Free Talk Live spent the first hour of a recent show discussing ten ways to maintain a positive attitude. It was a welcome break from political discussion for those of us who follow the show, and the sort of conversation that’s important for libertarian types to have once in awhile.
If you understand the value of personal liberty and free exchange, it’s easy to get mired in sadness at how government is rapidly destroying both. Spend enough time reading and talking about the destructive actions of government and you’re bound to get depressed. Get depressed and you’re less likely to have any positive impact within the liberty movement.
So, for anyone feeling depressed about the state of the world, I now present ten things you can be positive about.
#1. Even as government holds humanity back, technology continues to propel us forward. I’m writing this column on a computer I bought a few months ago for $500. My current computer has processing power and memory that would have cost me 10 grand or more just a few years ago, and wasn’t possible at all a few years before that. Despite government’s best efforts to hold back entrepreneurs, manufacturing processes continue to grow more efficient, scientific breakthroughs continue to happen, leisure time continues to expand, and people throughout the world continue to rise out of poverty.
I put this one first because it spreads deep into the next 9. Improved technology has given liberty lovers many reasons for hope.
#2. The decentralization of information is here. For most of the twentieth century, ideas and information in America were largely controlled in two institutions closely tied to the state: the media and the Academy. The Internet has blown that wide open. Add in Twitter, Facebook, Digg and the like, and the distribution channels for decentralized information have become decentralized too. We are in a world where any article written on any web site has as much chance of being read en masse as something published in The NY Times. As a result…
#3. Libertarian ideas, once confined to the fringe, are getting heard and the movement is growing. Last year’s Ron Paul for president campaign, this spring’s Tea Party protests, this summer’s townhalls, chart-topping success of books like Meltdown by Tom Woods and Paul’s forthcoming End the Fed are phenomena that would have been unheard of ten years ago. And while it may be that some of these activities aren’t terribly productive, the mere fact that they are happening is a big change that gives me hope. This leads us to…
#4. More and more libertarians are coming to realize that a free society won’t come about via the voting booth, and we can expect the number of people with that understanding to grow. I, like many of you, am an advocate for the movement to get away from Washington politics and move toward more direct strategies like secession, but that is a relatively new development in my thinking. A few years ago I would have been one of those volunteers canvassing for Dr. Paul. A few years before that I was listening to Rush Limbaugh. The journey from government school drone to free thinker with some understanding of how the world works is, for most people, a gradual one, and we have tens of millions of people who, via the Internet, have just taken their first steps. Over time, we can expect many of them to learn the same lessons we did, and arrive at the same place we are now. Where we are now leads to numbers 5 & 6.
#5. There are a lot of Americans speaking openly of nullification and secession. I wrote more on this in A New Strategy For Liberty: Secession In 3 Easy Steps.
#6. We have at least 3 well organized efforts at sidestepping the ugly political process and cutting straight to a much more free society. The Free State Project is moving and to my eyes, is growing quite nicely. The Seasteading Institute is well-funded and its first stab at a society on the water is imminent. Renowned economist Paul Romer is now touring the world promoting Charter Cities. If any one of these ideas meets its objectives, the game is permanently changed.
#7. The Flat Worlders were correct. Thomas Friedman’s millenium-era bestseller, The World Is Flat predicted that the laying of fiber optics cable around the globe would have a bigger impact than we knew. He was right, of course. Today, you are likely to be chatting with someone in Pakistan about trouble with your software, speaking on the phone with someone from India about your cell phone bill, and competing with a kid from China to win an engineering contract for your firm. This sort of opening up of the marketplace has made the world more productive, and is lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
The impact of a flattening world cannot be overstated. In addition to permanently yanking people out of poverty…
#8. The Flat World is Decentralizing Work in the West. More than a million people make a living on eBay. Another hundred thousand or more people do freelance work on sites like eLance and Guru. Etsy, Altpick, Proz, Rentacoder, and hundreds more are changing the way people do transactions. If you’re young, you are so accustomed to living on Facebook, to recording a tune with your band and uploading it for sale right away, to buying and selling used college textbooks on the Internet, that you don’t even know how radically different (and better) the world of business is than even just a few years ago. The Internet has made it possible for more people to do what they want to do for a living, and more companies to find and buy exactly the services they need. This has the dual effect of a) making us all more productive b) moving working life away from gigantic, centralized corporations and towards accountable individuals.
When you’re done with this article and have posted a poignant comment, go read How Capitalism Saves Ruby From Corporatism. Here’s an excerpt:
The reason we see corporations, especially large corporations, making stupid and evil decisions is due to a crisis of identity: the participants in the corporation have begun (or long ago completed) the process of seeing the corporation as an entity unto itself for which they do not have direct responsibility.
