30 common fallacies used
against libertarians
By now you have probably
heard of Bryan Caplan’s “rational irrationality.” The idea is that if the cost
of holding irrational beliefs is low enough, there may be more irrationality
demanded. Indeed, if holding an irrational view makes someone feel better about
himself or keep membership in some in-group—but holding the view doesn’t
directly harm the holder—she may very well stick with that view.
Caplan contrasts this with
the idea of “rational ignorance,” which is more familiar to our readers. That
simply means the cost of acquiring enough information to have a truly informed
opinion about some issue is generally high, so people remain ignorant.
Both of these behaviors
certainly play a role in the preponderance of dumb policies and dumb views. But
are there corollaries in debate tactics?
Most libertarians find
they’re arguing in social media these days. So they’re not only finding new
people on whom to test their ideas, they’re finding new fallacies in response.
And sometimes these fallacies work, despite being fallacious, which is probably
why they’re so commonplace. This is especially true on social media, where one
can quickly learn that the real point of these exchanges is to play to the
audience, to provide them with an excuse to withdraw into whatever biases they
already hold. Still, maybe it’s possible to raise the costs of employing these
fallacies—at least a little.
We’ve decided to offer you
a fun list of them, which you can use as a handy guide in the process of
engaging in well-mannered, reasoned discourse online.
1.
Argument ad KochBrotherium: This
fallacy is a cousin to the genetic fallacy and guilt by association. The twist, of course, is that anything
that the Koch Brothers ever say, said, fund, funded, might fund, came close to
funding, could have funded, will fund, walked by, looked at, support,
think about, or mention is invalid by virtue of, well, “Koch Brothers!
Boo!”
2.
The Unicorn: You’ll
recognize this fallacy from the question, “Why does no libertarian country
exist anywhere in the world?” Embedded in the question is the assumption that
libertarian countries don’t exist because they are fantastic creatures, like
unicorns. Of course, just because something doesn’t exist yet does not mean it can’t exist. Indeed, the Internet
in 1990 and the American Republic in 1775 beg to differ. And the unicorn
fallacy fundamentally confuses the libertarian worldview with some
“L”ibertarian platform that might be the product of some electoral
processes—processes most libertarians reject. Michael Lind and E. J. Dionne have
brandished this fallacy rather shamelessly, and have had it parried rather
effectively by better minds.
3.
Nut-Picking: This
fallacy has nothing to do with Jimmy Carter. In this style of argument, the
arguer finds the kookiest or most insane person who self-identifies as
libertarian and then ascribes all of that person’s beliefs or claims to all
libertarians. (This one could also be called the Alex Jones fallacy.) This is a
tough one to counter simply because there are plenty of nuts to pick from, and
plenty of them use the l-word.
4.
Must Be Scared/Have No
Answer: This one’s pretty simple really, and a unique creature of
“debate” via social media. The libertarian leaves his computer or signs off for
a while and the opponent accuses the libertarian of not being able to answer
his or her FB claims, which the libertarian simply never saw or had no time to
answer.
5. The Tin Man: This fallacy was identified and named by Cole
James Gentles (here) who inspired this article. With the tin man the arguer
either concludes or falsely assumes that the libertarian “has no heart” because
she argues against some favored policy. This cousin of the straw man (scarecrow) fallacy assumes a
direct line between sympathies and outcomes. Any failure to support some means
amounts to a failure to support the wished-for end.
The tin man fallacy is rooted in the assumption
that one’s opponent, often a libertarian, has no heart. Unlike the straw man
fallacy, in which the debater needs to mischaracterize their opponent’s position,
the tin man fallacy allows the debater to build a sturdy-looking, if hollow,
general facsimile of their opponent’s position (“You are against state mandated
universal health care?”), but not give him a heart (“Then you don’t care about
poor people who don’t have access to affordable, quality insurance, or people
with pre-existing conditions!! You heartless monster! WHY DO YOU HATE THE
POOR?!” Heard that one before?)
