Lao-Tzu the Libertarian

A message of liberty, from the lips of ancient sages, to the ears of would be rulers...

If government is muted and muffled
People are cool and refreshed.
If government investigates and intrudes
People are worn down and helpless.

~ From the Tao Te Ching, by Lao-Tzu (Poem 58)

Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World...

Oh, to be wise like the sage! Able to leave well enough alone... to resist the urge to meddle and intrude... to be content improving one’s own lot, sweeping one’s own stoop, tending one’s own garden. 

For the ancient Chinese philosopher and proto-libertarian, Lao-Tzu, the individual’s happiness was the cornerstone of a healthy, vibrant society. The government, with “laws and regulations more numerous than the hairs of an ox,” was the enemy of the people, a ruthless oppressor to be “more feared than the fiercest tiger.”

That our modern world is a complex place, brimming with the inexplicable, the incomprehensible, the downright unfathomable, hardly needs mentioning. Indeed, one might think that, given the demonstrable limits of human knowledge, our collectivist conceits might be commensurately tempered. 

And yet, almost daily we read reports written by stupid people, proclaiming simple (and simple-minded) solutions to problems of impenetrable profundity. Indeed, it seems the more difficult the problem, the more convinced those offering the magic panacea are of their own unfailing ways and means.

Investigations... intrusions... a proliferation of laws and edicts that leave the people worn down and helpless...

Perhaps you have noticed such a trend in underserved confidence among our “political caste,” dear reader?

The Pretense of Knowledge

Take the unimaginable intricacies involved in a multi-millennia war of truly biblical proportions in the Levant...or on the Eurasian Steppe... or in some forsaken outpost on the African continent...

“Easy!” declare those with all the right opinions (and the biggest guns). “This side good. That side bad. Sanctions go here. Bombs go there. Unintended consequences be damned!” 

How about “managing” an economy involving hundreds of millions of people... billions of individual transactions... and trillions of newborn dollars (demanding what the great Austrian School economist and Lao-Tzu enthusiast, F.A. Hayek, called the “Pretense of Knowledge”)? 

“Simple!” cry those of unimpeachable insight. “Fed funds rate at X%. Inflation at Y%. Unemployment at Z%. What, me worry? Are you MAD?”

As to the preferred temperature of the planet, 20...50...100 years from now? 

“Child’s play!” chorus our better angels, who will tell you, with a straight face, precisely how much plant food carbon dioxide (measured down to the parts per million!) they consider “optimal” for human flourishing. 

Armed with a certainty ordinarily reserved for savants and psychopaths, and undeterred by the fact that none of their computer models seem to be able to predict much of anything, the Children of Gaia go forth into the world, directing the unenlightened among us as to which nations will be allowed to industrialize, and which shall remain mired in the past... which sectors of the economy will be penalized, villainized, sterilized, and which will be showered in taxpayer subsidies and grants, elevated to the status of world saviors... 

The Fatal Conceit

And what about the plight of the smallest minority in the world: the individual? 

Can you heat your government-issued gruel using a gas stove? Venture beyond the shrinking limits of your 15-minute city? Enjoy a non-bug diet?

The anointed ones will let you know.

Meanwhile, your question quota has expired, comrade. Proceed directly to reeducation camp. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 CBDC tokens. 

As you see, the dystopia practically writes itself...

We live in an age when our laws and edicts multiply at a rate matched only by the division of our common sense... when our leaders enjoy the spoils of failure while the people are made to suffer the burden of success... when our places of higher learning brim with a lowly ignorance while our markets thrive in spite of, not due to, government interference, planning, ordering, intruding.

All of which is not to suggest we should abandon our search for the truth (hey, maybe we really are one soggy paper straw away from saving the fate of humanity!)... only that we might wish to begin by appreciating the vast amount we do not (and, in many cases, cannot) know before proceeding with that which we claim to know. 

A Call to Inaction

It was the aforementioned F.A. Hayek who observed the marked difference between what is measurable in the “physical sciences” and that which eludes the murky realm of economics, which has gone to great lengths to deserve the epithet, “the dismal science.” 

From his Nobel Memorial Lecture, December 11, 1974, titled The Presence of Knowledge:

​“The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson in humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society—a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.” 

~ F. A. Hayek

Put simply, just because a problem is complex, doesn’t mean we should put our least competent, least accountable people on the job of pretending to solve it. Quite the contrary.

The wisest course, as Lao-Tzu counsels, is for the government to refrain from action, that the world might be allowed to “stabilize itself.” Sayeth the Sage…

I do nothing
And people transform themselves.
I enjoy serenity
And people govern themselves.
I cultivate emptiness
And people become prosperous.

~ From the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu, (Poem 57)

Laissez-faire, in other words, direct from the lips of ancient sages, to the ears of would be rulers. 

Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...

Cheers,

Joel Bowman

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