The decentralization of work is fighting that lack of direct responsibility. People working for themselves, even part-time, are capitalists. They are forced to take responsibility for their actions and their work. They must give the customer what the customer wants or not get paid. The money that is stolen from them in taxes is right in their face, rather than just another deduction on a paycheck. As more and more people leverage the power of the Internet to turn their own talents into money, more and more people are going to see the State for the sham that it is.
#9. The Current System is in Collapse. I know that hardly sounds like a reason to be happy, but here we are nearing the end of the list and I’ve written myself into such a sunny place that I’m seeing the darkness out there as reason to be hopeful. Yes, times are tough right now, and there are lots of reasons to believe that the economy will continue to be bad or even get worse. The government’s response to the meltdown it created left all the underlying problems intact and created monumental new problems that will cripple or topple the global economy. $300,000 of national debt is now attached to every American. The FDIC is broke, the entitlements are bankrupt, Washington is completing its 50-year march to take over the health care system, and a flood of Federal Reserve funny money waits in the wings for the right moment to pour into the economy at large and muck up everything.
So what is the positive spin on the collapse of the system? Why would I call this something to be happy about?
For the past hundred years, the world has been organized in giant nation states, each dominated by a bloated central bureaucracy. But there is a theme in these 10 bullet points, and it isn’t terribly compatible with the current political organization of the world. Technological change, A Flat World, Nullification, Secession, Free Stating, Seasteading, Charter Cities, Libertarian Ideas…
Decentralization.
There is no doubt in my mind that #9 is true. The nation states of the world cannot stop spending money they don’t have. They know they must stop, but they cannot. It is the nature of democratic republics. All the controls the United States and others have put on their governments have now broken down. It was inevitable.
We can expect our government to continue running rampant. It will continue growing in its brazenness, in its sheer stupidity. What’s happening now will only get worse. And worse. We will reach a tipping point.
And it will be time for a change.
Sound far-fetched?
#10. Big social change almost always comes seemingly out of nowhere, a trickle one day, a flood the next. This phenomenon, studied extensively in the social sciences and popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, occurs because information spreads on exponential growth curves. The notion that we’d be better off without Washington is too radical an idea to most people today. But the number of people who hold that idea will grow as the national debt expands. As the idea of abandoning Washington grows, it gains credibility, and begins growing even faster, giving it more credibility, allowing it to grow even faster…
In January of 1914, the world was still dominated by monarchical empires. Regional infighting in Austria-Hungary that summer blew up into World War 1, and by 1918, the monarchies that had dominated the world for centuries were toast, and democratic republics rose up to take their place. The world changed severely, rapidly, and permanently because the monarchies of Europe, stable for centuries, had become unstable.
To most of us, bloated central governments seem inevitable because they have been the norm for generations. They have been the norm because they have been stable. Are they still that way? Or is this noisy summer of Tea Parties and townhalls the trickle of a flood that will be upon us soon?
And when that flood comes, will all hell break loose like it did in 1914?
I don’t think so. Look back over numbers 1 – 8. We are ready to move on.
Stewart Browne called himself a libertarian in the mid-nineties, an anarcho-capitalist for about ten years after that, and has flirted with the titles agorist and voluntaryist, and now just calls himself a libertarian again. He blogs at 
Absolutely awesome article!
Regarding #2: Yes, but… first though, obviously we are enjoying the internet and it is an exceptional tool, however it’s not going to be decentralized in the long term. The growth of it will be toward centralization, it seems to me, especially in the wake of Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s tarring of the internet and the attendant hype about terrorism, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct9xzXUQLuY
Great article, but I disagree that the tea parties and town hall outbursts are coming from anti-state people. It still largely seems to be an issue of people hating Obama for spending money because of who he is and what his ideals are. Very few of these people seem to take issue with domestic wiretapping or illegal wars.
certainly there is plenty of blind anti-Obama sentiment behind the tea party movement. I wouldn’t call myself a Tea Party’er, but I’ve got plenty of them on my social network accounts, and I see a broad overlap between the Tea Parties and the activism behind the Ron Paul campaign. In both cases, I think we’d do better to shift away from trying to change Washington and towards leaving it, but I’m hopeful that a chunk of these people will come around.
great piece and well timed…
I’ve always believed that personal success is stronger than “idealistic persuasion”. Regardless of what you believe, it’s only theory until you demonstrate. Staying positive until “things work” shortens the wait.
If something is going to happen “sooner than later”, why not now?
Enemies of individual liberty have already declared that they will use “crises – real or perceived” to achieve things that wouldn’t be possible when “things are good”.
Could this also be the time when proponents and defenders of liberty use the same “crisis opportunity” to achieve things in an equally opposite direction?
We (the proponents of individual liberty) have one distinct advantage over the statists: we don’t require the approval of voters or polticians to realize our ideals.
All we have to do is put our ideals into practice.