The frightening part of this fallacy is that its
wielder usually thinks exitus acta probat.
6.
Availability Cascade:
Something big and bloody happens on the news (or goes viral) so the arguer
implies or concludes that it’s a widespread occurrence.
Example: A mass shooting has occurred, which points to an epidemic of gun
violence.
It’s not clear that if gun violence is at a multidecadal low point, the
incident reflects an “epidemic.” The ready availability of some story leads one
to conclude that a problem is widespread and demands a drastic response. Cass
Sunstein, known for his work on “nudging,” gets credit along with Timur Kuran for identifying this phenomenon. (An availability cascade doesn’t
always have to involve specious reasoning, but it very often does.)
7.
Man on the Moon:
Remember Rachel Maddow standing in front of the Hoover Dam? She’s trying to
convince her viewers that the government (which she calls “the country”) must
tax and build some major make-work project in order to revive the economy (or
whatever). Maddow is employing a form of the man on the moon fallacy, which
takes the form, “If we can put a man on the moon, we can do X.” But it
misconstrues any reservations about big, awe-inspiring State projects as doubts
about “America’s” ability to do big things. It’s just assumed that anything
requiring extensive collaboration must be done via State power for it to count.
Questions of the value, cost, or feasibility (or some combination thereof) of
any particular project are sealed off from the word “if.” And of course “we” is
never carefully unpacked.
8.
The Gap: I wrote a whole book about why the following involves fallacious thinking. The fallacy
goes something like this: “The free market widens the
gap between rich and poor.” Now, strictly speaking that claim might be
correct. But so what? I’ll pass over the problem that the “free market” has
probably already been attacked with the unicorn fallacy at some prior point in
the same hypothetical conversation. In any case, because economies are dynamic,
the “rich” and “poor” change from day to day, and measured in quintiles, we
don’t know whether the “gap” will be greater or smaller from one day to the
next, even assuming a free market. The real problem with such reasoning is the
built-in assumption that a gap itself is a bad
thing. Suppose a really tall man moves into my neighborhood. Apart from my
suddenly wishing I were taller, does the presence of the tall man make me worse
off somehow? Of course not. The existence of the rich person doesn’t make me
worse off, either, unless he got rich by using political means to transfer
money from my pocket to his. This happens all the time. But such transfers have
nothing whatsoever to do with free markets.
Measuring an asset gap in and of itself tells us little. Indeed, without the
functional story of how any gap came to be—stories, not snapshots matter
here—we can’t make any judgments about it whatsoever. “Gap” talk is just a
fetish that ignores how much better off the poor are thanks to the existence of
innovators and entrepreneurs who got rich by creating value. And the unstated
assumption is that if any group of people has more wealth at any particular
point, the people with less are somehow being wronged simply because the other
group has more. The gap fallacy is also meant to preempt debate, usually in the
service of another agenda (which is rarely more than reinforcing the opponent's
opinion of himself as a good guy).
9.
The Two-Step: Some
opponents will simply change the subject in the middle of a discussion, leaving
the original claim by the wayside. Usually neither party notices the two-step.
For example, the opponent may refuse to answer the libertarian’s direct
question and instead respond with another question. Or the debater may slide
into one or another irrelevant point that has no bearing on the original point
at issue. This process can go on for a while unless the libertarian rigorously
brings the opponent back to the original point. The red herring, ad hoc and non sequitur are similar enough
fallacies, so the two-step may also be classified as an evasive tactic.
10.
Panglossian Fallacy: Because
the military-industrial complex was somehow involved in developing aspects of
what later became the commercialized Internet, it follows that government
funding is indispensable for such wonderful things to appear—and that all the
things that go along with the funding (and revenue-collection) apparatus are
therefore also acceptable. This variation of the post hoc fallacy
is seductive particularly because we can never know what would have happened in
the counterfactual private sector. Form: If it happened, it must be the best of
possible worlds. (See also the “The Government R&D Canard.”)
11.
