Why I Won’t Be Voting: The Real Reason Libertarians Don’t Matter

A FaceBook friend recently asked principled non-voting libertarians to explain their reasoning to her, to explain why – in this year of all years, when the Libertarian candidate actually has a shot at winning – why they are withholding their votes. It is a reasonable question, and I’m going to do my best to give her an answer, with the qualification that while I have considered myself a “principled” non-voter in the past, I now consider myself a pragmatic one.
My stance on voting changed with Ron Paul’s candidacy. I realized that I was willing to participate in a system I believed to be deeply wrong, if it meant making a change that could save thousands – possibly hundreds of thousands – of lives by curtailing war, ending the war on drugs and reining in some of the most unaccountable and harmful federal agencies. I took a lot of flak for it, from some principled libertarians for whom I have a great deal of respect. But I don’t regret my choice. I believed there was a real chance of accomplishing good – the bottom line for me was saving lives – by voting. I trusted Dr. Paul, based on a long track record of sticking to his principles, to do his best to accomplish those things, and I acted on those beliefs.
I see things a little differently now. I’ve had a closer look at how the system works and I believe I have a better understanding of why this system of electing representatives, especially at the federal level, can never be an effective way of achieving liberty.
To be clear, I am talking specifically about electing people to office. I am not dismissing the potential for local ballot initiatives to have an impact. In fact we’ve seen the fruits of such initiatives in the relaxing of medical marijuana laws across the country, which is a significant step for liberty. But ballot initiatives are a very different animal from elections for office, and an entire life form removed from those for the presidency.
Jeff Tucker wrote recently of an encounter he had had with someone high up in a Republican political campaign who attributed the absence of a libertarian angle in Republican campaigns to the fact that “libertarians don’t vote. Everyone knows that. That’s why they don’t matter.”
Jeff’s political beast was only half right. Yes, politicians running for office care about votes. But just as much as votes – indeed, as a critical means of securing votes – they care about money. They care about campaign contributions. And they care about maintaining the relationships with the people, the corporations, and the other institutions that will keep that money flowing to them. There is no law that can change this. Or, if you think there is, ask yourself who will be charged with enforcing that law, and who then controls that entity or entities.
Here’s the thing to understand: The things libertarians want – freedom, less govt. interference in markets & in personal choices, non-interventionist foreign policy… there is no money in these things for politicians. There are no big corporations and very few rich people who are willing to pay tons of money to politicians to refrain from intervening in markets, or to keep the troops home, or to let people ingest whatever substances they want to.
In fact, it is just the opposite: Corporations have long been in the business of paying politicians to intervene in markets on their behalf, to erect barriers to competition and in some cases to squash a particular competitor. Competition is wonderful for society as a whole. But it’s not so great if you’re one of the ones doing the competing. It’s hard, and sometimes you lose. Sometimes, if you’re big enough, it’s just easier to send some money in the direction of the people who can discover antitrust violations in your competitor’s business practices.
Understand that behind the empty campaign promises, politicians have essentially two things to offer to the people who support them: 1. Power, in the form of regulatory and other control, over competitors and others who may get in the way of a particular entity remaining comfortably profitable; 2. Money. Not their own money of course – your money, and my money. Taken from us in taxes, and in the continual devaluation of the government-issued money we all use. Politicians can give money to their supporters in the form of contracts for things like military equipment and public works projects, or in less direct ways, like mandating that government schools all stock epinephrine injectors that meet the same very specific product requirements that your device happens to meet.
And the list goes on. What is not on this list is liberty. Why? Because nowhere in this game is there an advantage to selling liberty. This point was driven home to me a few years ago when I asked a California senator’s policy consultant if his boss would consider relaxing business restrictions as a way to help parents of children with special needs create the services they need. He practically laughed at me. There was nothing in it for his boss or his boss’ supporters in reducing the very control that he uses to buy support.
In theory, politicians could offer liberty to their supporters. They could offer to cut back regulations, to end military aggression. But who is going to pay them for that? Again these are things that would benefit everyone, all of society. But the game of politics is not about benefitting all of society. And the widely accepted belief that it is is perhaps the most dangerous lie ever crafted.