Jim Davies believes that education is the answer: The Online Freedom Academy. The approach is for each libertarian/anarchist to educate one person each year, harnessing the power of the internet. TOLFA.US. By 2027, government will vanish.
Jim Bell thinks a more direct approach is the answer:
http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm
EXCELLENT! Thanks for posting this!
The link to ted.com broke my browser. In number 9, things are even better than you say. There is no attachment of the national debt to the individual, and a growing movement to repudiate the national debt. Ernie Hancock has done some grass roots organising on this one.
The link to Paul Romer’s talk contains a script that causes XHTML to freeze. There’s probably some really great reason to mess with people’s browsers this way. Or you could suggest that they cut it out.
As alternatives to the bad TED site, I offer the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSHBma0Ithk a video from the TED event.
The Charter cities blog: http://chartercities.org/blog/43/how-many-charter-cities-can-succeed
A magazine article pointing out that Romer wants to implement his idea in Guantanamo, Cuba.
http://www.odemagazine.com/exchange/9327/charter_cities_could_be_the_solution_to_global_growth_and_progress
Thought-provoking piece, Stewart. Regarding the three movements you noted, I believe that all three face serious challenges in terms of achieving a voluntaryist society. Seasteading is an interesting idea–paddle away from the main problem that afflicts humanity: statism, or coercive collectivism. Statism, being a lopsided, hypocritical, contradictory mess of ethics and politics (based on sacrifice), is the enemy of liberty, and therefore of peace, love, and happiness. Patri has already conceded that the rules there will have to accommodate some of the nation-states’ idiotic “laws,” such as banning illicit drug trade ( http://seasteading.org/mission/faq ). As long as the people’s romance with government continues on land, it will continue to pose a serious threat for seasteaders’ architects to maintain a principled moral stance. And last time I spoke with Patri (couple years ago), he believed in freedom more for utilitarian reasons than moral ones (as does his father David). Utilitarianism (or arguments from effect, as Stefan Molyneux calls them) makes it doubly difficult to counter and delegitimize the meme of statism.
I watched the central planner’s TED talk on “charter cities.” He is definitely not in favor of getting rid of “leaders,” which is a euphemism for those who employ the coercive methods of governments large and small to intrude in people’s lives. I see his grand proposition as just another example of human farming, albeit much more efficient on account of new “rules” and “rules for changing rules” that allow for greater human productivity and thus greater governmental parasitism on that productivity. He even noted that the problem with Haiti is not too strong a government, but rather too weak a government (not enough “rules,” apparently). The meme of statism (and thus sacrifice) is alive and well in his mind and in all the intellectuals’ minds who are keen on implementing his ideas. His focus was not on laissez-faire, but rather on giving humans more and better choices (as if he and his cherished rulers had a right to grant choices). Again, there is definitely no principled moral argument being forwarded to deal with the meme of statism. Thus statism will continue, in principle.
The FSP is clearly operating at cross purposes. It was incredibly frustrating to see this first hand while living in NH. Most members want the fantasy of minarchism (property rights-respecting benign government) to come about…somehow. (Complete Liberty Podcast 81 explored this a bit, btw.) A minority in Keene, however, are keen on challenging the meme of statism with a principled moral argument, though even some of them concede the premise of statism by not denouncing electoral politics (as counterproductive and immoral) and by proffering various arguments from utility. Nonetheless, my bet at this point is on freedom happening in Keene first, simply because there are enough smart and principled individuals amassing there to challenge “those in charge” and demand justice based on the simple concepts of property rights and the non-aggression principle.
Basically, the problem we face is so philosophically pervasive and psychologically complex that the only way to solve it is to strike the root with an unwavering principled moral argument against the notion of government itself (and thus against obedience to “authority” and unjust “laws”)–and for mutual respect, property rights and choice. Smart acts of civil disobedience can quickly raise awareness in those with a conscience in the community and embolden them to do what is right–help those who are trying to foster a world in which individuals live freely.
Of course, this is more than just a political project; it’s a friends, family, and co-workers project too. The more strategies that voluntaryists can come up with to accelerate the process of achieving complete liberty, the better. I concur with Jim Davies’ emphasis on re-education ( http://tolfa.us is a great program, but it needs a web 2.0 makeover to get more traction), though most non-intellectuals won’t be interested in taking a course. Freedom must be understood from the perspective of sovereign choice and property rights. “Public property” must be understood as a contradiction in terms (nod to Ayn Rand), and so ~everything~ in society needs to be owned by some individual or consenting group of individuals, who then will make rights-respecting rules based on commerce and trade. I disagree with Jim that civil disobedience won’t be helpful in the re-education process. Mass obedience to “authority” and compliance with unjust “laws” are a big part of the problem. Sanction of the victims is way too prevalent for significant change to happen yet. Of course, for those who can’t spend more than a few days in jail (like myself with type 1 diabetes, though I’m trying to get in a curative clinical trial here in SoCal), confronting those “in charge” and their intellectual abettors with video cameras is always a viable option. A root-striking principled approach, no matter the form of activism, is desperately needed. Focusing on the main premises of statism as well as the essential principles of freedom is key. Nearly all of us grew up experiencing authoritarian parenting and education, so self-exploration and self-growth is very important also. Happiness, one’s highest moral purpose, can’t really happen without it.
