Libertarianism in action: violence in Chile

From the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money:

“It’s well known how right-wing economists have long seen Chile as their personal playground to play out their fantasies of austerity politics backed by authoritarian violence. The Chicago Boys were the famed University of Chicago-trained economists who advised Augusto Pinochet during and after the 1973 coup.
[…]
The center of that shifted from Chicago to George Mason, which has become synonymous with bought academia of the New Gilded Age, funded by the Koch Brothers and other far-right extremists.”
[…]
When the histories of the New Gilded Age are written, the horrific impact of right-libertarians taking over various parts of George Mason is going to be a major part of those books.”

This is all spot on, of course. But what prompted this particular post at LGM was this incident involving an American libertarian, John Corbin, now living and championing 'neo-liberalism' in Chile. As the Washington Post explains:

“John Cobin, a U.S.-born economist and former member of a neo-Confederate group, is so passionate about a free market — and about Chile — that he has devoted the past two decades to marrying the two.
But Cobin’s unusual story took a violent turn this weekend, when he drove through one of the many crowds that have paralyzed Chile in recent weeks as they protest income inequality and a high cost of living.
The 56-year-old was arrested Sunday, police said, after he repeatedly fired a gun into a crowd in the beachside town of Reñaca, seriously injuring at least one person.
[…]
The shocking incident underscores the violence that Chilean protesters have been facing at the hands of their government, and occasionally other civilians. As of Friday, at least 20 people have been killed and about 1,600 have been injured, according to human rights observers, as crowds face water cannons and tear gas and pellets are shot in close range.
The protests erupted in mid-October, when student-led strikes against a metro fare increase quickly widened into massive anti-government demonstrations that blocked off streets and set subway stations aflame. Even as the Chilean government reshuffled its cabinet and increased taxes on the wealthy, crowds have continued to rail against decades of neoliberal economic policies, including the privatization of water, highways and the pension system.
It was those policies that first made Chile such an attractive destination for staunch free-market Americans like Cobin.
[…]
In countless interviews and letters to the editor, he also expressed a particular admiration for the anti-communist policies of Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s disgraced former military dictator.”

This lovely John Cobin fellow is like the Platonic form of a libertarian nutjob (but I repeat myself). It’s as though a caricature of a libertarian economist from a left-wing comic came alive and moved to Chile.

To paraphrase Nietzsche: “‘Libertarianism’ and ‘authoritarianism’—those rhyme, those more than rhyme.”

Nonsensical Rifle Addiction

This video—a segment within the Dutch comedy show ‘Sunday with Lubach’—does a brilliant job of conveying just how insane the rest of the civilised world regards the American obsession with guns. And it is quite funny as well. (The narration of the video is in English—in fact the narrator sounds a lot like Patrick Stewart, at least to my ears.)

Of course, a standard reply from those within the United States who worship firearms is to declare that the right to own lethal weapons is necessary for ‘freedom’. But this is in fact wrong—widespread gun ownership actually reduces citizens’ overall freedom.

Guns versus freedom of speech

The nature of freedom and its social preconditions is one of my central research interests. Most of my past academic work on this topic has been on the role of ‘money’ (economic resources) and education (intellectual resources) in facilitating citizens’ effective freedom. But of course citizens’ freedom can be constrained or expanded by other things. In the case of the United States (and pretty much only the United States, at least amongst Western liberal democratic societies), widespread civilian ownership of firearms—including the right to freely carry them in public places—greatly constrains most citizens’ freedom.

This view is contrary to the mainstream American view concerning this topic. Many people on both sides of the ‘gun control debate’ within the United States agree that allowing citizens to own firearms enhances their freedom—the question (as it’s generally framed) is whether this freedom is sufficiently important or valuable to outweigh the foreseeable costs for citizens’ health, safety, and lives. Proposals to limit or regulate citizens’ access to and use of firearms are justified by American gun control advocates, for the most part, on grounds of public health and safety.

This way of framing the issue is mistaken. It unjustifiably cedes intellectual ground to firearms advocates. Permitting anyone to own and carry in public places deadly firearms decreases the overall freedom of the citizenry; it does so by increasing the overall level of private, arbitrary coercive power (via threats of force and exercises of force by individual citizens) within society. Or so I have argued in the past.

