Libertarians and Public Morals

Despite the old fusionism between conservatives and libertarians, one major point on contention between the two groups is partly how to deal with public morals. Jonah Goldberg raises the issue today on NRO -- namely, how should one deal with Madonna or Pamela Anderson? Goldberg, who is not usually considered a traditional or social conservative, is worried, rightly, about how society looks to people whose actions are not exactly up to norms.

I am a self described Catholic Libertarian. While that seems contradictory, I agree with 90% of what social conservatives worry about.

The difference is how to answer. I am all for ME complaining about Madonna's behavior. I am against the GOVERNMENT doing something about it. My belief is that the decline of civil society and standards is not because of government inaction but rather a result of government action (economic and moral) that takes away individual responsibility. If you ignore celebrities, they eventually will act decent or otherwise go away.

So let's address the decline of public morals and civil society by addressing ourselves first.

What Libertarians Want

There has always been a tension within the conservative movement between libertarians and traditional (and now social) conservatives. Libertarians tend to be against government "interference" in personal affairs, while conservatives are willing to allow government intervention to protect societal values. This tension has been around since the early days of the modern conservative movement, and was played out initially with in the pages of "National Review". This tension continues today, as noted on the pages of Instapundit and Classical Values.

I think the problem is one of perception. I generally worry about the same things that social and traditional conservatives worry about. I do worry that our culture is degrading. While I self describe myself as a libertarian, I am also Catholic. I have one wife and view that as a permanent arrangement (one woman in my life is tough enough, why do some people want more?). Other than the glass of wine with dinner, I am not running around trying to score substances. I avoid most t.v. as it is a sewer.

But I believe that much of the cause is the increased role of government in our lives. Increasing government's role will exacerbate, not solve the problem. When people began to see government as the be all and end all, personal responsibility disappears. And if you try and regulate your way to virtue, you send up with hypocrisy and depravity.

The Call of the Entrepreneur

I went to see the Chicago Premier tonight of the Acton Institutes's film The Call of the Entrepreneur. The film looked at the utility of entrepreneurship to society in the guise of three people, a compost farmer in Michigan, a merchant banker in New York, and a media mogul in Hong Kong.

To often, people view the economy as a zero sum game. Yet, that is far from true. Levittown made the Levitts wealthy, but did it really pauperize anyone? It gave people like my grandfather jobs building the houses, and created new homes for people needing homes. Wealth was not transferred, it was created from basic materials with labor, risk and a desire of others to buy. No one was impoverished by building Levittown, rather people were enriched to varying degrees.

After the film, the producer had a question and answer session. When all that is said and done, what is the real difference between rich and poor societies. It is not race or religion but rule of law. In countries with rule of law, people are able to take risks. If there is not rule of law, if private property is not respected, society becomes impoverished.

Keeping with the beliefs of the Acton Institute, the film has a strong undercurrent that faith and economic liberty need not be in opposition, but rather entrepreneurship is really something from God.

I highly recommend the film.

Pope Benedict to Address Tax Evasion and Tax Havens

It was reported today that the Pope's second encyclical letter will address tax evasion and tax havens. As a tax lawyer, I considered going into my group head and saying that I needed to be excused from work, but then thought better of it.

This is not a new requirement. The Catechism (of which Pope Benedict was an important contributor) lists tax evasion as a morally illicit business practice. US law recognizes the difference between tax evasion (which is illegally arranging your affairs to evade paying taxes) and legal tax avoidance (which is arranging your affairs so that you pay the minimum amount of tax due). Someone owning Microsoft stock purchased in 1982 is not required to sell it to pay tax -- the taxpayer is perfectly permitted to hold the stock, borrow against it, and use it in such a way that no tax is due.

It will be interesting to see what the letter says. I believe it probably must be read in the European and specifically the Italian milieu where money is transferred secretly offshore into haven jurisdictions.

Is Catholcism opposed to Libertarianism?

Robert George, who I knew well in my Washington days, has an interesting blog called "Ragged Thots". I check it every night. One of comments asks if Catholics can truly be libertarians.

I agree that it is difficult on its face. Catholicism requires that you believe in the Pope's authority and the Magisterium of the Church. And the social doctrine of the Church can be described as "Christian socialist." Libertarianism has as its base the belief that all humans themselves are sovereign and today at least if anti-socialist (I say today, because many protolibertarians, such as Lysander Spooner, also influenced socialism).

In addition, libertarianism grew out of classical liberalism, which was strongly anti-clerical. The Church returned the favor, rejecting "liberalism".

But Catholicism, does at its base believe that human beings are free. Paragraph 1731 of the Catechism says that:

Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

Ultimately, the decision to do good therefore must be with the individual. If virtue is enforced, can someone truly be virtuous? These are issues I hope to further explore.

Trads and Rads

The American conservative movement since World War Two has been described as a fusion between traditional conservatives and libertarians. In the 1950s that made real sense -- liberty was seen as under threat at home by the growing welfare state and abroad by communism. The marriage was an imperfect one but despite skeptics (such as Ayn Rand or Russel Kirk), the coalition lasted. With the destruction of the old liberal consensus by Ronald Reagan and the fall of the Soviet Union, those old ties began to loosen, though the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress temporarily stopped the break. But under the weight of Iraq, increasing spending, and government intervention, the old fissures are showing.

An exchange between my old neighbor Rod Dreher and Andrew Sullivan show the fissure. Dreher is an ex-Catholic self described "crunchy con" -- a real traditional conservative. Andrews Sullivan is a self described libertarian. The two have little in common -- Dreher is very concerned about public morality while Sullivan (though Catholic) tends to call anyone more concerned with public morality than he is a "Christianist." Yet they both consider themselves "conservatives."

Dreher notes that both libertarians and traditional conservatives fear excessive concentration of power in the state. To him, the difference is that libertarians want maximum liberty while traditionalists want "free people living virtuously". Sullivan counters that he wants free people living virtuously too, he just does not want to control them (or more precisely, control their sex lives -- with Sullivan, it usually comes down to sex).

I believe that they both somewhat miss the point. I ask, can someone be virtuous if virtue is enforced? Inherent in Sullivan's beliefs (I believe) is that if you enforce sexual mores, it simply pushes the immoral stuff underground, where it gets really nasty and really immoral. And if I understand Sullivan correctly, I think he has a point there.

But suppose that is wrong. Suppose you could enforce perfect virtue. If the virtue police could go around and really force people to not engage in immoral activities, are those people virtuous or simply scared of the law? Or is virtue really a function of freedom -- that you have the freedom to do something legal but immoral BUT CHOOSE not to do it. For me, that is the measure of virtue.