W
p.s., I started a local meetup group in SD to explore activism concerning these ideas and issues (feel free to duplicate in your own geographical area):
http://www.meetup.com/Complete-Liberty/
Thanks for the comment, Wes. The last paragraph has particularly had me thinking for the past few days, which I appreciate.
While I certainly agree that an ethical argument is a required component of any political argument, David Friedman’s utilitarian approach (“arguments from effect”) is the one that brought me into the fold and is still to me the most exciting form of political conversation. I’ve also had a lot more success convincing others of my stance using arguments lifted straight from Machinery of Freedom than I have from any approach based on ethics.
I feel a lot less isolated in my suspicions regarding the ever-increasing velocity and freedom of information impacting civilization after reading your article.
Brilliant – thank you!
The author is correct, and the layers I believe go deeper.
We are likely witnessing the beginning of a fundamental transformation of human civilization itself, taking effect over decades: economic, political, cultural, religious. So of course the first step to any transformation is collapse of the teetering current order, which is well underway.Economic first, then political, then societal, then religious.
There are many good reasons to be pessimistic: the earth’s about at her breaking point. We need a huge breakthrough on clean energy and population growth, or we’re headed for some dark ages.
But, as long as we don’t get into a nuke fight, I believe humanity’s chances, LONG term, are bright. The evolution of human civilization, history shows me, advances proportionally to the amount of liberty, especially liberty of thought, that exists.
As the author shows, the age of tech is sowing seeds of liberty, almost inadvertently.
The super long term trend for humanity has always been up. It’s just that this style of civilization is finished.
About the only flashlight humanity has to get to the next one, is liberty. Hold it dear.
That was great, well done.
The system is collapsing all around us. I too keep telling my friends that this is a good thing, but it makes them even more certain that I’m a nut. Unfortunately, IMHO, the default operating system for society that most people revert to when the world crashes is the family. I appreciate the family as the foundation of society, but the problem is that too often people will seek to extrapolate its characteristics to larger populations (i.e. communism). The family maintains a perception of collective property rights for its members while at the same time deferring ultimate decision-making power to a strong central authority (father-figure). When the shit hits the fan the only alternative to those who don’t believe “we’re all in this together” is some form of isolation (somewhere to hole-up). Your point that the internet can change this EOTWAWKI default re-booting by society I think is due to the connection that the remnant has with each other. The success of liberty lovers maintaining this connection through the initial dark days of the collapse will be crucial to moving on to higher ground. Circumventing the attempts by statists to control the internet will be the pivotal battleground.
In the end it is a moral conflict and liberty will prevail because it is the most moral position in spite of ignorance and greed. It’s just a matter of time.
Great article! I read it on air on the 9-4-09 show. The archive should be up by midnight.
Many thanks, Mark. Here is the downloadable file for easy access.
Some of these points are right on but the notion that new processors are the invention of entrepreneurship is a little far-fetched. The only scientific breakthroughs are those being funded by the powers that be. Almost ALL researchers at universities are funded by either big business or the gov’t. Their findings are patented and only used when it is in their interest (against humanity’s interest).
The best thing that could actually happen to us is that a meteorite falls to the Earth and destroys all technology developed in the past 1000 years. The assumption that a flat world helps promote freedom is at the very least ludicrous. In a flat world, we’d need a superhero running the system and I dont think theres many besides Jesus Christ. It is written, he shall be the only good dictator to rule Earth with a rod of iron. But if you dont like scripture you can just imagine a lfat world with a flat gov’t and a flat central bank. Wouldn’t that be nice and good for freeodm?
Yeah, things are changing…
http://halebobb.com/raving/index.php?topic=4.msg4#msg4
This article made me a little teary, but then the comments administered a bit of a cold breeze that dried it up.
But I agree there are reasons to smile and hope, at least sometimes. Decentralization is hard to deny and as it permeates more and more facets of the human life I don’t see how will politics, and by it the government, ever be spared. It’s just a matter of time indeed. Sometimes I even think that the stuff is gonna happen before anybody expects it because many may be assuming that it’s a linear process when in fact it could be accelerating.
Since technology is one of the most fundamental fuels of this transition and technological development IS accelerating, then it would follow that everything else should sooner or later hit the gas.
We need to start making blockbuster movies about liberty.
I sure am glad that I stopped by to read your article. Thanks for the info!