Only a little over 10% of the respondents who opposed these programs opposed it because they thought it was inappropriate for government to do that sort of thing. More thought it was unnecessary, too costly, bound to fail, etc. By far the most common response was that blacks shouldn't turn to the government and instead help themselves.
With all this talk about Rand Paul and what he thought of the Civil Rights Act, it's important to keep in mind that he's joining a crowd that is motivated for decidedly non-libertarian reasons. We don't have large surveys, but the same is likely to be true of the Civil War. If there were genuine advocates of libertarianism using that argument to justify the Confederacy at the time, they were probably in the minority.
"...it's important to keep in mind that he's joining a crowd that is motivated for decidedly non-libertarian reasons."
ReplyDeleteWhy is it important? In terms of the truth of the proposition, versus the motivations of the people who held the view at the time, how would you distribute the relative importance? 80/20? 50/50?
"By far the most common response was that blacks shouldn't turn to the government and instead help themselves."
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you don't consider this part of the libertarian worldview.
I don't know if I'd distribute the importance like that. With Civil Rights I think the point was fairly obvious and unsurprising - I think we have a sense that most people at the time didn't hold that position because they were libertarian - they held it for other reasons.
ReplyDeleteThinking further back - for example with the Confederacy - it's even more important as a historical and contextual point that even though (contra Matt Yglesias, Ta-Nehisi Coates, etc.) most people who speak positively of the Confederacy today do it for libertarianish/states rights reasons and NOT out of racism - that should not be project on to Confederates of the 1860s. Modern reconsiderations of the past - however legitimate or illegitimate - should not whitewash history.
In terms of the truth of the proposition - obviuosly this is completely irrelevant to the truth of the proposition.
re: "Interesting that you don't consider this part of the libertarian worldview."
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. Let me put it this way - in the Venn Diagram of libertarianism and conservatism I imagine the "role of the federal government" response is more in the libertarian circle and the "blacks should help themselves" is more in the center portion.
Ultimately I just thought it was interesting data. We do a lot of history based on what was written down or based on anecdote and archetypes. Surveys are always nice.
ReplyDeletere: "Interesting that you don't consider this part of the libertarian worldview."
ReplyDeleteAbout a year ago I was looking through google books and found some information regarding polls taken at various times regarding race relations and even by the time of the passage of the CRA, most Americans were still apathetic to minorities if they didn't already dislike them(though if was an improvement compared to the 30s). I don't think what you pointed out is a libertarian position, rather a conservative one where people answered based off a perspective that they were already familiar with since it's been happening throughout their lives. Racism, even if it's subtle is probably the reason why it received the largest percentage of responses. If were taking a libertarian position because they valued liberty for liberties sake then "role of government" would have been the most appropriate response. Along with that, 9% is close to the number of people who do identify as being mostly libertarian.
I felt like I had to write a response to it since I found your entry very interesting:
ReplyDeletehttp://dispersed-knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/05/libertarians-certainly-were-rare-in.html