I’m pleased to see others articulating something like this way of construing the relationship between firearms and freedom. Focusing on freedom of speech, at Slate Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern have great piece entitled, “The Guns Won: Charlottesville showed that our First Amendment jurisprudence hasn’t reckoned with our Second Amendment reality.”

Here are some of the key points from their article:

“When demonstrators plan to carry guns and cause fights, does the government have a compelling interest in regulating their expressive conduct more carefully than it’d be able to otherwise? This is not any one judge’s fault. It is a failure of our First Amendment jurisprudence to reckon with our Second Amendment reality.
Charlottesville proves that this issue is hardly theoretical anymore.”
…
“This conflict between the right to bear arms and the right to free speech is nothing new, but the sudden surge in white nationalist activism has made it painfully obvious that, in the public square, the right to bear arms tends to trump the right to free speech.”
…
“The result is an alarming form of censorship: Nonviolent demonstrators lose their right to assemble and express their ideas because the police are too apprehensive to shield them from violence. The right to bear arms overrides the right to free speech. And when protesters dress like militia members and the police are confused about who is with whom, chaos is inevitable.”
…
“It’s perfectly reasonable for courts to consider the speech-suppressing potential of guns when evaluating a city’s efforts to keep the peace. And it will be perfectly lethal if they fail to take the Second Amendment reality into account, as they reflect upon the values we seek to protect with the First.”

The core problem posed for freedom of speech by guns is expressed succinctly by Siva Vaidhyanathan in his piece for the New York Times (“Why the Nazis Came to Charlottesville”): “There is no ‘free speech’ if anyone brandishes firearms to intimidate those they despise. You can’t argue with the armed.”

An armed society is an unfree society.

A creative way to address the prospect of guns in the classroom

In 2017 it looks like some Wisconsin GOP legislators will be pushing (yet again) for a law that would permit people to bring concealed firearms into campus buildings within the University of Wisconsin system. This is a terrible idea that just won't die (at least not while Republicans remain the enthusiastic thralls of the National Rifle Association).

Professor Larry Shapiro (UW-Madison), however, is planning on pursuing a rather innovative strategy for dealing with this problem (should the proposed bill eventually become law). He's preparing two syllabi for his "Introduction to Philosophy" course. The first syllabus includes a wide variety of topics, among them things like whether God exists, the moral permissibility or impermissibility of abortion, and conceptions of social justice. The second syllabus eliminates those topics and replaces them with philosophical debates less likely to provoke strong reactions in students.

Why the two syllabi? Prof. Shapiro explains:

The reason for the second syllabus is this. The topics on the first syllabus that get my students so excited are also the topics that arouse the most passion. And, if some of our state legislators have their way, passion is the last thing I’ll want to provoke in my students. You see, my campus may soon become a concealed carry campus. This means that while I am presenting an argument in favor of a right to abortion, or against the existence of God, or in favor of tax policies that would strip these students of their inheritances (I also present arguments on the other side of these issues), I will at the same time be worrying that a depressed or disturbed or drunk or high college student is in the audience, armed, and fed up with what I or fellow students are advocating. 

It’s of course obvious that gun violence in my classroom is far more probable given the legal presence of guns than not, and even if the danger remains remote, why should I bother to keep on my syllabus those issues that promise most likely to incite gun violence? Why teach topics that increase the probability, however small, of provoking an unstable but legally carrying shooter? 

So, my plan is this. On the first day of the semester I will explain to my students that I have prepared two syllabi for the course. One they’ll find much more interesting than the other, but we’ll adopt it only if I receive a promise from the students that they will not carry weapons into my classroom.

(Read the whole piece by Prof. Shapiro here. [Hat tip to the Daily Nous.])

I formulated a less creative strategy to deal with this problem when the idea was proposed last time (during autumn 2015): (a) switch all my lower-level undergraduate courses to online only; (b) hold my office hours in an off-campus coffee shop with a 'no guns' policy; and (c) request all students in my seminars (mainly graduate students and 4th-year undergraduates) not bring guns to our meetings (I would trust that students that mature would honour this request). But perhaps I'll adapt a version of Prof. Shapiro's strategy as well.

(In an earlier post at this blog, I explained why the possession of firearms actually renders everyone within American society less free.)

