What Is “Liberty Activism”?

Years ago I began to pay attention to phrases that confused me; even if they were only a little confusing. I quickly learned that I had accepted a lot of slogans without analysis. This is a problem, because once we allow confusing things to get past our “acceptance filter,” they tend to remain and to generally muck-up our thinking.

This brings me to today’s subject: Exactly what is Liberty Activism? I certainly like the combination of “liberty” and “active,” but I sense possibilities for confusion in the term, so I’d like to sort it out in public, as it were.

Definitions and Types

Liberty is certainly a clear enough word. People do abuse it from time to time, but most of us understand it similarly. Activism, however, means different things to different people. Wiktionary describes the word thusly:

The practice of using action to achieve a result, such as political demonstration or a strike in support of or in opposition to an issue.

I like the first part of this: Using action to achieve a result. But I don’t like the next part terribly well. To my way of thinking, political action is a more or less dead end. I’m not really opposed to demonstrations, but I certainly don’t think of them as a magic technique for creating goodness on earth.

It is clear, however, that many people do think of activism in terms of making noise, convincing other people to make noise, and getting the state to accede to their wishes. That convinces me that some comparison and examination of definitions is a good idea. So, because it seems nicer to me (maybe because I like happy endings), I’ll start examining my least favored versions of liberty activism and work up to my favorites.

Political Activism

Political activism begins by accepting the state as a given. Even if the activist doesn’t hold the state to be an ideal thing, he or she accepts it as the power. The political activist then goes about finding ways to manipulate state officials. The goal is to gain some specific result.

At the low end, political activism is a sort of terrorism. The activists isolate a target and start to destroy their public image. Lots of businesses and politicians have caved-in to these tactics. If you ever want to examine that end of the spectrum, check out a guy named Saul Alinsky.

A variant on the Alinsky methods (really a precursor) were old socialist techniques for taking over groups and controlling meetings. They usually involved four or more people spreading themselves around a room and acting in a coordinated way to manipulate the larger group. This must still go on, though I can’t point to modern examples. It was a big deal before radio and TV gave us mass culture.

Party membership and running for office is also political activism. Take over an important position and you can directly change the way the state operates, or so the thought goes. In reality this is seldom true. In the United States, for example, there are 535 members of Congress, but the people who actually conduct the state’s business number in the tens of millions. You’d probably be surprised how often members of Congress feel powerless to get things done.

Another form of political activism includes the aforementioned protest marches. These are attempts to impress political leaders with numbers. The goal is for the politicians to see huge numbers of people upset about an issue, to fear losing their votes, and to do what the marchers demand.

I’ll close this section with a brief explanation as to why I’m not in love with theses types of activism:

The state is, by definition, an organization that maintains a monopoly on coercion, and liberty is about escaping coercion. The clash between the two concepts could hardly be more direct. I understand the arguments of people who think a state is necessary, but even so, using coercion to escape from coercion seems like a less than brilliant strategy.

Ideological Activism

Ideological activism is trying to get people to accept better ideas. It’s hard to argue against this type of activism, unless the ideas themselves are faulty. There is, however, one big pitfall with the application of this technique, and that is group identity.

Being a member of a well-defined group is not a useful thing. Once you see yourself as part of a group – any group – you subvert your own thinking. There’s no problem with using a group name to make a quick identification (like, “I’m kind of an Agorist”), but once people think of themselves as a group member, they give special status to thoughts that are associated with the group. That’s the beginning of trouble. Ideological activism is not about group power, it’s about getting better ideas into individual minds.

So, spreading good ideas is an excellent thing to do, and something we should all be doing.  My only real caveat on ideological activism is that we are not mere ghosts in the world; we are also flesh and blood. Words without action are never as potent or as transformative as words with action. This brings us to our final type of activism.

Building Freedom

Building freedom involves working, investing, conducting commerce and forming relationships in ways that specifically support human liberty. In some places and times this has meant operating “black” markets; during times of war it often includes smuggling would-be victims across borders. It may mean operating an informal bank for oppressed people, or creating a new method of dispute resolution.

Systems do not build liberty; they reproduce after their own kind – spinning-off new systems that force individuals into prescribed channels.

Self-directed individuals create the processes of free living.

Some of us have struggled to build communication methods that cannot be repressed; others have tried to create means of exchange that are not vulnerable to coercion. Still others have formed private trading networks. A surprising number of us are creating new communities.

All of these things require people to move beyond talk and into action. That is a scary thing to do, which is why the first two types of activism are usually preferred. There is no real risk in sending letters to politicians, and usually not much risk in carrying a sign down the street. (Though that risk is increasing.) Acting without approval, however, is something else. Smuggling people away from armies could get you shot!

Building freedom involves risk, but if real liberty is to exist, risk is required. Liberty is hard, not easy. If we want it, we’ll have to do the hard things. No free lunch.

Pick something that matters and get busy.

© Copyright 2009 by Paul A. Rosenberg