Hmm, I saw Lind as discussing libertarianism in terms of ideas, not as a movement. And the principle idea I thought he had in mind was his use of the "watchman" principle by invoking the "drowning the state in a bathtub" metaphor of Grover Norquist.
Social security, I would assume, would be a cornerstone of such aims. Whereas I see social security as one of the great social innovations of the twentieth century, I have assumed a libertarian has to see it as far too much state intervention, that it undermines a moral fabric in which individuals come to depend on the state. In effect, individuals lose their individuality as the state becomes their protector.
So one has opposite ideas of the good society: the first, a social/fiscal liberal one, embodied in the welfare state, in which the state is the agent that tries to provide some sort of safety net for one's last few years. The second, a society of strong individuals, offering charity to the less fortunate, and particularly in those last years, but discouraging dependence.
In that sense, I would have thought that Bush's attempts to privatise social security would be classic libertarianism, at least invoking it, in the service of whatever political compromises that could be worked on the road to the goal of getting rid of it.
Am I wrong? |
