Reality's Golden Mean
The Case for Libertarian Politics and Conservative
Values
by Nelson Hultberg
July 30, 2005
[ Softcover, 330 pages ]
Please note: Reality's Golden Mean should be out sometime
in the next year. If you are interested in receiving a notice when
it is released, please email your name and postal mail address to: nhultberg@afr.org and
request to be put on our notification list.
Brief Summary of the Book
Ever since the early sixties, the dream of many on the political
right has been to unite libertarians and constitutional conservatives
against the real enemy on the left. For only in this way can the
forces of freedom become strong enough to check the relentless advance
of modern day statism. Reality's Golden Mean puts forth
a blueprint that should finally bring about this long awaited unification.
RGM is much more, though, than a paean to the libertarian
and conservative movements in America. It is a paradigm shifting
book that will dramatically change the way we look at political theory
and the idea of a free society. What it says will linger in readers'
minds for the rest of their lives.
The book is meant for both the scholar and the educated general
reader. It is a composite of five essays dealing with Aristotle's
famous Law of the Mean, i.e., Golden Mean, and how it applies to
the great questions of politics, economics and ethics. It fills a
very important void in the literature of political philosophy because
it formulates a theory of political organization around which both
libertarians and conservatives can coalesce.
It is important to understand that this means genuine "constitutional" conservatives
rather than today's "neo" conservatives. Neo-conservatives are vehement
big government advocates. Many of them are ex-socialists who started
calling themselves conservatives in the 1970s, but have never ceased
in their advocacy of massive centralized government and an overthrow
of the classical liberal order that spawned the American Republic
in 1787.
Neo-conservatives (such as William Kristol, Bill Buckley,
Newt Gingrich, etc.) are pretenders to the idea of a free society
and its philosophical requisites. They have capitulated to the collectivist's
fundamental morality and thus are destroying what our country is
supposed to be all about. On the other hand, constitutional conservatives
(such as Thomas Sowell, Clyde Wilson, Walter Williams, Ron Paul,
etc.) support a strictly limited government, i.e., the original concept
of freedom upon which America was founded.
The political philosopher, Frank Meyer, attempted in the 1960s to
bring about a unification of libertarians and constitutional conservatives,
but regrettably was unsuccessful. His allegiance to National Review's bellicose
foreign policy (which has morphed into today's neo-conservative drive
for "world hegemony") was the main reason for his failure. Since
then the two movements have gone off in their own direction and consequently
have dissipated their power.
No successful challenge to authoritarian statism can ever
take place, however, without a unity of these two political ideologies. This
unity is the crucial missing ingredient of today's Freedom Movement.
What has been lacking since the beginning of our cause is a rational
theory that can bring these two groups together to restore the
original Republic of states that Jefferson and the Founders envisioned. Reality's
Golden Mean accomplishes this theoretical unification.
Chapter Outlines
Chapter One -- Rights, Equality and the Vital Center
The purpose here is to explain Aristotle's "doctrine of the mean" to
the reader and how it can be used to judge the propriety of such
things as political systems. Much of Chapter One is devoted to demonstrating
that the doctrine of the mean is a natural law instilled into reality
that can be used theoretically to establish what the "universal political
good" is for man. The major theme of the book is tied up in establishing
this unknown truth. Our modern academics and media pundits are
totally confused as to the mean's applicability and universality
in our lives. When properly understood, the doctrine of the mean
demonstrates convincingly that the true political ideal is what the
Founding Fathers attempted to establish -- a system of limited government
based upon objective law, i.e., equal rights under the law.
It is only at the center of the spectrum (the mean) that objective
law can be found, and it is only a limited constitutional republic
that can achieve this mean. All other systems to the authoritarian
left or to the anarchistic right are based, to some degree or another,
on arbitrary law out of which come eventually tyranny and
chaos. The fundamental values of civilization -- freedom, order,
and justice -- cannot exist without a system of objective law; and
objective law cannot exist if a country strays away from the "vital
center" of the spectrum, i.e., the Golden Mean.
