I’m no libertarian. I believe fundamentally in the freedom of the individual, but I do not think the state need always be the bad guy in this equation. For instance, I quite like having an NHS. Furthermore, I feel that having a health service makes me more, not less free as an individual. The fact that I don’t have to worry about going bankrupt in my old age if I happen to get ill at the wrong time is important to me. As is the fact that should I wish to pack in my job and start my own small business, I can do so without risking not only my own wellbeing but that of my children as well.
But as a liberal, I recognise certain libertarian instincts. And thinking about these in depth has led me to believe that while being a liberal and a nationalist at the same time is very difficult, being a libertarian and a nationalist at the same time is completely impossible. Why is this important at the moment? Because Nigel Farage and indeed his whole United Kingdom Independence Party project sets out to be both at once. And I think the project may be doomed for this reason, or at very least the problems we are seeing at present can be traced back to this paradox.
Within libertarianism, the individual is all encompassing and the state the enemy. National governments should not even exist in this mindset. There should be a minimal, preferably as local as possible, group that polices towns and regions and the only reason to have a national construct at all is to provide military protection. Whereas to a nationalist, the nation state is everything. It is worth the individual sacrificing the lives of himself and his children for. National identity is the most important thing in the world, beyond business, beyond the well being of the family unit even in the nationalist ideology.
Let’s take a practical example of where this conflict becomes apparent. Say I run a small business. If I were a libertarian, I would want to hire the best people at the cheapest rate and such an equation would be my only consideration. Why should I begin to care where the people who work for me originally came from? I only care about my own business and I should be allowed to hire whomever I like with no restrictions from the pesky, should-be-done-away-with-anyhow government. But as a nationalist, I would be called upon to put British jobs before anything else. If the nation state is worth everything then it must come before my little business, surely.
So in the Europe debate it plays out like so: a true libertarian would argue that Romanians and Bulgarians coming to Britain to work is the beauty of the market on display. They get more money than they would at home, and I get to hire them at a cheaper rate than the locals. Everyone wins. Except the locals, obviously. But who cares? They have nothing to do with me, right? As for the argument that these people will mooch off the public services paid for with my taxes, well, as a libertarian I would think that all public services, apart from the police and the military, should be done away with as a matter of course. So no conflict there then.
I’m being harsh on UKIP by singling them out at the start of this piece; this is a fundamental problem for almost every right wing party across the globe. Because the free market simply doesn’t care about national borders. In fact, they are normally a great hindrance to it. Does the Right care more about neo-liberal economics or more about keeping immigration down in the name of nationalism? For too long, they have been allowed to get away with playing both sides of the fence. So I’m calling them on it.
If the British military and justice system exist at all their role is to serve the interests of the British people. Similarly, the national government who make our laws and command the army must all so serve the British people. It does not exist to serve the Romanian people.
You may think we should have an EU state with our laws, police and military at the European level. Its just personal preference but most people in Britain don’t see themselves as a European. If the EU was our state, you still wouldn’t be acting in the interests of the Russian people so unless you can create a world government, the arguments in this article would apply. According to Nigel, there are people in the EU who see that as the future but most people can’t see it working.
Any market needs some basic rules to allow it to operate. It is a role of the government to decide what these rules should be and their goal some be economic efficiency. With a developed economy, the laws can get complicated, such as competition law but even basic laws, for example against theft, only exist for the same reason. If allowing theft in society was efficient, the cultural value that tells us it is wrong, would never have developed.
There isn’t much of an argument for restricting trade because economic theory tells us that trade is beneficial to both countries, even if you have winners and losers in both. Where ever you draw the boarder, trade is good for both sides.
The free movement of labour is also efficient meaning that the welfare gain to the small business owner plus the welfare gain to the Romanian exceed the loss to the British worker. If you believe in the EU state this is the correct policy.
