Peter Franklin’s article caught my eye. Franklin describes a divide, of sorts, within the libertarian movement in the UK regarding response to the pandemic. Between those who respect science, and others who think, somehow, their rights are more important that infecting and killing others in society.
I realize my framing isn’t particularly hospitable toward libertarianism, but for the most part I have little time for a philosophy/ideology that boils down to ‘fuck you, I’ve got mine’ as its central tenet.
“We think of ourselves as a liberty-loving nation, but seven weeks in and we’re still extraordinarily compliant. The protests we’ve seen in America have not been echoed here. Strangest of all, we’ve had remarkably little dissent from the UK’s small, but normally energetic, band of libertarian wonks.
With the economy crushed beneath state controls like we’ve never seen, where are the howls of rage from the free marketeers? The more thoughtful libertarians realised early on that Covid-19 was to be taken seriously. “This time the warnings are not overdone” warned Matt Ridley back in March. Sam Bowman, senior fellow at Adam Smith Institute, was an early advocate of massive state intervention to prop-up the economy during lockdown.”
“However, there’s a very different kind of libertarian, one whose reaction to all of this is more visceral than rational — driven by outrage that law-abiding citizens should find themselves under effective house arrest.Some of these individuals wouldn’t call themselves libertarians at all — and would see the “ancient liberties” they defend as being rooted in tradition not modernity. Others are more orthodox in their ideology, but still populist in style.In any case, it is from these types that we see most of the outspoken opposition to lockdown. Examples include Toby Young, Peter Hitchens and Laura Perrins.”
My question to these ‘visceral libertarians’ and their ancient liberties is this – Do you actually believe, in ancient times, that any real sort of individual liberties existed? The only way this point of view stays consistent is if we define ‘ancient liberties’ as toiling to death in squalor of the local Lord’s fields.
Our common ‘rights’ in society are born in communal struggle and the concomitant militant threat to the elite classes of society. Thus ‘ancient liberties’ were an inherently collective endeavor aka the antithesis of libertarian ideology.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
3 comments
May 13, 2020 at 9:18 am
Bob Browning
Your last sentence says it all: No matter how far back one goes for “ancient”, it”s being collective and cooperative that groups use to survive. The Lib. ideology may say, ” I’m selfish but fair” w/o seeing that privilege and/or bloated self esteem allows them that inhospitable mindset.
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May 13, 2020 at 9:26 am
tildeb
The central principle of liberty is about the individual. This, the libertarians get right. What they get wrong is what this means in law: common value, common treatment and respect in law. It does not mean unfettered self rule but fettered by shared rules and regulations that infringe the least on individual autonomy. But we have to give a nod of respect to reality and there are natural constraints populations must respect in order to maintain peace and promote prosperity. That’s why we can have, say, rules of the road. It’s beyond idiotic to pretend common rules to enable social functioning are somehow unjustified constraints on liberty; one’s liberty, it turns out, is significantly reduced when such social rules are rejected.
And it’s all part of the idiocy of postmodern narrative that replaces reality with ideology… such as the libertarian quest to remove all rules and regulations that, because these are framed to be constraining to individual action that therefore, such rules and regulations hinder maximum individual freedom by definition. What’s lost is the vital importance of shared values, the shared understanding that maximum individual freedom for all HAS TO constrain the absolute freedom of some. Rules of the road imposed on all, for example, maximize individual freedom of movement for all even if it clearly constrains the unfettered ability to drive as one wishes for some.
I seriously don’t understand why libertarians widely don’t get this. Perhaps standing in the way of a swinging fist arguing that everyone has the unfettered right to swing away might do the job of landing the criticism where it squarely belongs… the rights and freedoms of others actually matter a great deal in this equation.
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May 13, 2020 at 9:40 am
The Arbourist
@ Tildeb
It is the societal blindspot that seems most glaring. The Libertarian philosophers and proponents do cover the interactions between individual and society. However, when it filters down to the level of the general population it seems to be distilled down to maxims that, as you say, are in conflict with notion of shared body of rights and freedoms within society.
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