Should a truce be declared between paleo-libertarians and neo-distributists? Some would claim we might as well attempt to have a dozen or so people make peace. While the groups are larger than that, we aren’t exactly speaking on the scale of fusionism. John Zmirak in an interesting piece at Taki’s Mag answers in the affirmative. He rightly sees the presently constituted State as the enemy of both paleo-libertarians and distributists. By extension, the logic flows that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The problem is that libertarians scare me half to death.
The paleo-libertarians don’t scare me as much as the Randian variety, but in the end I have difficulty seeing much of a difference between them. If you ask a distributist whether State should be able to ban abortion, the reply you will get is he doesn’t see why not. If you ask a libertarian whether the State should be able to ban abortion, at best you will get a reply in the affirmative with some consternation over having enabled the State to interfere with the family. If you look to Rothbard and many of the leading lights of libertarianism, you will find many in the personally opposed camp. Rothbard was willing to concede that abortion restrictionism shouldn’t be an impediment to the libertarian State however. Another example I could choose is ‘gay marriage’ where conflicted libertarians will often claim the State should just get out of the marriage business. Of course this isn’t what the Vatican means when they make same-sex marriage a non-negotiable issue.
I don’t bring these issues up to rub salt in the wounds of conflicted Catholic Libertarians, although I would be overjoyed if they rejected this philosophy. I bring this up because these issues help illuminate why the common cause is absent. The libertarian views government as an obstacle to salvation. They see the things the government allows or encourages or causes to be effected because the government has such great power as leading men into sin and eternal damnation. (I’m speaking of those attempting to reconcile Libertarianism with our Godly duties, obviously not Randians.) As a distributist I have difficulty denying this. I also have difficulty denying that government can encourage men in virtue, protect them from sin, and otherwise help perfect them. In fact, government is duty-bound to encourage men in virtue. When I see government, I see an institution that needs to be reformed, perhaps even radically, to be made better. The Libertarian sees an institution that needs to be made more impotent so it can do less harm. We are not seeking the same destination in the end.
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