I intentionally avoid adding anything to this blog that isn’t strictly related to its stated purpose to explore the ways in which capitalism and culture intersect (and often diverge). I consider libertarianism infinitely more than a political party platform, and certainly much more than a specific set of beliefs. Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, even the more rational and objective among us seem too willing to abandon those qualities in favor of trying to reduce any political candidate to a few short, woefully inadequate platitudes and cliches. And, now that Ron Paul is once again a candidate for president, we’re confronted with a great deal of media that tries to mitigate the value of his candidacy because it’s so much more difficult to distill the essence of actual ideals than that of rhetoric. So, I feel like putting this this phenomenon in perspective for anyone who may be interested.

To start with, the term “libertarian” describes an ideal– not a party or a specific set of positions. At its core, it’s the idea that a government should not have the power to hinder the right of any individual to live his or her life as he sees fit as long as it does not hinder the right of any other individual to do the same. There is plenty of literature available from The CATO Institute (among other places) that will carefully explain the rationale that leads up to this, but, essentially, a libertarian nation would protect its citizens from harm and mediate the disagreements that may arise between any two entities who feel that ideal has been breached. The economy that would drive such a society would be one of free and open markets– often referred to as “capitalism.” If that sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because it is the ideal upon which much of this country’s sovereignty was originally based. It’s what inspired the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, as well as the three branches of our government as we typically learn about them as children. One may disagree with this ideal, but that is basically what the libertarian ideal is about. Many libertarians disagree about how that paradigm should be applied to some of the most difficult questions that face this country, and that’s why it’s folly to try to ascribe a specific set of political positions to anyone who identifies as libertarian. Ron Paul is a libertarian politician who is seeking the Republican nomination for the Presidential candidacy.

The truth is that most people buy in to a certain style of rhetoric more than they truly buy into a political philosophy, and this is dangerous. Any cursory examination of a year’s worth of voting records in the US Congress will show that most Republican and Democratic politicians are often not fighting over ideals at all. In spite of this, they lead American voters to believe that anyway when they campaign by using a rhetoric which they may even believe in themselves, but their actual actions in Congress belie that rhetoric. And yet Americans continue to vote for candidates based on the rhetoric they’re fed, rather than evident fact. And after more than a century of this, a culture has developed that encourages us to avoid objectivity and instead vote for the candidate that espouses the rhetoric we find most palatable.

When a presidential election includes an “odd ball” candidate whose actual rhetoric is too close to their actual behavior, it often makes people uneasy. Examples in recent history include Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, and Ron Paul. Now, fidelity to one’s ideal is admirable, but, of course, it doesn’t mean you should vote for them. But it does force you to consider the ideal itself, and, unfortunately, many Americans would rather write these candidates off than assume the hard and unfamiliar duty of actually weighing out the merits of these candidates’ ideals– without all the rhetoric that goes with it.

The Boston Globe just published a piece claiming that Ron Paul’s appeal to an independent strain of Republican voters and the possibility of a third-party or independent candidacy if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination could guarantee a win for Barack Obama in 2012. I’m reminded of all the political commentators who publicly blamed people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 for George W. Bush’s win, because they assumed that these were truly democrats who would have otherwise voted for Gore. And how stupid is that? Those voters were no more to blame than all the people who voted for Bush. That’s how elections are supposed to work in this country! You are supposed to choose the candidate you want to do the job. But the aforementioned culture has reduced our choices, in many ways, to candidates of two different strains of rhetoric– Republican and Democrat. And those strains are highly muddled at that.

The fact that commentators at The Boston Globe and other pundits want to place blame for an election outcome on a small set of voters who may be more objectively aware of their candidate’s true ideals and thus vote in a manner that is more mature and reverent of their duty puts the problem with this two-party rhetorical culture in sharp relief. The voters who know what they believe and vote for the candidate they truly understand are a persecuted minority. It’s a shame, and it leads inevitably to elected leaders who place far more value on the rewards rhetoric can bring than to any particular ideal. These people are hard to trust, and it’s a system that is not likely to make the most qualified candidate rise to the top.

Today’s announcement of unemployment rates for March has reminded me of an issue I wrote about a few years ago concerning work ethic and income. Today, the Associated Press reported:

Unemployment zoomed to 8.5 percent last month, the highest in a quarter-century, as employers axed 663,000 more workers and pushed the nation’s jobless ranks past 13 million. The hard times were only expected to get harder — a painful 10 percent jobless rate before long.

The current rate would be even higher — 15.6 percent — if it included laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have had to settle for part-time work because they can’t do any better. That’s the highest on record for that number in figures that go back to 1994.

In my paper, which was a rudimentary exercise in academic social research, I criticized an earlier article by Barry Bluestone in which he cites 10 primary reasons for income stratification. My primary criticism was that Bluestone ignored an important factor– work ethic. You can download a copy of my paper, “The Impact of Work Ethic on Income,” here.

Today’s unemployment report reminded me of this paper, because it raises yet another important factor– the economy at large. It would be interesting to research how an economic recession affects income stratification.

According to this week’s issue of The Economist, Ecuador’s new Constitution (which it is widely presumed will be ratified at the end of September) is 444 articles long, gives state-owned companies control of the economy, gives the president the power to dismiss the legislature, guarantees a minimum wage for labor, and outlaws foreign military bases.

About that last bit concerning foreign military bases, I’m delighted. President Correa of Ecuador (described by The Economist as a, “youngish Catholic economist") may be a socialist, but at least he understands sovereignty. At least one implication of the approval of this Constitution would be that the United States would no longer be able to operate anti-drug missions from there, which is a plus. Although, there seems to be little else to get enthusiastic about. But, then, I (like almost certainly virtually every citizen in Ecuador), haven’t read all 444 articles.

This will be Ecuador’s 20th Constitution. It reminds me just how resilient (and mercifully brief) the Constitution of the United States is. We’ve been working from the same document for over 2 centuries, and have only once been faced with a serious risk of secession or collapse. Perhaps if we weren’t so fitfully busy minding the business of so many other countries around the world, they might be more inclined to examine our model, which, while flawed, has stood the test of time the way few other nations’ have.

Just before the G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan earlier this month, Edward Luttwak and Marian Tupy of the CATO Institute published an article in The Los Angeles Times, called, The Aid Africa Can’t Afford. It reminded me of my recent post about my decision to rescind my ONE Campaign declaration.

Essentially, their article confirms many of my feelings about international welfare programs, but they also suggest that many African countries would be better off if their governments were simply allowed to crumble. The corruption in these governments stems from an oligarchy of elite families using as much as 40% of foreign assistance to buy weapons. Since, as they put it, “interstate conflicts are mercifully rare, those weapons are often used to crush domestic opposition – as has been happening in Zimbabwe.” So, the reasoning goes, we should stop paying for these governments to kill their own people and let these corrupt governments collapse. It’s a tough nut to swallow upon first consideration, but set sentimentality aside for a moment.

With the vast majority of these countries’ citizens living in poverty, and the only ones with any means being the corrupt elites who developed nations are supporting, is it at all likely that the people of these African states will ever be able to develop political structures that truly reflect an attempt to meet their unique needs? How will they overcome? The Zimbabwe example couldn’t be more pertinent. They held an election, and when the ruling party didn’t win outright, they started beating up the opposition.

If other nations, including the United States, stopped meddling in the affairs of these Third World African countries, it seems likely that the only people who would suffer anew would be the corrupt oligarchy currently prolonging the suffering of millions of people across the continent. That, I can live with.