In order for a seeker of liberty to win at this game, that person would have to compete with the campaign donations and other inducements made by military contractors, major pharmaceutical companies, oil companies – but these are all entities that have been made rich by virtue of government interventions and direct largesse. How can a liberty seeker hope to offer the same level of financial inducements to politicians as these people, when they are not also on the receiving end of the government slush?
This is the real reason that libertarians “don’t matter” in the political sphere. It’s not because they don’t vote. It’s because they don’t participate in the real game of politics – the interest-driven game that can never reward a player who wishes to dismantle the very engine of that game. People win at the game of politics by buying and selling political power over other people’s lives and resources. A player who wants to reduce that power will not find themselves rewarded within that game – they will find themselves spat out of it.
That’s why the political beasts are laughing at us. It’s not because we don’t vote – it’s because we don’t steal. And for these people – for people who never even question the morality of using state violence to get what they want – that is the biggest joke in the world.
This is why I don’t believe that it makes sense for a libertarian to vote. Voting is simply not a realm in which liberty wins. The obvious question then, from the person who wants me to vote, is: Why not do it anyway though? In case you’re wrong? What harm can it do?
Here’s the harm it does: By perpetuating the lie that voting can be an effective way of advancing liberty, it helps to direct people’s energy and focus away from efforts that actually do have the potential to advance liberty. And I don’t want to contribute to that.
I am not going to help to prop up the charade that “we” control our government, or that it represents “the people.” (What does that even mean? Which people? The ones who all disagree with each other?) Our government is owned by military contractors, pharmaceutical companies, and a host of other concerns that are all feeding from that government’s trough in one way or another. None of this is going to be changed by voting, and the longer anyone pursues voting as a solution, the longer they are not seeking real solutions.
There are people pursuing real solutions: People like Dale Brown of the Detroit Threat Management Center; Ross Ulbricht – who is now paying dearly for his contribution; Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning; the Tenth Amendment Center , for using the political process in the only ways it can be used to further the cause of liberty; Tom Woods, the Mises Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education, and everyone else who works to educate the public about the nature of markets and the nature of the state; every homeschooling mom and dad in the country. And there are many many more.
It occurs to me that there is something fundamentally disempowering about pursuing a solution that requires a majority of a population to go along with you. If your solution requires getting that many people to do what you are doing, then you don’t have a lot of power there. To me, it makes more sense to pursue solutions where I do have some power.
It also occurs to me that the greatest advances for human liberty and well-being have come about for the most part not because masses of people woke up and decided to do the right thing, but because of the work of a few individuals. That is where we have power: as individuals. Not as herders of livestock, trying to get everyone else to go along with our one solution. Certainly not as voters.
I’ve spent a long time listening to libertarians tell me that “this time” voting can help our cause. I remember being told that Ronald Reagan would usher in a new era of freedom, later being urged to vote for Ron Paul (the first time he ran, as a Libertarian), and later for every Libertarian candidate and a few Republican ones. So you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little reluctant to believe that “this time” it will be different. I know that there are things that are different this time – there always are. But the nature of the game has not changed, and it is not going to. It is simply not the realm in which liberty is won. The game in fact is the problem, and helping people to recognize this reality is a far more productive goal than is encouraging them to continue playing it.
Bretigne Shaffer's Truth and Fiction
Fiction and commentary about the beauty of civilization and the evils of the coercive state
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Rand Eastwood October 16, 2016 , 8:47 pm Vote1
Good stuff, Bretigne (as usual) 🙂
Justin Hale October 16, 2016 , 9:30 pm Vote2
But we have to take over the government in order to dismantle it.
Martin Brock October 16, 2016 , 10:38 pm Vote7
Strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Account deleted October 17, 2016 , 1:35 am Vote3
I would like your response to this idea: http://www.zerothposition.com/2016/10/11/strategic-libertarian-case-supporting-hillary-clinton/
I think a better move than not playing may be to intentionally vote for the worst candidate in an effort to collapse the system faster.
Gwenhwyfar Verloc October 29, 2016 , 2:20 am
I love the idea of Accelerationism, but I don’t think that individuals matter enough in mass politics to bother. She will win, or lose, whether you support her or not. As hinted at in the above article, mass politics bag huge coordination problems which tend to favour highly motivated special interests, and I can’t see that our support or objections to Hillary Clinton will actually matter compared to the billions of dollars and millions of paid shills either way.
