This was one of my confusions as well… is there a theory of mind at play here, in which case, it seems another form of biologism (assuming of course that the mind is biological, which I can say without fear since Chris Doss is not on the list :-)). Since I am dipping my feet back in the water, I might as well do Michael some justice and take on his challenge.
For a refresher, here is the link he posted to Robin’s blog post:
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/03/07/when-libertarians-go-to-work/
Where he writes, among other things:
> So if liberty is the absence of coercion, as many libertarians claim, and if the capacity to act—say, by enjoying material conditions that would free one of the costs that quitting might entail—limits the reach of that coercion, is it not the case that freedom is augmented when people’s ability to act is enhanced?
>
> More to the point: is one’s individual freedom not increased by measures such as unemployment compensation, guaranteed health insurance, public pensions, higher wages, strong unions, state-funded or provided childcare—the whole panoply of social democracy that most libertarians see as not only irrelevant to but an infringement upon individual freedom?
>
> In one sense, of course, the libertarians are right: such measures require taxation and redistribution, limitations on what people can do with their property, all of which do infringe upon some limited group of people’s freedom. But by providing to others some version of the freedom from material constraints that Sanchez already enjoys—state-sponsored childcare, for instance, being in one limited respect the financial inverse of not having children at all—such measures would also enhance the freedom of a great many more.
>
> That, it seems to me, is the great divide between right and left: not that the former stands for freedom, while the latter stands for equality (or statism or whatever), but that the former stands for freedom for the few, while the latter stands for freedom for the many. ”We are all agreed as to our own liberty,” wrote Samuel Johnson. “But we are not agreed as to the liberty of others: for in proportion as we take, others must lose. I believe we hardly wish that the mob should have liberty to govern us.” That’s why libertarians like Sanchez can sense so clearly the impending infringement of his freedom while remaining indifferent to the constraints of others.
There are two things that are troublesome in the above:
1. What Robin gives with one hand - the acknowledgement that “in one sense … libertarians are right” - he takes away immediately with the other, by reducing this “right”ness to merely one of self-preservation/self-interest (of course many libertarians will take “self-interest” as a badge of honour, but here I am referring to possible universalisation).
2. Second that when Robin does try to answer the “why” question, it does not seem to be an answer at all. Rather he seems to beg the question. He quotes Johnson asserting his own assertion and concludes “that’s why libertarians …”, but where’s the “that”? What is it? Some universalised explanation, political theory? I don’t see it.
Some libertarians might respond that it is in fact the freedoms/liberties of all, that motivates their demands. That they do have a moral justification that justifies certain rights (as rights) and those alone. Such a libertarian would argue that unlike leftist dreams of utopia, he (the libertarian) is a realist who understands human “nature” as well as limits imposed by capabilities, resources, etc. The quest, in such a framework, is to preserve the liberty of a person to pursue outcomes commensurate with his abilities while not exploiting or curtailing *similar* liberties of others with lesser or greater abilities (I think economists call this “pareto optimality”?).
The problem, in my view, is that Robin is not giving libertarians a chance to be wrong because he does not seem to be engaging their positions, but rather making a theory out of their symptoms and behaviours. So, when Robin thinks that he has a gotcha on Sanchez by pointing out that Sanchez expresses his plan to quit if the Kochs take control of Cato in terms of the sort of freedoms (positive freedoms) that leftists worry about, he is in fact mistaking an emotional position or expression for a theoretical one. Sanchez, I would guess, is not unaware that by saying what he says, he is acknowledging the real world concerns of leftists, that one needs positive freedoms to take such actions. But what Sanchez I think would argue is that when real world conditions inhibit such actions, a fundamental liberty (the concern of a libertarian) of an individual is not lost. A libertarian might argue that such inequality of “freedoms” (small F) (Sanchez’s [arguably contingent] ability to walk away from a job vs a poor parent’s inability to do so) do not rise to the level of [their notion of] Freedom (big F, singular), but are rather a reflection of either the indifferent/brute laws of nature or the striving of individuals. A kind libertarian would call for the amelioration of such inequality through some basic safety nets, as long as such nets do not hold back the John Galts of humankind.
This sort of argument is underwritten by (or rather, congruent with) a sort of folk psychology (and a dash of contractarianism), which explains their popularity. People (the majority I will claim) *do* agree that people are “endowed” with different skills, that it is these skills that contribute overwhelmingly to the results obtained by each individual in or outside a group, and therefore the individual deserves to reap the majority chunk of whatever rewards accrue.
Robin does close his essay by noting that when leftists smirk at Sanchez’s —some French word— it’s not his hypocrisy that bothers them. It’s because we think he’s being truthful. I tend to agree with that. But likely not in a sense that would satisfy Robin. I agree with that in the “walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…” sense that a socio-political theoretical position, however consistent or popular, that fails to explain the majority of empirical outcomes (inequalities) doesn’t tell us anything about the socio-political world (descriptively or prescriptively) — this btw is, if I understand it right, Jerry Fodor’s criticism of Natural Selection as well (and I think roughly for the same reasons; it’s not purely coincidental that laissez faire and natural selection emerged at around the same time). I agree with it in the sense that while such inequalities might be of theoretical interest, they are not theoretical problems. To quote Samuel Johnson again, “Thus I refute Berkeley”. One just needs to kick the rock (or perhaps one is the rock; metaphors confound me!).
I have tried to stick to Michael’s rules and avoided discussion of his book, other than express my confusion at the top over the use of the word “mind”. Hopefully I succeeded!
—ravi