profound willful ignorance, or a decision to prioritize some people’s problems above other people’s problems.