Guns versus liberty

In light of the horrific mass shooting last weekend in Orlando, I thought that I would link to a post I wrote last October: “An armed society is an unfree society.” It expresses (more or less) the reasons why I think that easy access to firearms reduces the freedom of citizens (in addition to all the other harms it causes with respect to loss of life, health, etc.). In other words, the debate over gun control in the US should not be construed (as it generally is now) as a debate between 'freedom' on one side and 'security' (or life) on the other. Rather, it's really a debate about the just distribution of freedom. And the gun control side is the one that promotes greater overall freedom for citizens.

On this topic, well worth watching is this hilarious rant about guns from Australian comedian Jim Jefferies (from 2014).

Armed students versus academic freedom

In an earlier post I explained that an armed society is an unfree society. By that I meant, roughly, that the more common guns are in a society, the more often people will be subject to coercive threats from others. Since coercive threats restrict individuals' freedom (even if we understand freedom simply as what Isaiah Berlin famously termed 'negative liberty'), it follows that the more armed a society is, the less free overall that society will be. In explaining this rather basic point, I unpacked the famous saying, "an armed society is a polite society." Why is such a society 'polite'? The answer is obvious: because of fear. And a fearful society simply is an unfree society.

That post was motivated in part by a recent proposal within Wisconsin to allow students to carry guns into campus buildings within the University of Wisconsin system (including, of course, the university at which I work). Fortunately, that insane proposal did not become law (or at least not this legislative session; I doubt that the NRA will give up its lobbying efforts anytime soon).

Public universities in Texas were less fortunate. Starting this summer, public universities within Texas will be forced to allow students to carry guns into classrooms and other campus areas (if those students have 'conceal carry' permits). Naturally, most faculty members are deeply opposed to this for the obvious reason that the presence of guns within classrooms invariably will chill speech. This point is nicely expressed by Elliott Hannon at Slate:

"The Republican-run Texas state legislature voted last year to allow students to carry concealed handguns into classrooms, dorms, just about anywhere on campus. If that seems like a bad idea to you, imagine how you’d feel if you were a professor. There’s nothing quite like the free exchange of ideas in an armed art history 301 seminar. The academic chilling effect seems pretty obvious for students and faculty."

Hannon is commenting on this slide displayed at a recent meeting of the faculty senate of the University of Houston on how professors should adapt to the new law:

I cannot comprehend how anyone could think that allowing guns into classrooms could be helpful or not have a deleterious effect on pedagogy and academic freedom. But as the (always excellent) Charles Pierce wryly observed: "It'll liven up that Philosophy 101 class, I'll give you that."

AAUP statement against campus carry laws

The American Association of University Professors has come out with a very strong statement opposing 'campus carry' laws (such as the one currently being considered in Wisconsin, which I mentioned in my previous post).

The statement emphasizes this key point:

Colleges and universities … regard the presence of weapons as incompatible with their educational missions. College campuses are marketplaces of ideas, and a rigorous academic exchange of ideas may be chilled by the presence of weapons. Students and faculty members will not be comfortable discussing controversial subjects if they think there might be a gun in the room.

For the full statement go here.

An armed society is an unfree society

[Image from here.]

Having decided that they haven’t quite ruined the University the Wisconsin system enough yet, the Republicans in Madison are now are considering a bill that would allow students (if they have ‘conceal and carry’ permits) to bring guns into campus buildings.  Students sitting in classrooms during lectures and seminars, or in offices meeting with professors, may soon be packing heat.

This is a horrible idea, one manifestly harmful to the educational mission of universities, including especially the free and vigorous exchange of controversial ideas and views.  Moreover, it is premised on false beliefs about the role of guns in reducing violent crime, and a misguided conception of the relation between guns and freedom in society.

It sometimes is claimed by American gun advocates (including the two legislators pushing this bill) that the presence of guns reduce violent crimes.  The reasoning seems to be that guns act as deterrents to criminals and/or can be used by ‘good guys’ to stop ‘bad guys’ (to use some technical terms favoured by the NRA) in the process of harming or killing innocent people.

That this claim is false should be obvious to anyone who bothers to look at other liberal democratic societies.  The United States has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and over fifteen times as many as Australia and New Zealand.  The reason for this is clear: “The US is an outlier on gun violence because it has way more guns than other developed nations.”  An American gun advocate might acknowledge this fact, but claim that guns nonetheless reduce the overall homicide rate.  That is, perhaps once homicides not caused by firearms are taken into account, it turns out that the United States has a lower homicide rate than, say, Canada thanks to the deterrent effect of all those guns.  But this is not the case either.  The homicide rate of the United States is three times that of Canada.  Again, this should be no surprise.  It’s a lot easier to kill people with guns than with hockey sticks.  Simply put, the idea that citizens legally permitted to carry concealed firearms are an effective force in reducing homicides is a myth.