If you actually want to improve your personal liberty, find the country where what you want to do is the most legal and move there.
Bretigne Shaffer November 4, 2016 , 9:01 pm Vote2
Hi Zeroth,
Sorry for the delay in responding here. Your piece actually deserves a full blog post as a response, and I may do that too. But for now, here (briefly), is why I do NOT support “hastening the collapse”:
1. When I look around me, I see a degree of ignorance/naivete about the nature of the state that is gobsmacking. No matter what terrible things the state does, most of the people around me seem to want more of the state to fix everything. So I find it hard to imagine that the next time things get really bad (and I do think they are going to get bad), very many people will put the blame where it belongs. Instead, as usual, “unrestrained capitalism” will be blamed for whatever economic ills come, and “terrorists” for any violence. I just don’t see the majority of Americans suddenly waking up and recognizing the source of their ills, no matter how bad things get.
2. I don’t agree that *violent* revolution is a solution to the state. There have been plenty of violent revolutions, plenty of states overturned, all of them resulting in the establishment of another state to replace the one overturned.
3. I believe that the kind of revolutions that will end the state will be both in technology, and in thinking. Creating a cryptocurrency that makes government control of the money supply impossible, for instance, would make a real dent in the state’s ability to survive. Removing children from the indoctrinating grasp of state schools makes another dent. Creating private alternatives to the things that people are convinced they need the state for (such as Dale Brown’s Detroit Threat Management, and other forms of private protection and defense) makes yet another. I may be wrong that these things alone will be enough, and I am fairly certain that there are other similar “revolutions” that I have not even thought of. But these things address the ROOT of the problem, while simple violent revolution does not.
4. I can’t bring myself to support something (hastening the collapse) that I know will harm people. You are correct that they are being harmed anyway – but not as a result of my choices. And I don’t have the prognosticatory power (if that’s a word) to know whether more will be harmed by hastening the collapse, or fewer. The whole exercise – speculating as to which scenario will lead to more death and destruction and coming up with an answer that can assuage one’s conscience – just smacks too much of the logic of warmongers. I prefer to be on the side of non-harming, and of working to build alternatives to the structures (“protection”, currency, welfare, etc.) that people are now dependent upon, so that when it *does* collapse, there is a soft cushion of freedom for people to fall onto.
Ken Jons-un October 17, 2016 , 1:36 am
@restonthewind this ‘cast covers your quote 😉 http://profcj.org/ep114/
K. Tyler Gay October 19, 2016 , 4:58 am
“It makes more sense to pursue solutions where I do have some power.” – curious on some examples where that might be? I think back to my own path to learning about liberty and becoming passionate about it: it was prior to the 2008 election and I was listening to Ron Paul. I voted for Dr Paul, and here I am, 8 years later and more dedicated to smaller government than I ever have been.
Could it be argued that rallying behind the only seemingly sane candidate during our crazy elections is a useful tool to “light a fire” in someone about the cause? Don’t get me wrong, Gary Johnson is no Ron Paul, but I have at least two friends and two family members I’ve been working on for years finally come around to seriously listening to the liberty message (outside of my own attempts to educate on the issue). I realize that doesn’t quite address the act of voting/not voting directly.
With all that said, this is one of the best, most coherent articles I’ve read in defense of not voting. Well done!
Account deleted October 20, 2016 , 3:05 am Vote5
Tom Woods made an episode about your article: http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-761-the-real-reason-libertarians-dont-matter-in-politics/
Bretigne Shaffer October 20, 2016 , 4:40 am Vote1
Thanks! Yes I saw that.
I’m away for the next few days, but will reply to your question above next week.
Martin Brock October 20, 2016 , 1:52 pm
You know you’ve arrived when Tom Woods devotes an episode of his podcast to your article.
Sam Spade October 22, 2016 , 11:37 pm Vote0
Zeroth might just be correct, who knows? If Clinton “wins” (a dubious “victory” indeed) it could very well hasten a final collapse, never again to be re-erected (not likely). Good luck to that.
