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The "libertarian" notion that human society can somehow do without the interference of centralized information and control, especially given the latter's potential for being a resource of corrupt authoritarianism, is a yearning of many political idealists. As the above schema suggests (which I've cribbed from Wiki) "libertarianism" is an ideal which crosses the left-right fault-line and crops up among both left and right political agitators. I'm not quite sure why this common hankering exists; at a guess it's something do with instincts left-over from the time of those folksy communal freedoms which were the lot of hunter-gatherer communities. It is very tempting to dream about hunter-gatherer fireside life, a life which knew no ramifying cloud capp'd towers of information & control and where, best of all, in an intimate community there was little social anonymity: So, finding a sense of belonging, and an appreciated role where one could leave one's mark on society was a lot easier.
At this juncture I can't help thinking of the relevance and mythical meaningfulness of the Biblical Edenic story where it seems our erring fruit gathering ancestors were cast out of their original idyllic garden environment before they were fully ready to start populating & subduing the chaotic & imperfect earth. (See Gen 1:28). As it was to turn out, humanity then faced the double problem of not only subduing the earth but also subduing its own nature, as the subsequent books and chapters of the Bible illustrate.
Adam and Eve's post-Edenic sexual union produced the agriculturalists Cain and Abel. Cain was an arable farmer and Abel a pastoralist. After murdering Abel Cain was driven from his farm fearing popular vengeance for Abel's murder. But in spite of his crime God promised his protection and Cain went onto to build a city (Genesis 4:17). Building a city would imply that he was exploiting not only an efficient agricultural base but also had available the techniques of centralized information & control (such as writing) required for the successful organization, management and cooperation of the large concentrations of people that city life demands.
Although from Genesis 4 we see hate, vengeance and killing as the post-Edenic themes of the human predicament impeding Project Earth, nevertheless at that time progress in populating and subduing the earth was actually being made: A city was built, and tools of bronze and iron were fashioned. Above all, writing must have been invented to facilitate the centralized information and control necessary for city life.
And yet the inevitable seedy sleaziness of urban life may have given rise to a yearning for a return to the idealized Edenic idyll before the advent of that signature of post Edenic life; namely, the city with its government, its appetite for information & control and its tendency toward collateral squalor. But these are not the core problem of the East of Eden experience; they are only correlates. The heart of the problem is Sin, the word with the "I" in the middle (See the Book of Romans).
Conflating the correlates with the core problem of the human predicament is idealistic libertarianism's big mistake. This becomes clearer when we look at the following signature issues of right-leaning libertarianism, namely ....
* A tendency to believe in deep state conspiracy theorism.
* Climate science skepticism - Climate science may be seen as a deep state disinformation campaign to excuse enhancing centralised information and control.
* A priori opposition to pandemic lockdowns; again these lockdowns may be seen as part of a deep state hoax to excuse increasing centralized control.
* Belief in small government if not no government at all, sometimes to the point of anarchy.
* Belief in a very unregulated free market; that's an oxymoron if there ever was one! A market can't function without standardization and agreement of standards, not to mention regulating the exploitation of workers, exploitation which fuels Marxist unrest.
* Skepticism toward the institutions of society; e.g. the media, academia, education, science institutions, politicians, health institutions, big business, the police.
* Little acknowledgement of the paradoxes of free-speech.
* Little acknowledgement that the high organization of complex adaptive systems (cf. organisms) make use of both distributed and centralized information & control.
The above are part of a malaise which tends to view regulation, high social organization, government and the like (that is social information and control) as part of the problem rather than the solution. But for me information and control is neither the problem nor the solution; the problem is in the individual units which make up communities; namely human beings with their temptations to serve self first. When the latter is combined with the very natural epistemic challenges humanity faces we have on our hands a very explosive mix..... the human predicament.
Some of the above points are also very much part of left-wing libertarianism; in particular, a belief in the conspiracy of the owning classes, suspicion of the media, academia, large corporations, politicians and government in general - all of which are trappings of urban life, but to the leftist they will be seen as conniving with the owners of the means of production who are exploiting the working class. The Marxist doctrine is that in the structural levelling of society conflicts of interest between classes will dissolve and peace and harmony will reign. The abstraction behind this belief is that once you get the systems of society right the human problems will come out in the wash; that there is such a thing as a problematical human nature (which has its roots in the first person perspective) is at best considered irrelevant and at worst denied an existence.
And finally an opinion I've expressed before: In their endeavor to purge society of centralized information and control in favour of distributed information and control libertarians face the irony of helping to create a power vacuum which sucks in would-be libertarian autocrats.
NOTE
I've published the following note on libertarian leaning James Knight's blog post here...
The Philosophical Muser: A Flawed Idea About Billionaires
What you are suggesting
here may well work with somebody like Bill Gates who as far as I can tell has a
sense of philanthropy and purpose (although the far right conspiracy theorists
and Marxists will likely disagree!). As the centralised controller of high
wealth he has done us well and is also concerned about world health. So no
complaints there from me; If I were a billionaire I’d try to emulate him. See
also Tim Coldwell from my Xenotron Case Study.
But Musk is a very
different kettle of fish and he gives every impression of using his wealth to
seek centralised power. This is where the marginal utility argument breaks down
completely: For a start how can we measure the marginal utility of power? If we
can define the analogue of a power-measure of marginal utility we would almost
certainly have to re-calibrate our notion of it. Moreover, I doubt such a
measure would decay at the rate of the elementary economics concept of marginal
utility; in fact it may well increase with increasing wealth!
As you may have guessed
I’m not very impressed with economics as an exact science; it gives us some
rough rules of thumb…. guidelines and not tramlines. Moreover, its
quantification measures aren’t very useful when it comes to the human thirst
for power, status, influence, reputation and that whole cluster of motivations
which revolve around social relations. However, I wouldn’t go as far as saying
economics is bunk, but any pretense it might have to being a complete
quantified description of the social dynamic breaks down in the human
relational zone.
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