Thread by @Libmemes4neolib

Alright, it’s time to finally make a post I’ve been ruminating over for probably a year now. I want to talk about a concept I call “state reductionism,” and why it’s terrible for the liberty movement, the state of politics worldwide, liberal democracy, and ultimately, for freedom

You may be familiar with the concept of “class reductionism,” a common affliction among far-leftists wherein they reduce all or most social, political, and economic problems solely to the existence of capitalism or tension between economic classes,

& insist that if we would just abolish capitalism, all other problems would take care of themselves. Issues from racism, to xenophobia, to patriarchy, to depression, crime, and addiction; they insist all are caused in some manner by capitalism and class oppression,

and that it would therefore be a counterproductive distraction to pay any special attention to any of these problems. They consider addressing those issues as simply clipping away at branches rather than striking to the root of the problem.

At worst, they even believe that the attempt to raise such concerns is a plot by the neoliberal capitalist establishment to drive wedges between working-class groups so that they cannot unite to overthrow the system that oppresses them all.

“State reductionism,” as I’ve taken to identifying it, is extremely similar, except rather than seeing capitalism as the great, sole evil which must be destroyed, it’s the state—government.

Otherwise, virtually all the same thought processes &calculations occur: state reductionists believe that government is the source of all social maladies, and prioritizing or drawing attention to issues other than abolishing or minimizing the size of government is unproductive.

These include not only the issues listed earlier, but in this case, also the basic liberal democratic norms and institutions that make anything even remotely resembling liberty possible.

The separation of powers, rule of law, free and fair elections, condemnation of dictators and human rights violations abroad, independence of the justice system, and all the other bedrock institutions on which the foundation of liberty rests are regarded as little more than...

rhetorical window-dressing clung to by the establishment in order to justify their corrupt and unjust rule. Those who subscribe to this view—though they’d unlikely admit to doing so—are overwhelmingly anarchists, but it stretches also to radical minarchists and libertarians.

Many under its spell also seem at face value to be decent on the sort of issues state reductionism glosses over, such as systemic racism, patriarchy, Covid-19, LGBT rights, & xenophobia, making it only all the more disappointing when their true nature is revealed.

It can take some time for such inclinations to observably manifest, but when they do, it’s most often as a result of those who hold them stating their preference, even if reluctant, for some nominally “libertarian” figure over any (every) “establishment” major-party politician.

“Libertarian” or “anarchist” figures or candidates may (and often do) have long records of statements & actions supporting or normalizing white supremacy, police brutality, anti-Semitism, domestic terrorism, homophobia, transphobia, religious hatred, neo-Nazism, the Confederacy,

anti-miscegenation, violent insurrection, Holocaust or other genocide denial, praise for murderous dictators, and dangerous conspiracy theories and disinformation about Covid-19, but as long as they still claim that they wish to decrease the size of the government,

state reductionists will support them. They believe that, no matter how bad any of those things are, they still ultimately pale in comparison to the evils of the state, & especially believe that, absent the power a state provides, such ideas would be rendered virtually harmless.

This sentiment, so far as I can see, is driven largely by an incredibly corrupted sort of utilitarian consequentialism resulting from a failure to consider external circumstances. They attribute to the personal evils of any and all elected officials all deaths and abuses caused

by the state under their jurisdiction, and then compare that record to those of the “libertarian” figures, who, most having never achieved any position of power or authority, of course have no such blemishes.

They regard a “libertarian” podcaster who cheers on the murder of unarmed black people by the state, trumpets Holocaust denial as “just asking questions,” and calls avowed neo-Nazis his “fellow travelers” as inherently better than any elected official,

because the former has never ordered a drone strike, passed a law to imprison people, or voted to collect taxes. No matter even if the politician at hand is someone so pedestrian as a Jimmy Carter or a Mitt Romney,

the simple act of having served in government, state reductionists believe, makes them culpable for all evils done by the state; evils which the Nazi-loving podcaster could never match, in their eyes, and is therefore preferable.

After all, so long as these “libertarians” claim to support minimizing or abolishing the state, they can’t possibly be as dangerous as those who support it, right?
In a word, wrong, but if you didn’t already realize that, I can’t imagine this post will make you.

When we hyper-fixate solely on abstractly stated positions from someone in no position of power, facing no pressures or special interests or policy inertia, with no clear incentives, we completely miss the fact that that’s all they are—pleasant abstractions.

We have no evidence whatsoever what these figures would actually do or act like if elected to office, faced with the reality of the present system. What we do know is that they place no priority on, & in fact emphatically condemn, the realization or preservation of basic decency

& fundamental liberal democratic norms and institutions. We have every reason to believe that the election of these figures would result, through complacency or outright hostility, in the collapse of the liberal democratic system, and growth & empowerment of fascistic attitudes.

Freedom and pluralism must be actively maintained, and WILL backslide if we lose vigilance. Supporting figures who lack all respect for the factors that make those things possible threatens them enormously, even if they don’t end up actually winning elections.

Normalizing fascistic attitudes about government, race, gender, religion, and the like will inevitably result in strengthening the fascist movement, resulting in indescribably lesser freedom, not more.

As for the attached meme, no, we shouldn’t believe Hillary either, that’s the point: we know better than to take at face value the promises of establishment politicians when their record stands in stark contract.

More libertarians need to start applying that same standard to “libertarian” figures and candidates who purport to support abolition or minimization of the state while holding a long record of normalizing fascistic perspectives.

The size of state one claims to support is NOT the end-all be-all of moral or consequential calculus, just as capitalism is not the source of all evil.

Thanks for reading.