Guns are inherently threatening.  If students are allowed to bring guns into classrooms, many other students will feel less safe.  It already is quite difficult to help students feel comfortable enough to discuss freely – and disagree openly with each other over – contentious issues like race, gender, and economic inequality, or the moral permissibility or impermissibility of abortion and euthanasia.  The presence of guns lurking in the background of future such discussions invariably will make them even more difficult.

The debate over gun control, at least within the United States, often is cast as a conflict between the values of ‘freedom’ and ‘welfare’ (or security).  Even defenders of robust gun control frequently characterize the debate in this way.  This is a mistake.  The debate instead should be construed as one concerning the distribution of freedom.  Should the freedom of gun owners take priority over the freedom of citizens in general?

The science fiction author Robert Heinlein once famously declared, “An armed society is a polite society.” But the reason such a society is ‘polite,’ of course, is fear.  (The second sentence of the Heinlein quote is: “Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”)  The reality is that an armed society is an unfree society.

The threat of gun violence is coercive.  While easy access to firearms may expand the scope of (what the political theorist Isaiah Berlin famously called) the ‘negative liberty’ of those who like to carry around guns (such citizens can do something that they could not do, or not do as easily, in a society in which access to firearms was restricted), it restricts the scope of all citizens’ negative liberty.  It does so by introducing a coercive threat into all citizens’ public interactions.

To connect my discussion here with my previous post, a society in which guns are widely available is one that more closely resembles Thomas Hobbes’s ‘state of nature’ than do societies in which guns are rare.*  That is, making guns readily available creates a more miserable and insecure condition, one in which everyone becomes a potential threat to everyone else.  Such a society is less free overall; its citizens face a greater range of interferences (potential threats) than citizens in unarmed societies.

Of the four countries that I’ve lived in as an adult – Canada (where I’m from), England, Ireland, and the United States – I’ve felt the least free within the U.S., despite its self-conception as ‘the land of the free.’  And the prevalence of guns in the U.S. is one of the main reasons for this.  In Canada, if an argument breaks out in a coffee shop, a pub, or on a street, I think: “Ugh – How annoying.”  In the U.S., when the same sort of thing happens, I think: “Bloody hell! What if one of those idiots has a gun?!”  And I flee.

Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioural medicine at Stanford University, describes precisely this phenomenon: “In the U.S., whenever there is a angry argument, whether over a traffic accident, someone being fired from their job, or for that matter over nothing of any consequence, it always lurks in one’s mind that someone could have a gun and could start shooting.”  He describes this as “the oppressive psychological weight of America’s gun violence,” and explains how (perversely) this psychological weight “is part of what makes some gun owners scared of gun control (If I don’t have a gun, how will I defend myself against those who do?).”  (Notice the paradigmatically Hobbesian reasoning of the gun owner described by Humphreys.)

And now some Wisconsin legislators want to allow guns into university buildings, including classrooms.  Classrooms in which controversial ideas are debated, and feelings can become intense.  Classrooms in which professors sometimes have to give students bad grades.

Well, at least explaining Hobbes's version of the state of nature will be a bit easier in my political philosophy courses if the legislators who cravenly are doing the bidding of the NRA in Madison get their way…

[* Allow me address a potential nitpick for any Hobbes scholars who might be reading this.  The state of nature, according to Hobbes, is a state of complete freedom, as there is no political authority to establish and impose laws upon persons.  But if we employ Berlin’s notion of negative liberty – according to which, roughly, interferences to potential courses of action count as restrictions on one’s freedom, irrespective of whether they are brought about by the state or by non-state agents – then people are quite unfree within the state of nature, as they face all kinds of interferences on what they can do, namely, continual threats from others.  It is this fear of others that compels rational individuals within the state of nature to act in certain ways (namely, to take pre-emptive actions against others whenever possible).  This is why within the state of nature there is “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”  If we employ something like Berlin’s concept of negative liberty, then, the Hobbesian state of nature is a radically unfree condition.]