Benevolent Individualism: All Politics is People and Personal

I run a non-profit foundation and as part of what I do I confronted this question. I realized I needed to identify a formulation to enable individuals to identify appropriate choices for themselves and to recognize when their own rights had been violated. I understood that since we live in a community of people who practice a variety of religious traditions, including no religion, it could not conflict with any major theological tradition, including atheism. Also, it had to be very short, in fact, it had to fit on a business card.

The answer was what I call Benevolent Individualism. These are its tenets.

1. Using violence, coercion , or fraud to get your way is wrong.

2. The more powerful party has a moral duty to ensure that the transaction/trade/relationship is fair to both. (The Bill Gates Principle)

Along with the political revolution we must call a moral revolution. The two are one in the continuum of human action. The political dialogue takes place in circles that are far removed from the day to day lives of people. We can reach them where they live if we use our principles applied to the problems of injustice that confront them and engage their attention in their own lives.

The market for self-help, relationships, and romance is far larger than the one for political solutions. It is fertile ground for solutions that enable freedom. All freedom is personal. By ignoring this huge market for human choice and action Libertarians have limited the their options and marginalized their relevance.

Becoming a full service provider for freedom means we must provide answers to all the questions involving choice and liberty. We need to have standards for personal behavior within the LP that can inspire respect and a desire to emulate by non-libertarians.

Libertarians can make honorable behavior an issue, in terms that engage the minds of non-political Americans. They can open up a front where there are no other political parties to compete. We can demonstrate that freedom is not license and that we do not endorse, excuse or tolerate bad behavior. We can create examples to show how the world should work. That alone would differentiate us from any other political party now in existence.

The issue of character has been central to the ongoing political dialogue. Character is the way Americans express their perception of the ethical imperatives exemplified in the life acts of an individual.

No human institution is immune from the action of human choice. If we had been optimizing freedom as a benevolent option for human choice we would not be producing former LP members faster than we can spend money.

We are not limited to the forms presently in use. We can think smarter. We can change our political forms to suit our very different goal, reflecting the idea that we can and should grow freedom from within the LP. In this way, we can simultaneously make local groups more effective, duplicating success, and grow the infrastructure necessary to replacing the State.

Freedom is being able to live your life free of the violence, coercion and frauds that are endemic and tolerated in most of the world. This is what women want. They are not wrong, just misguided. This brings us to the next issue.

We know that the world is moving away from hierarchies and towards a network model for human action. This reflects in every aspect of our lives, especially in leading edge technologies, such as the Internet. This is an affirmation that individual choice is for freedom. We should also remember that while we need to work through the form of a political party our goal is to make political parties irrelevant. Political action is not, for us, a self perpetuating end. It is only a means to the establishment of human freedom. The emancipation of the human spirit is our ultimate goal; not occupying the White House.

Institutions for Freedom: The Acorn Principle

If we want to grow an oak tree we cannot start out with a palm. The other parties are palm trees, dedicated to top down forms of government. If we continue on our present path we will be arguing with a half grown palm tree called the Libertarian Party. Actually, the arguments have already started.

We need to visualize ways of demonstrating that institutions of consensus can replace the functions of government. We can best begin with those institutions we directly control. The first of these is the Libertarian Party in all of its incarnations.

In the 200 years since the Constitutional Convention met to hammer out the framework for their institutions of law and political action we have learned a lot. We know that local is better. We know that keeping a clear relationship between authority and responsibility with clear lines for liability are essential to positive system feedback. Local groups and even state parties within the LP have experimented with various changes in their bylaws and practices that have created excellent models for political action that bring activity back to the most local level.

What seemed to be the insoluble problems of internecine warfare have been answered.. We have all come to believe in-fighting is a natural part of the Libertarian culture. It is not. Libertarians can work together effectively and without rancor or undue recourse to classical political maneuvering. What has been done in one place can happen again elsewhere.

