Ramaswamy floats libertarian-nationalist alliance

Speaking at the 2024 Libertarian National Convention, tech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy argued that the future of America depends on a libertarian-nationalist alliance.

No, Vivek Ramaswamy, a Libertarian-Nationalist Alliance Doesn't Make Sense | Reason | Eric Boehm:

May 25, 2024 - "While speaking at the Libertarian National Convention (LNC) on Friday, tech entrepreneur and failed GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy floated an idea upon which he said the 'future of this country depends'.... 'I believe that the future of this country depends on a libertarian-nationalist alliance that will save this country,' Ramaswamy argued from the main stage at the LNC.... Those comments were met with a smattering of boos from the crowd of Libertarian delegates — and for good reason. There are many factions of libertarians, of course, but the one belief that unites the movement is an understanding that individuals are best suited to make their own decisions about how to live. Nationalism, at its root, is a fundamentally collectivist idea that prioritizes the needs of the state over the choices of individuals.

"In off-stage comments to Reason at the LNC, Ramaswamy reiterated his belief in a libertarian-nationalist alliance. When pushed to explain how two seemingly opposing viewpoints could find common ground, he argued that the two are 'not overlapping objectives, but they are not in tension with one another.' 'When I say "nationalist," I mean a revival of our national identity,' Ramaswamy explained to Reason TV's Zach Weissmueller.... 'I don't think that's counter to libertarian principles at all. I think we've lost that national pride and identity in our country, and I think that is a foundational issue.'

"With all due respect to Ramaswamay, that's a load of crap. The current wave of nationalism sweeping the right wing of American politics is not about innocent-sounding things like restoring national pride. Its proponents are quite open about the fact that they want to grow the power of the state to pursue things like industrial policy, aggressive deportations, and even very silly stuff like banning lab-grown meat. That puts the two perspectives very much in tension. 

"In practice, libertarians advocate for decreasing the power of the state to control individual freedom. Nationalists have no qualms about limiting the free movement of people or goods if those restrictions are seen to be — or imagined to be — in the amorphous interests of the country (which really means in the best interest of whatever special interest manages to control the policymaking apparatus)....

"Of course, the obvious subtext of Ramaswamy's comments becomes clear once you recall that he's now an official surrogate for former President Donald Trump.... The deal Ramaswamy is really offering goes like this: libertarians should vote for Trump. There is no second part.

"Ramaswamy was once a college libertarian and may at times still espouse libertarian ideas — indeed, he was sometimes the most libertarian candidate on stage during the Republican primary debates earlier this year (though he was also often one of the loudest advocates for authoritarian ideas.) None of that matters right now, because Ramaswamy's job through the first week of November is convincing people to vote for Trump. Libertarians should not be naive about this....

"[P]olitics is the art of compromise and ... libertarian goals can be achieved (and must be achieved) by working with people who are not libertarians.... Libertarians should always be ready to nudge those in power toward decisions that increase freedom — but we have no obligation to help anyone achieve power....

"That matters, because Ramaswamy does not seem to be suggesting an acute alliance aimed at specific policy goals. His remarks to Reason and on stage at the LNC suggest a high-level, strategic alliance between two competing political philosophies for the purposes of increasing electoral success. That is, for the goal of achieving political power for its own sake. Libertarians ought to reject such will-to-power arguments—and boo anyone who makes them, as delegates to the LNC did. An electoral alliance with those who wish to enlarge the state's power over individuals, corporations, and markets is not the path to greater freedom."

Read more: https://reason.com/2024/05/25/no-vivek-ramaswamy-a-libertarian-nationalist-alliance-doesnt-make-sense/

Vivek Ramaswamy Libertarian Party Convention Highlights | Vivek Ramaswamy | May 25, 2024:

One great idea and two bad ones

Nationalism and Socialism Are Very Bad Ideas - Reason.com - Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, Reason:

February 2017 - "Between the Great Lisbon Earthquake [1755] and the revolutionary year of 1848 the European chattering classes had three big ideas. One was very, very good. The other two were very, very bad. We're still paying.

"The good one, flowing from the pens of such members of the clerisy as Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and above all the Blessed Adam Smith, is what Smith described in 1776 as the shocking idea of 'allowing every man [or woman, dear] to pursue his own interest in his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice'....

"The boldness of commoners pursuing their own interests resulted in a Great Enrichment — a rise in Europe and the Anglosphere of real, inflation-corrected incomes per head, from 1800 to the present, by a factor, conservatively measured, of about 30. That is, class, about 3,000 percent.... And now, despite the best efforts of governments and international agencies to bungle the job, liberalism is spreading to the world, from Hong Kong to Botswana....

"The two bad ideas of 1755–1848 were nationalism and socialism.... Nationalism, when first theorized in the early 19th century, was entwined with the Romantic movement, though of course in England it was already hundreds of years old.

"What is bad about nationalism, aside from its intrinsic collective coercion, is that it inspires conflict. The 800 U.S. military bases around the world keep the peace by waging endless war, bombing civilians to protect Americans from non-threats on the other side of the world. In July 2016, we of the Anglosphere 'celebrated,' if that is quite the word, the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, a fruit of nationalism, which by its conclusion three and a half months later had cost the Allies and the Central Powers combined over a million casualties, most of them dismembered by artillery....

"The other bad idea of the era was socialism, which can also be linked to Romanticism, and to a secularized Christianity.... What's bad about socialism, aside from its own intrinsic collective coercion, is that it leads to poverty. Even in its purest forms — within the confines of a sweet family, say — it kills initiative and encourages free riding.... The not-so-sweet forms of socialism, especially those paired with nationalism, are a lot worse. Thus North Korea, Cuba, and other workers' paradises. As the joke goes, 'Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism it's the other way around.'

"What to do? Revive liberalism, as the astonishing successes of China and India have. Take back the word from our friends on the American left. They can keep progressive, if they don't mind being associated with the Progressive movement of the early 20th century, and its eugenic enthusiasms for forced sterilization and for using the minimum wage to drive immigrants, blacks, and women out of the labor force.....

"Read Adam Smith, slowly — not just the prudential Wealth of Nations, but its temperate sister The Theory of Moral Sentiments. And return in spirit to the dawn of 1776, when the radical idea was not nationalism or socialism or national socialism, but 'the obvious and simple system of natural liberty' that allows all men and women to pursue their interests in their own ways."

Read more: http://reason.com/archives/2017/01/26/three-big-ideas
'via Blog this'