However, from a British point of view, the making the Romanian better off is not a policy objective. There is no guarantee that the extra profit the business owner makes, is enough to compensate for the loss of income to the workers. On top of concerns about total income, the open boarder policy has the effect of redistributing income from the low skilled workers to business owners which many see as undesirable.
He is not saying a company should not hire Europeans, companies should maximise profits within the law as is their duty to shareholders. In the same way, the government’s duty is to make sure those laws are the best for the British people.
Nigel just applies his values of personal liberty at a UK level and I agree with him. If I were banned from certain towns in the UK because of my religious beliefs, I’d be very strongly against it. However, the fact I can’t visit Mecca as a non-Muslim doesn’t trigger my libertarian “instinct” in the same way. I’m not for it or against it. Their country, their rules.
That is why states need to exist, because the laws need to reflect the values of the nation. I’m sure the Saudi people feel equal as strongly about Mecca as we do about personal liberty so making common laws with the UK would never work.
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Good article, and I think you’re right.
UKIP did describe itself as a “Libertarian” party around the time I joined in 2010 and indeed did have many self described Libertarians in the party, prominently in the youth wing – Young Independence. I appreciated some ideas and still do but Libertarianism is too far out an ideology that, on the whole, wouldn’t be accepted by mist voters and, really, probably wouldn’t work to a desirable effect. I always thought UKIP was a centre-right party with a strong Libertarian streak in it – Nigel did agree with me when I mad this point.
I think of UKIP as a diverse mix of ideologies as all centre-right partys are: a broad coalition of social conservatives, classical liberals, some Libertarians still, free marketers, small stateists and individualists. The younger members tend to be more socially liberal (as I see myself). Now we are picking up old Labour voters too, so this is an interesting mix and we’ll have to see how this develops as the party grows more.
Of course, I do feel there is a home in UKIP for those of a more classical liberal persuasion and this is where I’d like to see the party steer towards.
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I don’t know if this is a problem of semantics or not, but I definitely disagree with the premise of this post.
As it happens I love my country, her culture and her history. My identity as a Briton is important to me and a point of pride. I’m also happy that I don’t allow this alone to make me malicious in any way. I ALSO have a very strong belief in the fundamental inalienable natural rights of all humans and I would always prioritise freedom over security. In this way I’m ideologically the traditional Englishman and an overall moderal right-winger. After all, traditional classical liberal values are and were taken as a point of patriotic pride.
I recognise that there are certain things that are contradicted in each ideology but this is why I think they go so well together. You see, nationalism keeps libertarianism in a functional rational state that can work in an individual nation. At the core, libertarianism is pure and essential. But the more broadly it is applied, the less in touch with human reality it becomes and the more it starts to undermine things I’d rather we kept such as borders, culture, tradition, homogeneity, etc.
“Whereas to a nationalist, the nation state is everything.”
Not the nation STATE, but the nation. This is how you can be a patriot without supporting the government or even the system of government. As far as I see it, nationalism is for recognising the validity of the nation and it’s native people, not the authority of government. As a British patriot/nationalist, I would say that loyalty to the Queen and her successors is important but this is fine since their authority is limited to emergency powers.
“National identity is the most important thing in the world, beyond business, beyond the well being of the family unit even in the nationalist ideology.”
I disagree, I’d say a proper nationalist should value the family first, your race/compatriots second and your nation third.
If only UKIP were national libertarians (or whatever it’s called). They’re close enough but more vague than I’d like.
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You have misdefined nationalism as socialism n liberalism as anarchy. Thus, your premises are wrong.
One could have a republic within a nation or racial group. The republic could be liberal. This would be easy.
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Depends if you see the nation as synonymous with the state. It’s not. the nation are the people who surround you. the state are the people who govern you. How about instead of calling them nationalist, call them localist. Does that make it easier? Localist individualists.
You can be nationalistic (if not nationalist by your definition) but still for personal liberty and a small state.
Whether UKIP are successfully small state nationalists or not, I don’t know.
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