Your Side: Also
known as tarring with the same brush, this fallacy has a couple of related
forms (see No. 1 and No. 3). An opponent may accuse the libertarian of being a
Republican or Tea Party conservative because he or she happens to agree with a
majority of Republicans on some particular issue. One hears: “Your side thinks
. . . ” when in actuality the libertarian doesn’t have a “side” per se. It
works even better as a tactic if there is really no connection at all apart
from being something the opponent’s “side” would never say. The “your side”
fallacy allows the opponent to appeal directly to tribal biases, which are more
immediate and powerful than any argument. When it’s intentional, this
rhetorical maneuver is meant to appeal to others who may be watching—the hope
being that they’ll swerve into the ditch that is their own biases.
12.
The We/Society Fallacy: This
common form of hypostatization occurs
when the user ascribes rational individual agency to “society” and conflates or
confuses society with the State. Both usually happen immediately, or somewhere
hidden, before the opponent even speaks. The opponent wants his moral position
or emotional state to be reflected somehow in the organization of society.
Although “we” or “society” is a useful ersatz word that appears to confer
legitimacy on some aspect of the opponent’s claim, it is almost always an
intellectual sleight-of-hand. Only individuals can act. Groups must work
through processes of either collaboration or coercion. (Note: “The market” is
often misused this way, by both supporters and detractors.)
13.
Deus ex Machina/Market
Failure: People is people. And yet opponents sometimes think that it’s
enough to argue that governments, by dint of largess and force, have the power
to fix certain kinds of problems, which they label “market failures” because
they happened outside the purview of State action. Note that this only works in
one direction: Problems in any area covered by the State are usually chalked up
to being problems merely of execution, whereas “market failures” allegedly
reflect an inherent deficiency. Even if one agrees that one set of people
working in voluntary cooperation cannot solve some problem (or at least haven’t
yet), it does not follow that another group of people—“the government”—can.
Indeed, greats like James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock have given us very good
reasons why government is not likely to solve problems and will likely make
matters worse.
14.
The Organic Fallacy: Such
arguments take the form, “It’s organic therefore it’s
good or good for you.” Or similarly, “It’s not
organic therefore it’s bad or bad for you.” One hears this rationale
to demand regulations and food labeling. And while there may be independent
reasons to justify such regulations or labeling, these are not justified by the
organic fallacy. It’s not clear that Socrates would argue for the health
benefits of natural hemlock, nor would people with thyroidectomies argue they
should go without Synthroid. I would add that, until there is more evidence to
the contrary, there are plenty of GMOs that are good for me. (Note: Plenty of
libertarians commit this fallacy too. Just because Monsanto is a rent-seeker
doesn’t mean all its products are bad.)
15.
Nobel Fallacy: You may
recognize the form “X has a Nobel Prize in
economics, who are you to argue against his claims?” I
don’t care whether Krugman or Stiglitz has a Nobel Prize, they’re wrong about
just about everything. And the truth or falsity of one’s claim doesn’t depend
on his credentials. (Meanwhile Nobel Laureates James Buchanan, Vernon Smith,
Elinor Ostrom, Douglass North, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek are mostly
always right. I mean, that’s like 6–2 for the good guys. [*rimshot*])
16.
No Parks for You:
Snarkier opponents of libertarianism rhetorically ask why libertarians avail
themselves of all the goods and services government happens to provide. “If you’re going to live by your principles, you can’t use X or Y” (insert: state universities or public roads). Of course, it does
not follow that one should not avail himself of some good or service he thinks
should be provided by other means. Indeed, one could argue that he is more than
justified in consuming some good or service he has been forced to pay for
against his will.
17.
The Self-Exile Fallacy:
Snarkier still is the opponent who argues that “If you don’t like it, why don’t
you just leave?” Implicit in this question is the suggestion that there is some
positive duty for one to leave a condition he doesn’t like and/or that by one’s
staying, he his implicitly consenting to whatever the system is. By this
“logic,” if you have just bought a house with an ‘80s bathroom, instead of
improving, changing, or upgrading it, you should just take a bath in the
kitchen sink.
