Why Aren't There More Black Libertarians?

Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams come to mind as examples of black libertarians. I am pretty sure that the chairman of the NY Libertarian Party is black. But to be clear, I do not think embracing another vehicle of state power – another political party – is really the answer. After a rather long time with my head in the sand – or stuck in other places equally dark – I have come to an even more controversial conclusion. For black folk there is only one viable option – abolish the state. Embrace unvarnished, unfiltered, straight-up, full-contact laissez-faire libertarianism – not the party – the thought process.-Wilt Alston

Digging through the LewRockwell.com archives, I found articles by Wilt Alston and Robert Wicks discussing the dearth of black libertarians. These articles inspired me to speculate on this topic as well. Given the history of Africans and black Americans in this country, one would think that many of the anti-government militia movements would comprise angry blacks. Our black ancestors experienced chattel slavery, Jim Crow, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, and even forced sterlization. These are just the few examples I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure if I were to research this topic, I could find a surfeit of examples. These examples alone should have been enough to persuade a sizeable group of blacks to take up arms in Montana, daring the U.S. government to infringe upon their rights as free men.

But this is not the case. In fact, I can count the number of black libertarians I know on one hand. Why aren't more of us libertarians? Here is my attempt to answer this question. I think that there are several reasons which I present in no particular order.

1. Mises has a pretty good, politically incorrect answer in Liberalism. He is writing about colonialism and speculates as to what would happen if the colonizers simply left their colonies:

The immediate consequence of this radical solution would be, if not outright anarchy, then at least continual conflicts in the areas evacuated by the Europeans. It may be safely taken for granted that up to now the natives have learned only evil ways from the Europeans, and not good ones. This is not the fault of the natives, but rather of their European conquerors, who have taught them nothing but evil. They have brought arms and engines of destruction of all kinds to the colonies; they have sent out their worst and most brutal individuals as officials and officers; at the point of the sword they have set up a colonial rule that in its sanguinary cruelty rivals the despotic system of the Bolsheviks. Europeans must not be surprised if the bad example that they themselves have set in their colonies now bears evil fruit. In any case, they have no right to complain pharisaically about the low state of public morals among the natives. Nor would they be justified in maintaining that the natives are not yet mature enough for freedom and that they still need at least several years of further education under the lash of foreign rulers before they are capable of being, left on their own. For this "education" itself is at least partly responsible for the terrible conditions that exist today in the colonies, even though its consequences will not make themselves fully apparent until after the eventual withdrawal of European troops and officials.

Blacks in this country have picked up the worst lesson of European colonialism which is the use of the State to exploit others. It's part of our miseducation and continues to this day. If it appears that the State is working to benefit black people at the expense of others, that is good. When it appears to be oppressing black people, that is bad. Unfortunately, many blacks either do not realize or do not care that some of the State policies they advocate and defend (such as the war on drugs, minimum wages, or public education) are so detrimental to blacks.

2. One of my older black friends and I discuss occasionally discuss politics and he pointed out that when he was growing up, most blacks felt that only the Federal Government could save them from the vile racism that they faced daily from State and local governments. When the Federal Government intervened into the affairs of State governments on their behalf, they saw the Federal Government as their "savior".

3. Before FDR, most blacks voted Republican because 1) Lincoln was Republican and 2) the Democrats were pretty much all Klansmen. Republicans were still racist, but not nearly as vile as Democrats. During the New Deal, FDR created a lot of programs to help blacks which led to blacks switching to the Democratic Party and pledging allegiance to the Federal Government. The sad irony is that many of FDR's New Deal programs caused the very unemployment among blacks that other programs tried to fix.

4. Segregation forced blacks to be entrepreneurial. We had to build our own businesses, schools, etc. When segregation ended, a lot of blacks coveted what whites had with the assumption that it must be better if white people possessed it, lived there, went to school there, etc. Thus, black self-determination waned as blacks wanted what they perceived was the easier life that whites had.

5. In general, blacks do not understand economics. At college, I was the only black person, male or female, in most of my economics classes. When I was working on my MA in economics, there was one black female and another black male who was African in my classes. When I graduated, I was the only black who majored in economics in my class as I discovered during the graduation ceremonies hosted by the econ department. Although the economics I learned was deeply flawed, I still learned some good things that made me less trustful of government intervention, like the effects of minimum wages. Economic ignorance means that blacks are ripe for the picking by State propaganda and statist economists who want us to believe that the State must guide and correct the economy. It also means that blacks don't have a very good understanding of wealth creation. Granted most people of all races do not understand economics, but blacks are disproportionally affected given our economic status and, hence, more susceptible to populist demagoguery.