I shall abstain from beans. I see that as the very best decision I can make to assure that I not be party to increasing the level of coercion into your life and your property and the well-being of those you love.
Randall Chester Saunders October 23, 2016 , 2:22 pm
@samarami
Had to refer to your link. Wasn’t sure whether you were referring to stoicism or Pythagoreanism.
Atlas... October 23, 2016 , 8:26 pm Vote1
Re: K. Tyler Gay October 19, 2016 , 4:58 am Reply “It makes more sense to pursue solutions where I do have some power.” – curious on some examples where that might be?
Ref: Why I Won’t Be Voting: The Real Reason Libertarians Don’t Matter
https colon //bretigne.liberty.me/why-i-wont-be-voting-the-real-reason-libertarians-dont-matter/
I responded in recent comments on liberty.me with what amounts to Why and How Voting WITH YOUR Feet DOES Matter.
More specifically I propose asking a question that Anarchists and Agorists and libertarians DO NOT ask and one that Statists WILL NOT ask.
Excerpted comment:
Indeed.“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model [ask the right question] that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller
During the 20th Century, governments murdered over 200 MILLION of their own citizens. The institution of Government is the largest terrorist organization known to mankind. The irrationality of Government has ALWAYS led to collapse of the societies and cultures build around them or conquered by them. I have seen many governments collapse even during my own lifetime. There is a massive historical example from which to draw some lessons. It occurred when the Imperial Roman Empire collapsed.[5]
When central governments collapse (and they ALL do collapse!), what is the nature of the agreements that individuals will make to provide for the security of themselves and their family?
It is a question that Anarchists and Agorists and libertarians DO NOT ask and one that Statists WILL NOT ask.
“What *IS* the ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM that Voluntary Groups of any size–two people or more–need to agree upon, in order to live together peacefully and productively?”
http://tinyurl.com/The-Bare-Minimum
Some Field Notes:
And then building on that such Power Skills as Harry Browne’s “How I Found Freedom in an UnFree World”; AND Darrell Becker’s Silent Non Violent Mediation and Communication merged with Trivium Method and Progress by Incremental Improvement and Prototyping (PIIP™), such that insights and strategies and Work-It-Outs are facilitated and allowed to surface and come together.
In so doing that they are Spontaneuosly more productive and profitable and Orderly on many UNpredictable levels than could be expected or dictated by either of the individuals wedded to social engineering, command control, group traps, petitioning or converting or demanding equal effects from unequal causes etc. It makes a difference who you surrounded yourself with!! [3]
The question becomes how do I get out of dreaming and design and start to build and use a power tool to FILTER those who already subscribe to Philosophy of Liberty that I CAN trade with, as is, today, now?
I have been doing what I call Work-It-Outs I.E. PIIP™ing that–Progress via Incremental Improvement and Prototyping–Indeed, How I Freed Myself.
https://connect.liberty.me/how-i-freed-myself/
Ref: https://connect.liberty.me/the-people-dont-know-their-true-power/
Sam Spade October 23, 2016 , 9:59 pm
“…That’s why the political beasts are laughing at us. It’s not because we don’t vote – it’s because we don’t steal. And for these people – for people who never even question the morality of using state violence to get what they want – that is the biggest joke in the world….”
“Ouch!” as our friend, Mr. Tucker, would say. But he intends to involve himself in the system one more time, apparently. I’ll repeat a quote from my friend, Mark, that I posted on Tucker’s site:
“…Working within the system
means to become a part of the system.
When you go into the voting booth,
the only meaningful significance
that your action will have
is to show that one more person
supports the state…”
~Mark Davis
From Be Free, by Mark Davis July 10, 2005.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/davis_m/davis1.html
Wilton Alston October 28, 2016 , 2:43 pm
Thanks, Bretigne! Of course, we agree. On the one hand, what puzzles me is how pervasive the belief in voting continues to be, even among libertarians. On the other hand, it should not puzzle me. All I need to do is think back to the time, not all that long ago, when I believed just as strongly in voting as I now believe in NOT voting. My current thinking is this: I do not want to control–or justify someone else’s control by my participation–a system that is evil at its very core. A system that has, as you so wonderfully illustrated, generally one set of purposes: the off-loading of responsibility for evil and the acquisition of power and money. Consider: If I could become Grand Dragon of the KKK and thereby possibly reduce lynchings by half, should I? I think not. This is because I would, by virtue of my position, be authorizing and approving the other half!