Chapter Two -- The Great Moral Ideal
Ayn Rand's fundamental message in her 1957 mega-novel, Atlas
Shrugged, was that all dictatorial political systems have their
root in the moral code of altruism -- a code of servility and sacrifice
practiced for thousands of years and modernized by the 19th century
French philosopher Auguste Comte. Altruism, Rand maintained, was
incompatible with capitalism (which is dependent upon self-interest),
and thus it must be replaced with a code of rational egoism if
capitalism is to survive. This was provocative stuff, and it launched
the modern libertarian movement. The only problem is that Rand,
while right about altruism, was blatantly wrong about egoism being
the antidote that would save capitalism. She could not see that
egoism was merely the opposite extreme to altruism on the ethical
spectrum and therefore an equal evil when viewed in terms of Aristotle's
doctrine of the mean. Rand was thoroughly confused on this issue
and as a consequence led libertarians into a flawed concept of
ethics to undergird their movement. I expose her errors, and then
correct them, to demonstrate that the only valid ethic for capitalism
is what we have traditionally known for over 3,000 years -- the
ancient code of "love thy neighbor as thyself," or as I term it,
the doctrine of equal concern.
Chapter Three -- Truth's Trojan Horse
The roots of the modern dilemma lie in numerous ideological falsehoods
uncritically accepted during the latter 19th century. No doctrine
has been more pernicious than Auguste Comte's philosophy of "positivism." Its
premise, that there are no objective moral truths to be found in
reality, has led to the socio-political ailments plaguing our world
today. Positivism has descended, like acid rain, upon our lives to
obliterate the vital notion of natural law that sustained free civilization
for centuries. The monstrous pathologies of the 20th century can
be laid at Comte's doorstep and his injection of positivism into
the modern mind. I outline for the reader this process and explain
why the older notion of a universal natural law must be resurrected
if we are to restore a free, ordered, prosperous and humane way of
life.
Chapter Four -- The Failure of the Non-Aggression Principle
Libertarians were led off into the philosophical forest by the pied
piper, Murray Rothbard, in the 1970s, and they have never recovered
from their false path. Rothbard adopted Rand's flawed "non-aggression
principle," and carried it to its logical conclusion, which is anarchy.
This has resulted in the irrational utopianism that presently dominates
the libertarian movement ("anarcho-capitalism"). Because of their
embrace of Rothbardian ideology, libertarians have created a philosophical
movement that cannot get successfully launched as it is presently
constructed. In this chapter, I expose the major error of their present
futility -- Rand's non-aggression principle -- how it stifles the
launching of libertarianism as a viable alternative to statism, and
what must be done to restructure the libertarian ship to give it
the strength to prevail. In addition, I dissect Bruce Benson's The
Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State to show the impossibility
of constructing society upon a voluntary system of military, police
and courts. Benson's work is brilliant and his concept is partially
workable in some areas of the law, but his reading of Anglo-Saxon
history that he uses as the basis for a restoration of customary
law to the whole of society is egregiously flawed.
Chapter Five -- How then Should We Govern?
Why did the Founders' Constitution fail to contain the growth of
government beyond the 19th century? As always, the root of the problem
is found in false ideas. In this case, there are several whoppers
that have brought about freedom's downfall in a political sense.
But there is one fundamental fallacy that transcends all the subsidiary
errors. This is the notion that the state cannot govern properly
and effectively unless it has the power to convey privileges to special
interest groups so as to "promote the common good." This theory has
been held for centuries to be the purpose of government, and is championed
by those who deem themselves conservatives. Sadly, this toleration
for government conveyance of privilege was not adequately
addressed in the Founders' political vision. Consequently, it lingered
implicitly in the background to contaminate the growth of America
as a nation. It is the primary cause of our runaway government today.
And until it is recognized as such and corrected in our notions of
the ideal, there can be no successful check to modernity's drift
into political authoritarianism. I explain why this is so with numerous
examples and show that the only answer is to establish a system in
which government is prohibited from conveying any special privileges
to its citizens at all -- a system of totally "objective law." Only
in this way can we achieve the Golden Mean, the ideal that all men
seek.
Chapter Six -- One Final Word
This is a brief three page summation of the book to inspire the
reader to utilize what has been learned to help restore the Founders'
vision of a free and ordered Constitutional Republic, then advance
it, in Ralph Tyler Flewelling's words, "to its highest possible perfection."
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To read an excerpt from the book, "The Political Spectrum Con," CLICK
HERE
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