Remaking the World in Our Image: Interventionist Globalism vs. Libertarian Localism

by Lee McCracken

[T]he capacity for loyalty is stretched too thin when it tries to attach itself to the hypothetical solidarity of the whole human race. It needs to attach itself to specific people and places, not to an abstract ideal of universal human rights.  ~ Christopher Lasch

How many libertarians and conservatives supported George W. Bush in 2000 as the lesser of two evils? Quite a few, by all accounts. After all, then-Governor Bush talked a good talk about limited government, “strict construction” of the Constitution and “a more humble foreign policy.” And yet, who would now say that we’re really any better off, from a libertarian or Constitutionalist point of view, than if Al Gore had been elected?

Many writers have commented on the growing uselessness of the terms “left” and “right” in political discourse. Socialism is no longer considered a live option by most mainstream politicians or policy analysts, and the opposition to communism that largely dominated the right for the past 50 years or so no longer provides a theoretical, or pragmatic, point of unity.

Some have claimed that the right-wing has splintered into three factions: the “social” conservatives, interested in issues like abortion, school prayer and pornography, the “national security” conservatives, and the libertarians, who favor greater economic and personal freedom across the board. While there is some truth in this, the more fundamental divisions, not only within the “right,” but also across the political spectrum as a whole, are between localists and globalists.

Localists are attached to the concrete, the familiar, and the personal—in a word: the local. They are tolerant of pluralism and difference, but also want to hold on to their own traditions. Globalists, on the other hand, despite all their talk of “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” are essentially rationalists and abstract universalists, who believe in a single plan for all of humanity—that one set of economic, cultural, and political institutions will fit everyone. The end of history will see the triumph of liberal-democratic mixed-economy states.  

Nowhere is this division clearer than in foreign affairs and the imperial thrust of U.S. policy. Take, for example, the “National Security Strategy” released last fall by the Bush administration. While most of the attention was given to the alarming doctrine of preemptive war, the deeper ideological motivation went more or less unnoticed. President Bush hinted at this last year in a speech at West Point :

“The 20^th century ended with a single surviving model of human progress, based on the non-negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance.”

In the National Security Strategy paper, the same theme is affirmed:

“In pursuit of our goals, our first imperative is to clarify what we stand for: the United States must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them.”

And:

“These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society—and the duty of protecting these values against their enemies is the common calling of freedom-loving people across the globe and across the ages.”

To libertarian ears, there doesn’t appear to be much here to object to. Rule of law? Check. Limits to state power? You bet. Respect for private property? Absolutely.

But there are a few things to notice here: specifically the notion that no nation or people “is exempt” from this “single surviving model of human progress” and that all “freedom-loving” people have the duty to defend these values. This is nothing more than the neocon version of the leftist bumper-sticker slogan: “No one is free while others are oppressed.” It sounds good in theory, but when you consider what it would require in practice, you end up with a never-ending crusade of global intervention and warmongering. After all, how exactly are we going to ensure that these values are defended in every corner of the globe and that all the recalcitrant and unenlightened have jumped into line if not by massive intervention in other people’s affairs?

A recent article in the Washington Times makes these implications even clearer: “White House aims to reshape world,” reads a headline from December 30^th. The article goes on to discuss the supposed tensions within the Bush administration between those who want to make the world “safer” (e.g. Colin Powell) and the hawks who want to make the world “better” by promoting regime change in the Middle East. (Guess who seems to be winning the debate?) Making the world better means making other nations to adopt our ways. Thus goes the never-ending march of progress.

The localist tradition, by contrast, is the tradition of the early Republic, which believed in small, self-governing communities, personal liberty and minding one’s own business. Many old-fashioned conservatives (nowadays called “paleo”-conservatives) believed that limited government, rule of law, and respect for private property were rooted in traditions, history and culture that were specific to a particular time and place, not a blueprint that fell from heaven and could be grafted onto other societies at will. Localists are jealous of their hard-won freedoms and not over eager to foist them on others—especially “others” living thousands of miles away. They don’t necessarily believe that “progress” is inevitable or that utopia is achievable.

This isn’t to deny that libertarian rights are universal and apply to human beings in every time and place. But they can’t be imposed from outside by well-meaning bureaucrats armed with cluster bombs and economic sanctions. In this case, the means are inseparable from the ends. Consider the words of the late Murray Rothbard:

“Many of my friends and colleagues are hesitant to concede the existence of universal natural rights, lest they find themselves forced to support American, or world-wide intervention, to try to enforce them. But for classical natural law international jurists, that consequence did not follow at all. If, for example, Tutsis are slaughtering Hutus in Rwanda or Burundi, or vice versa, these natural lawyers would indeed consider such acts as violations of the natural rights of the slaughtered; but that fact in no way implies any moral or natural-law obligation for any other people in the world to rush in to try to enforce such rights. We might encapsulate this position into a slogan: ‘Rights may be universal, but their enforcement must be local’ or, to adopt the motto of the Irish rebels: Sinn Fein, ‘ourselves alone.’ A group of people may have rights, but it is their responsibility, and theirs alone, to defend or safeguard such rights.”

The enforcement of rights will depend on local customs, traditions and culture and will differ from place to place. This is not something to be regretted or opposed in the name of some abstract theory of how societies should be organized. Contrary to what Rousseau thought, you can’t force someone to be free.

Just as importantly, the folly of trying to remake the world in our image will inevitably result in the further erosion of liberties here at home. The link between local freedom and self-determination at home and non-intervention abroad should be clear from the massive leaps in state socialism and control that always accompany war. Such crusades are usually led by those Thomas Sowell has called  “the anointed”—those who believe in the absolute superiority of their own social vision and their right (and duty) to impose it on others.

The ruling elite of these United States is essentially globalist, in varying flavors of “left” and “right.” The localists, those who want to be left alone, are far less organized and powerful, but they represent, I believe, the heart and soul of this country and its traditions. Libertarians who agree with Rothbard that the enforcement of rights must be local might find common ground with localists of all stripes--from paleocons to left-wing populists--in opposing the ever-expanding welfare-warfare state that threatens to encompass the entire world.