The Ron Paul Revolting

As he gains more media attention and a growing support base, more leftist political commentators have felt compelled to confront "The Ron Paul Revolution". Ron Paul is perhaps unique among the presidential candidates for the 2008 elections in that he is not so much presented as a man, but an ideology - capital L Libertarianism (to be distinguished from libertarianism with a small l, which can be used to describe a wide range of positions). Libertarianism with the capital L is generally associated with the American Libertarian Party.

There is a right way, and a wrong way, to criticize Ron Paul. The wrong way is to neglect the concerns of those who find him so appealing at this juncture in American history. The Paul brand of Libertarianism is as much a part of the American intellectual tradition as Puritanism, and more recently, Progressivism and welfare-liberalism. It's central themes resonate with Americans because they are rooted in the founding documents of the United Sates and harken back even further to the intellectual forebearer of the American Revolution, John Locke. Of course there were other intellectual influences - Thomas Jefferson read Rousseau too, and the ratification debates were peppered with references not only to the ancients but to contemporary political thinkers such as Montesquieu. If I had to identify a dominant trend, however, it would be the classical liberalism of Locke, which has become modern Libertarianism, in spite of its having departed from Locke on some crucial points.

An example of the wrong way to criticize Paul is to be found in a bulletin I recently received re-posting an article from the International Socialist Review, titled Ron Paul, Libertarianism, and the Freedom to Starve to Death. I don't think the defense that this is primarily intended for an audience of socialists and other radical leftists is going to hold water. In the socialist circles I used to travel in, the claim was always made that what is written is for the working class, not simply middle class intellectuals. If this is so, then socialists need to choose their language with more sensitivity. For instance, consider this point:

"Ron Paul argues, "Government by majority rule has replaced strict protection of the individual from government abuse. Right of property ownership has been replaced with the forced redistribution of wealth and property. . . ." Few folks likely to be reading this article will agree that we actually live in a society where wealth and property are expropriated from the rich and given to workers and the poor. Even the corporate media admit that there has been a wholesale redistribution of wealth in the opposite direction. But Paul exposes here the class nature of libertarianism -- it is the provincial political outlook of the middle-class business owner obsessed with guarding his lot."

I will eventually address Paul's claim, which I think is central to the debate over his politics. For now I wish to focus on the flawed approach the author of this article has taken. The problems here are manifold, and they are typical of socialist writing these days - they assume their audience will not question their claims. What they assume here about the "folks likely to be reading this article" is rather absurd. If we are meant to understand that those reading it are inclined to reject Paul's premises, then why did this article need to be written in the first place? On the other hand, if people reading this article may be in agreement with, to different degrees, with Paul's premises, how will these assumptions have any other affect than to leave them offended? The workers and the poor do not always have the right idea about how society works. Neither, for that matter, do many middle class intellectuals.

Adding "even the corporate media" does not help matters either. Nor does the classification of small-business owners, many of whom struggle daily to keep their meager enterprises afloat, as "provincial". Anyone reading this piece would be right to label it as condescending, if not presumptuous. At least some socialists, such as Trotsky, have seen the need to forge political alliances with the "provincial" peasants and petty-bourgeoisie, and thereby address their economic and social concerns within the socialist program itself.

The correct way to critique Paul is to, in the first place, apply the scalpel of historical materialism to his own claims. Let us return to what the ISR article attributed to Paul:

"Government by majority rule has replaced strict protection of the individual from government abuse. Right of property ownership has been replaced with the forced redistribution of wealth and property. . . ."

It would have been useful to follow this with at least a brief historical account of how and more importantly why government intervention in the market and property rights ever came about. The abysmal conditions of the American working class in the post-Civil War "Gilded Age" would be a good place to start. For instance, wikipedia explains the origins of this term:

"The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873). The term originates in Shakespeare's King John (1595): "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily... is wasteful and ridiculous excess." The Gilded Age, like gilding the lily (which is already beautiful and not in need of further adornment), was excessive and wasteful -- it was a period characterized by showy displays of wealth and excessive opulence."

It was during this Gilded Age that political ideas most closely resembling Paul's were the dominant ideology in American society, though I am aware that Libertarians would contest this view. The market was largely free from intrusion, most importantly for our purposes from below - workers had not yet won the rights which many may arguably take for granted today. Massive displays of personal wealth and affluence were made possible because the workers had not yet won their rights, because the government had refused to interfere with the market. When George Fitzhugh, John C. Calhoun, and other Old Southerners warned of a fate worse than slavery for America in the 1850's, they weren't far off, no matter how repugnant their own socio-economic system was.

Ron Paul and his Paulamaniacs might argue that the Gilded Age was as American as apple pie. I recall that Paul, during his appearance on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, simultaneously denounced corporations and justified Bill Gate's massive fortune, in the tens of billions. Historical perspective is needed - it was precisely because corporations could facilitate such massive concentrations of wealth that some of the founders, notably Jefferson, denounced them. To separate these two phenomena is to forget why corporations came into existence in the first place - to accumulate and concentrate capital for the carrying out of large economic enterprises which were beyond the means of any single producer.