Decentralizing focuses our attention on creating a clear presence for freedom that speaks to ordinary Americans; the kind of people who are simply looking for a better way of handling the problems that confront them. It is the best and first school for freedom.

The Maryland Bylaws and other alternatives

To accomplish this we need to encourage local groups to adopt the techniques
used by Maryland. Since the adoption of their new bylaws Maryland has managed to elect two Libertarians to office and to lead a coalition that succeeded in reforming the state's ballot access laws. These are just two of the accomplishments of a group that was previously wrought with conflict.

Dean Ahmad, their former Chairman and the co-author of the bylaw changes encapsulates the extensive rewrite into three major areas.

The first was to rewrite the certification of agreement with the non-aggression principle required for voting membership. Their version now reads: :Nor person or group has the right to initiate force or fraud against any other person or group to seek to attain their values." Individuals who wish to be voting members of the party now must reject the use of aggression and fraud in achieving all of his or her values, not just the "political and social goals" as per the national certification. Other changes were included, but making the pledge inclusive of all actions is central to the focus. In Maryland proxies were allowed before the changes were introduced and continue to be allowed.

In broadening the pledge to include personal and professional choices as well as political action the Maryland Pledge brings into sharp relief the need individuals have for a schematic for ethical action. Do right, and you are a Libertarian. Do wrong and you are not. No other political movement sets such a high standard for personal behavior. The only possible consequence for not living up to the Pledge is exclusion from the LP and the condemnation of peers. Social exclusion has always been a powerful force for maintaining appropriate behavior in individuals so this is not the empty threat it might appear.

The second change was to move to proportional election of the central committee, both at a county and state level. Other offices, such as a state or county chairman, are elected from this body. The effect of this is to end factionalism. While differences still exist among members of the party and while some groups occasionally vote as blocks for slates, the guarantee of proportional representation that any such incipient faction will receive a proportional share of representation and no more has completely stopped the internal feuding. Constructive competition has replaced destructive factionalism. There is an ongoing concern that the actual counting of ballots is too complicated, but this has not been a practical problem since more often than not, no ballot counting at all is required. The mathematical certainty that all groups will be fairly represented in the executive committee has combined with the aversion to ballot counting to result in a cordial, informal sorting process under which excess nominees to the executive committee voluntary withdraw before the election. The slate is then approved by a 3/5ths vote. In any case a computer program has been developed to count the votes in those cases where an actual contest remains.

The third change was to decentralize all decisions to the lowest level practical. This effectively put control of specific projects directly into the hands of those performing the work, linking responsibility with performance. By removing any appearance of power and authority beyond the minimum required high office in the part has been made less attractive for the power-hungry, who no longer pursue it. The effective decentralization of power forged a new technology for using political action that is on the model that we envision for the institutions that in a Libertarian future should replace government.

There is one additional important element to the decentralization of power in the Maryland Libertarian Party. Any action of the Executive Committee may be overturned by the Central Committee. Thus, the Executive Committee only executes such actions as it believes will be endorsed by the full central committee. Since the all potential factions of any size are represented on the executive committee, the committee is able to anticipates which, if any, issues might be controversial and to take them to the central committee directly.

Other functioning alternatives

When groups are small enough they do not need any formal structure. The Invisible Hand can clap. San Diego is perhaps the best example of how a small group of individuals can grow their local party while entirely ignoring the existence of State and National Party structures. Also while saving the taxpayers in San Diego billions of dollars (I am not exaggerating) and causing the media to be respectful, at least most of the time.

Under the size of a county there is probably no need for a formal Party organization. If activists take up specific goals or projects their structure should reflect these principles but will be dictated by their own good sense.

Larger organizations need structure to be able to deal with the ongoing need to pretend we are a political party on the same footing as Democrats and Republicans et al. We aren’t. Any Libertarian worth his or her salt wants to eliminate the State as we know it.

The effect of the Maryland Bylaw change was to focus attention on the most local level. As a result, efficacious political activity began. Other areas and groups have used other forms. What works to introduce the above values is good.