Dave Scotese October 28, 2016 , 5:54 pm Vote3
Someone asked for specific examples. There are fifteen at the page to which I linked, which were penned by a man in an open letter to Harry Browne when he ran for president.
Sam Spade October 28, 2016 , 10:20 pm
Your article was excellent, Bretigne — and it elicited many well-thought-out comments.
A phrase struck me in your opening sentence that, to you and many other observers, perhaps seems trifling — almost petty:
“…why they are withholding their votes…”
It’s the use of the collective possessive pronoun “their” pertaining to “votes”. We see that in many collectivist statements and queries: “have-you-paid-‘your’-taxes”, “have-you-gotten-‘your’-flu-shot”, etc etc. Words used for social engineering — proselytizing the scams.
Yours is by no means a collectivist essay, Bretigne, so please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here.
First, I haven’t voted in a political election since 1964 — over 50 years ago. I worked arduously in the political “campaign” of Barry Goldwater that year. And that was the year my eyes truly began to open. It was the beginning of a long, philosophical journey that has not yet been completed — it is ongoing. Your essay, and Jeff Tucker’s declaration he will “vote” in the upcoming political bread-and-circus event, are part of the journey. Here a little, there a little.
Second, I came to see that all polls or elections having to do with monopoly force of arms will elicit gangster-ism by their very natures. It matters not who’s “running for office”, it’s unavoidable. There is no way of “winning” political power without garnering about you a host of unwelcome bedfellows.
And when you sleep with big dogs, you’re going to have yourself some big fleas.
In Goldwater’s case it was, among many other unsavory elements, blatant racists and supremacists and xenophobes. Neither Trump nor Clinton nor Johnson nor Stein nor McMullin nor any other “contenders” will “win” without attracting whatever “community” you’d like to name — whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asiatics, (to put nice, generic names to some questionable groups). You must get their “support”. Women, men, gays, bi’s, pro-life, pro-choice, cross-dressers — the whole schmear. And it must be done long before any general election — even before the phenomena referred to as “primaries”.
I firmly concluded that I have no vote (in the same manner of thinking that “I have no flu shot”). It’s just not a matter of “withholding” something that I “have”. It’s a matter of my changing my manner of thinking away from collectivism and toward a genuine individualist mindset — anarchy.
One major turn in my journey occurred when I stumbled upon a work you’ve probably not heard of: the late Delmar England’s “Insanity As the Social Norm“. It’s the type of work that if, like me (or like I was at the time), you’re suspended in a rather static libertarianism, you’re going to read a few lines, throw it down in disgust; pick it up later, resolve to study what he’s saying, throw it down again in disgust.
You won’t like having your idols smashed. England does that well. You won’t want to completely change your writing and speaking vernacular. England insists that, too, must be accomplished if you are ever to be free — and/or effective in sharing liberty and freedom with the world about you. You can’t preach freedom while expressing slavery.
Free people have no vote.
Sam
Bretigne Shaffer November 4, 2016 , 9:05 pm Vote1
Thanks Sam – and thanks for the link to the Delmar England piece. I plan to read it.
My dad also worked on Goldwater’s campaign. He was a delegate from Nebraska. That experience is what turned him into an anarchist!
Gwenhwyfar Verloc October 29, 2016 , 2:28 am Vote1
I agree with most of what you say, it really feeds into my misanthropic bias anyway. Before Ron Paul or any of that came on my radar I had decided that we are an ultra-minority living with herdish morons who are indifferent to the fate of out-group and would prefer to continuously fail rather than have to make their own decisions or be unpopular.
The problem is not so much politicians, or cops, or religious cults, is the psychological infirmity of the masses.
Josh Brisby November 5, 2016 , 6:01 am
Excellent article! Thank you for your well-written thoughts.
Bretigne Shaffer November 5, 2016 , 7:18 pm Vote0
Thanks!