6. Make no mistake: any black person who is in favor of the war on drugs is morally defective, mentally defective, or both.-Robert Wicks. The war on drugs has turned many black neighborhoods into living hells. But since blacks have bought into all the propaganda about the "dangers" of drugs, blacks look to the State to correct a problem that it has created. I grew up in DC during the 1990s when it was the murder capital of the nation. Every time a child was killed in DC, blacks immediately asked for more police protection and stricter gun control laws. The original Black Panther Party and Malcolm X would weep today if they saw that black people today have given up their right to defend themselves and their families and put their faith in a government that they did not trust. Racist whites, using government power, fought hard to disarm free blacks and now free blacks are fighting hard to disarm themselves. The drug war has also helped destroy the black family because so many black males are in jail for possessing or distributing unapproved plants. The breakdown of the black family led to the State becoming in loco parentis.

7. The public education system has destroyed the minds of black youth more so than other races it seems. This is related to the destruction of the black family and the decline of self-determination among blacks. If blacks cannot think, then it is unlikely that blacks will be productive. And if blacks are not productive, we will look to the State for sustenance.

8. Welfare has assisted in destroying the black family and encouraging dependency on the State. It was bad enough when welfare was given to two-parent families, but it became even worse when, thanks to liberals, when the marriage requirement was dropped. It encouraged women to become pregnant to receive a check and discouraged them from marrying the father of their children.

9. Black solidarity-There is something about being black in this country that compels us to root for other black people for no other reason that they are black. I find myself doing this while watching sports. The Texas Rangers had a black manager so I rooted for the Rangers to win the World Series this year for no other reason than that. Perhaps this is because blacks were barred from doing so many things in this country for so many years, we just have a natural pride when a black person achieves something. We feel that such an accomplishment affects all of us. But while this many be silly when rooting for a baseball team, it can be downright deadly when aggrandizing State agents. Obama has not helped black people at all. He and Eric Holder have increased their prosecution of the drug war which will inevitably lead to more arrests of black males. His administration has been more aggressive regulating the economy so that there are even fewer opportunities for blacks entrepreneurs. He has not changed course from Bush on war or civil liberties, but blacks ignore this. Instead blacks are so happy that "one of us" became president, that we will forgive a multitude of sins.

I understand this thinking. As I mentioned above, the Federal Government became a "savior" for blacks and many blacks never thought they would live to see the day that a black person became president. There really is not much one can say to disabuse blacks of this belief because many blacks are so emotionally invested. As a side note, I should point out that Clarence Thomas and other black Republicans did not conform to the liberal black orthodoxy of dependency in the State. Thus, he was labeled a pariah, a sell-out, an uncle Tom, and is not considered a role model for blacks to emulate. I don't care much for him because he is a Supreme Court judge, but some of his opinions are good and he has read Hayek and Mises. But for some reason Colin Powell has been exempt from this odium. Perhaps because he was a war hero, but I don't really know.

10. The Black Liberal Orthodoxy-I don't know how this formed exactly, but I know that it exists. Blacks who are Republicans are not considered "black" by the orthodoxy. They are traitors. They don't want to help poor blacks. They don't care about the black race. This orthodoxy makes it challenging for blacks to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions about politics. Black academics are pretty much Marxists and they shape a lot of the thought of young black intellectuals. I should add that black conservatives are not much better. They are generally better on economics than liberals, but fall in line with conservative thinking on the drug war, police, and war in general.

11. Blacks do not understand the nature of the State. We have never been exposed to radical ideas like that of Bastiat or Spooner or Nock or Chodorov or Mises or Hayek or Rothbard or Hoppe. Since we don't understand the nature of the State, we don't realize how it is destroying our lives with the drug war and education and the minimum wage and regulations and welfare and warfare, etc. Basically no one has given us a radical option to consider. While it's true that Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and the Black Panther party were radical, they did not quite have a systematic understanding of liberty to present to blacks for consideration.

I realize that many of the reasons are also applicable to people of all races. Nevertheless, I think given the peculiar history of blacks in the U.S., one would think that there would be much more black animosity towards the U.S. government. But not only does such animosity does not exist, blacks actually support policies that make them worse off than other races such as the war on drugs and minimum wages. Black Americans are truly suffering from Stockholm's Syndrome writ large.

Comments

[fester]

There may be some changes happening. At my work the other day, I went into the break room and two black guys, whom I don't really know since they work in some other department, were talking about the federal reserve and how bad it is. I am not sure I ever remember hearing anything like that in the past.

[Junker]

"We have never been exposed to radical ideas like that of Bastiat or Spooner or Nock or Chodorov or Mises or Hayek or Rothbard or Hoppe."

Nor most people.