Why Politics Is So Acrimonious

If we wish to understand what's wrong with today's politics, we ought to consider something F. A. Hayek pointed out long ago. It should have been obvious, but it escapes many people: namely, the more power government officials have over our lives, the more people will fear its falling into the "wrong" hands, that is, the hands of those who disagree with them. In response to a growing fear, they will be willing to undertake ever-more-extreme measures to wrest power from those hands or retain it for the "right" hands.

Who can deny this? Government is force. It is imposition -- not merely on people who really abuse others, but also on perfectly innocent people who mind their own business. Since that is so and since few people like having things jammed down their throats, as government officials control more and more aspects of life, including and perhaps especially cultural matters (through schooling, for example), people realize they have two only choices: be a victim or be an aggressor. Many people will choose the latter and be willing to go to great lengths, even street violence, to protect themselves and their families. (Note well: This is not an excuse for violence.)

If you wonder why zero-sum politics has become so acrimonious, therein lies a clue. (Other factors may explain the timing, etc.) You want less acrimonious politics? Strive for less politics. And that means replacing government with freedom, consent, and markets. We really have no other choice.

TGIF: For the Love of Reason

Far be it from me to divide humankind in two, but were I so inclined, I’d divide it into those who love reason and those who are indifferent if not outright hostile to it. Members of the first group adore the reasoning process and their own reasoning faculties. The others find the process burdensome and discomforting, something that threatens long-held beliefs and intuitions. When I say the members of the first group adore their own reasoning faculties, I do not mean that they are arrogantly confident in their intelligence or immunity from error. Quite the contrary: a Spinozist love of reason contains within it humility, doubt, an awareness of one’s limits and fallibility, and a recognition of the inherently social nature of reason (and language) and the growth of knowledge.

Read TGIF at The Libertarian Institute.

TGIF (The Goal Is Freedom) appears on Fridays. Sheldon Richman, author of America's Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited, keeps the blog Free Association and is executive editor of The Libertarian Institute. He is also a senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com.

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