18.
Somalia:
Opponents love to tell you that Somalia must be a “libertarian paradise.”
Everyone laughs. If you respond with a phrase like “comparative institutional analysis,” everyone’s eyes glaze
over and you lose, despite being correct. Somalia has been better off on most
dimensions without a central government than it was under a brutal, centralized
regime—warlordism notwithstanding.
19.
Social Contract:
Rousseau left a terrible intellectual legacy. And progressives use his “social
contract” to justify anything under the statist’s sun. Of course, there could
be a real social contract, but libertarian opponents prefer the
one that allows them to justify anything under . . .
20.
Start Somewhere: You’ve
slogged through the data. You’ve offered a completely rational response. You’ve
explained the ins and outs of why your opponent’s policy X won’t work and why
it may even make things worse. The response? “We’ve got to start somewhere.” The
idea here is that it’s better to do, well, anything—even if it might result in
calamity. And, of course, the State must do that potentially calamitous thing.
(See also No. 23.)
21.
Social Darwinism: “The
free market is just social Darwinism!” This is actually a pretty old meme. It
was used by progressive academics in the 1940s to smear the work of Herbert
Spencer. Spencer was a biological Darwinist to be sure. And he also thought the
market and social phenomena like institutions and ideas would be subjected to
analogous evolutionary forces. But the unit of survival in markets is the
business, not the individual. In other words, businesses that fail to create
value for customers die. But advocating for free people to engage in voluntary
exchange is not advocating people leave the weak, poor, or vulnerable to
suffer. Quite the contrary. Most advocates of the free market believe a robust
philanthropy sector is part and parcel to a system of voluntary exchange.
Herbert Spencer thought so too. He writes: “Of course, in so far as the
severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for
each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated.”
22.
Argumentum Ad Googlum: This
fallacy proceeds when the libertarian makes a good point or builds a stellar
case, or asks a question the opponent can’t answer. The opponent disappears for
a while frantically Googling away. The opponent comes back with a series of
links that stand in for argument. To be fair, this isn’t always a fallacy, as
some will use links to support their claims. But often the tactic is used to
thrust the burden of debate back onto the libertarian who is expected to read
through the links and infer some point. At best, it’s bad form.
23.
We’ve Got to Do Something!: Related
to the “start somewhere” fallacy, “We’ve got to do something!” is an argument
that really means (a) the State has to do something, and (b) State action is
preferable to both no action or private action. Numerous examples of this
fallacy appear when opponents think any action riding on good intentions is
good enough, consequences be damned. Often, however, it can be demonstrated
that it is better for government to do nothing and to stop doing what it’s
already doing. (Examples include stimulus spending, regulation, and other forms
of intervention.) For government to do nothing is rarely presented as premise
subject to debate and evaluation. Someone genuinely open to ideas would ask,
“What should be done about this?” and “Who should do it?” Someone genuinely
interested in answers would have the courtesy to make explicit what they
already believe: “The government has to do something, which is beyond debate.
Here’s what I think that something should be.”
24.
Empirical Fallacy: A
familiar opponents’ refrain of late is: How
do we know X isn’t going to work until we try it? We have to wait and see the
empirical evidence before calling X a failure. With such reasoning we
should let monkeys go to Washington and type randomly into a big machine that
spits out statutes at random. Well, we already do this in a manner of speaking,
but it might be a good idea to look at some well-established economic theory
and economic thinking before sallying forth into legislative adventures that
could have both predictably perverse and unintended consequences. More
importantly, the opponent presumes it is the prerogative of the State—and, by
extension, any governmental group within the State apparatus—to experiment on
those under its auspices, and that it is the duty of the subjects in that
jurisdiction to submit to the experimentation. (Also called the Pelosi
Fallacy.)
25.