Where I find more examples of beneficial changes that enable activism I cite them. If I don’t know about yours, I hope you will tell me.

The second element is helping individuals and groups become more effective by adapting the Maryland Bylaws and by making successful models for action available through a web site.

Bylaws and practices that demonstrate the application of our principles can be encouraged in a variety of ways.

Since its change to a decentralist model it has move a long ways towards becoming an effective political organization that promotes functional models for the demonstration of how freedom works.

It is a good model, but it is only one of many.

Foundation Building for a Real Unparty

An effective political organization. In this case we can better state the goal as an effective unpolitical organization. Libertarianism is the Unparty. That has already been true, to a great extent. The most successful Libertarian campaigns have been the product of individuals who just made it happen. Using their natural charisma and the support that charisma could generate, riding issues that positioned them favorably in the minds of voters.

This is how it has to be. If you start with an acorn you cannot expect to end up with a palm tree. If you start out with a conventional political structure you will end up having built a replacement to either the Republican or Democrat party. Either outcome, even if individuals registered Libertarian were in the majority, would be failure.

It is the forms of government that we need to change. We need to grow forms that cannot be transformed into instruments of oppression.

This brings us to a consideration of the most local forms of political activism in which Libertarians engage. Libertarians run for office, partisan and non-partisan. As a precursor to this successful candidates involve themselves in their communities in ways that provide them with strong, affirmative support networks among non-libertarians. They become the answer by translating the principles of libertarianism into local institutions and applicable policy.

American culture today provides a wealth of potentials that remain underutilized. Individualism is at its most elemental volunteerism. At the community level we need to help people identify and implement the means for solving their problems, be that creating private land trusts for those interested in conserving their heritage or funding shelters for abused women using awards from litigation.

Private foundations representing billions of dollars spend an enormous amount of time looking for projects to fund. Libertarians need to be aware that these resources exist.

Libertarians run for office to use the forms of election as forums for speaking out on issues. The three kinds of campaign have been described as passive, getting the name on the ballot; minimal; doing the things that can be done free or at little cost; active; trying to make a respectable showing on a small budget.

Libertarians have had massive experience with unwinnable campaigns. Hundreds of Libertarians have thrown themselves into races full of hope and enthusiasm. They have not failed. By placing the word Libertarian on the ballot they raised public awareness. This has both created opportunities and moved Libertarians into the arena of political reality.

To this we can now add the campaigns of electable candidates. Such candidates as Ilana Freedman in Massachusetts are proving that becoming an electable candidate is also the way to create the visible examples that are necessary to the acceptance of libertarianism. This kind of candidate and campaign answers the immediate objections to libertarianism by providing the missing steps in the program. Candidates like Ilana are part of their communities and run from within a network of support that is not mostly Libertarians.

The Fool’um Campaign

Libertarians have tried to run as full a slate as possible to show that they have a broad base of support and to enable them to use unexpected opportunities. Sometimes the leading candidate will be indicted or die. We like to believe that in such circumstances the increased visibility along with other factors could propel the candidate into office. While this may happen it is important to recognize that accidental election is not an affirmation of our philosophy. It could be good, but it could also be very bad.

To this minimalist approach we must now add the libertarian campaign that claims a chance to win.

In this last case there are several factors that should be kept in mind. These are: The size of the voting constituency, the name recognition of the candidate with that constituency and the financial resources that the candidate can commit before announcing. A candidate who can win will be running in a race where the opponent is beatable. This is claimed to be the case often. It is true once in a blue moon.

Truth in Advertising

Libertarians have been elected as Libertarians to office in tiny states such as Alaska and New Hampshire. Not to denigrate this accomplishment it must be remembered that in New Hampshire a candidate can run and be elected for a couple of thousand dollars if he or she has some local recognition. The number of constituents, voters who will determine the race, can be just 3,000 people. If they all vote.