An assumption shared by many of the founders - and this view has precedent all the way back in Aristotle - was that the availability of land would result in the economic equality required for meaningful political equality. No, not everyone would be exactly equal, and unfortunately this is what comes to mind when the word equality is mentioned in the economic context. Corporations could be viewed with skepticism but tolerated, since the build up of what Marx called the "surplus population" could always be sent West, where there was land for the taking. Homesteading acts made land free to anyone who could plant his stake in the ground. The history of early America is a history of the libertarian ideal surviving not necessarily on its own merit, but because the problems it must inevitably cause kept being pushed West, to the open spaces, where man and woman could start anew.

As Engels remarks in his own comments on America, this great "saftey valve" has closed. There is no more space - economic and social problems can only go "up", not "out". If the problem can no longer be address spatially, how is it to be addressed other than through policy? The Gilded Age represents a time between times - the victory of the North unleashed industrial capitalism and corporatism on a hitherto unknown scale, and it took society several decades to recognize all of the implications of this rapid and disorienting development.

The story of government intervention into the economy is not the story of brave independent property owners battling it out with the government. Many of those small proprietors for whom well-meaning Paulites would speak, were actually crushed mercilessly by larger property owners. They did not have government aid in doing so - that was simply not the policy during the Gilded Ages. The laws of the market, sometimes supplemented with head-bashers from Pinkerton or a bought-off city official enabled this thinning of the herd. Social Darwinism, not welfare-liberalism, was the guiding principle. The strong grew stronger - the weak perished. That is why populism had its day in the sun during this same era - it, not laissez-faire capitalism, most clearly articulated the interests of the small property owner, especially the tiller of the soil.

The emergence of the American industrial working class also promoted government intervention. Neither its inhuman treatment at the hands of the capitalist class, nor its burning desire to be free of such treatment, can be mythologized out of existence. Only those trying to remain ignorant of American history would deny the fact of it - yet those who acknowledge it are also compelled to acknowledge that contrary to Libertarian assumptions, the market did not provide anything but a maddening race to the bottom. Of course this was also bad for the capitalists too - the same practices which brutalized and dehumanized the workers also hastened the economic crisis which culminated in 1929. It is fashionable among Libertarians to blame this crash on the Federal Reserve, but this is an a-historical approach.

When Paul therefore bemoans "majority rule", it is evident that his anger is directed at the American working class, which had the gall to fight for the right to form labor unions, abolish child labor, and other hard-won reforms. All of this is seen as infringement on property. The trick is that "government" gets blamed, since Paul can't very well blame the working class - aside from the prospect of losing their vote, Libertarians will only acknowledge the existence of classes after a great deal of prodding. But even if classes "don't exist" (and I think they do), it is evident that there were many political movements, comprised of people who identified as workers, as farmers, as women, as taxpayers, as black or Irish, whose activity forced the powers that be, the "government", to take them seriously. The US government could no more have ignored these forces as they could have the threat of an invading foreign army.

I do not believe that Paul's economic ideas will find much favor in today's political climate. In my home state of AZ, red as a rule, a proposition to raise the minimum wage passed overwhelmingly. The working class does not see any injustice in "forcing" society, be it the market or the government, to provide them with a dignified standard of living. They instinctively understand that to say one has a "right" to something is rather meaningless if one cannot claim that right. But with this recognition, there is also a great deal of possessiveness and chauvinism - few are willing to share these rights with "illegal aliens". Paul can play this tune and expect many workers to dance. But it is the immigrants that are living out the horrors of the Gilded Age today, so that the "native" does not have to. American workers will never move an inch forward until they recognize their common humanity and economic interests, regardless of national origin.

Wrapping things up, Paul and his Libertarianism can only be meaningfully critiqued from a historical perspective. One must understand that classical liberalism a la the Founding Fathers was to correspond to a time where great expanses of land were available, where slavery provided an abundance of cheap labor, and where corporations were only a somewhat new phenomena. The industrialization of America completely changed the rules of the game. Classical liberal political doctrine, captured in essence by the Bill of Rights, remains a template to follow today and anyone presuming to tamper with it should rightly be avoided. But classical economic liberalism is an ideology whose time has come and gone. A return to the Gilded Age is the only promise that Libertarianism can keep, and it is an ugly prospect for the vast majority of Americans.

For the record, however, my issue is not with markets, but rather with ownership. Another blog for another time.

(Postscript: Since I originally published this blog, on of my friends informed me that no Libertarian would accept my association of the Gilded-age with their ideology. Of course I don’t mean to argue that all or even most Libertarians believe that the Gilded Age was good, though I know some who do think that. Rather, as I pointed out, there is this absurd confusion which I saw from Ron Paul on the Daily Show, and have encountered in nearly ever Libertarian I have ever debated (and there have been quite a few), when the “corporations” are denounced, yet the Bill Gates fortune is justified on the basis of market morality . So from my view, it doesn’t matter whether or not the all-evil “big government” helped the robber barons attain their fortunes, or whether or not the market is more responsible (and I think it was). If Bill Gates can have his fortune, and if, as many Libertarians I have encountered firmly believe, most of the rights won by the working class in their political struggles are “coercion”, then my claim about Paul leading us back into a Gilded Age holds up. Of course he and his supporters assume that the market will improve the condition of the average worker, and that unions, regulations, and labor laws are unnecessary and an infringement on the business owner. This is an assumption that I believe has failed the test of time.)