No True Libertarian: Ever
heard of the No True Scotsman fallacy? Usually it’s applied by someone in a
group to question another’s membership in that same group in terms of their
ideological purity. Libertarians are famous for saying to each other “If you
think X, you’re no libertarian.” But libertarians’ opponents use a variation of
this, too. They’ll say something like “Libertarians believe in X. If you don’t,
you’re no libertarian.” (X might be natural rights, collective non-State
action, a social safety net, etc.) The No True Libertarian fallacy is a way of
trying to force the libertarian to choose between a subtle variation in his
argument and his own doctrine. It implies the libertarian lacks credibility:
“This clown doesn’t know what he thinks!” Of course, such a tack has no bearing
on the truth or falsity of either party’s claims, or the validity of their
arguments. Libertarianism is a diverse school of thought. It is not a monolith.
One need only demonstrate the consistency of his argument.
26.
Fascist Ignorance: This
one should be familiar: Libertarian opponents were outraged—OUTRAGED—when John
Mackey pointed out quite correctly on NPR that Obamacare is a fascist policy. Fascism is, of
course, a doctrine that calls for significant State control over private
industries, to be carried out in the service of State ends. So the fallacy of
fascist ignorance is a form of ad hominem in which
a libertarian opponent refers to the libertarian or his views as “fascist”
despite, strictly speaking, holding fascist views herself. (One might also
refer to this as the “Chicken calling the cow ‘poultry’” fallacy.) In the
interests of good discourse, however, it’s probably not wise for anyone to
evoke the power of the “F” word at all, given how much baggage it carries.
27.
Just One Life: The
emotional appeal, grounded in nothing substantive, is meant to be a moralistic
shutdown card. It goes “I’m sorry, but if we can
save just one life with this policy, it’s worth it.” What
does that even mean? Does it mean that every life has infinite value? Does it
mean that saving lives at the expense of others and all other considerations is
the purpose of government? Or does it mean that “worth it” is completely vague,
but you just care a lot? It’s a heroic-sounding sentiment, but it demonstrates
only the speaker’s commitment and earnestness—not any analysis of the policy
itself.
28.
Consensus: This
hybrid of the bandwagon and appeal to authority fallacies infects lots of
discourse. It takes the form, “Lots of
really smart and educated people believe X, therefore it’s true.” From
the USDA food pyramid dieticians to macroeconomists, authorities are not always
right. There are limits to any individual’s ability to understand all the
nuances of a given issue. Prediction and forecast are even more difficult.
Political decision-makers must confront the same exact same cognitive
limitations as mere mortals, which is why they, like libertarian debate
opponents, rely far too heavily on expert “consensus.”
29.
Logo-phallo-euro-centric:
Opponents accuse libertarianism of being hostile to women, minorities,
homosexuals, and other marginalized groups. The fallacy lies in the idea that
if your doctrine doesn’t acknowledge that groups deserve special,
State-sanctioned treatment at the expense of other groups or individuals, it’s
tantamount to some ism. Some
even go as far as to say that if you use certain language some construe as
racist, sexist, or homophobic, it invalidates libertarian doctrine. While many
libertarians act like idiots and should probably not overreact to collectivist
PC victim narratives with foul language, libertarian doctrine is at root a
doctrine of anything peaceful—voluntary cooperation, decentralized power,
and radical community formation. The heroes of libertarianism (of all races,
sexes, and ethnic backgrounds) knew that collectivism and Statism are
interdependent world views: It takes evoking collectivism and inventing group
rights (or wrongs) to justify most State actions, and the State has
historically had the power systematically toprop up or tear down people by
group.
30.
Who Will Build the Roads?: This
familiar duck has a thousand variations, but the idea is that because the
opponent has never seen it nor can imagine it being done without the State, it
follows that it can’t. But of course, it (roads, aid, education, and the rest of it) can. (See also No. 13.)
I encourage readers to add
more to the comments section below.
Note: huge credit to Cole
James Gentles, Jeff Ellis, Sarah Skwire, and Zach Spencer for their assistance
in compiling these fallacies. Thanks also to Michael Nolan for help in fleshing
these out.
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COLUMBUS—The Libertarian Party of
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