The Personal Is the Political
Who makes the tradeoffs?
In the last couple of decades, one of the most popular political slogans on the left, especially among feminists, has been: “The personal is the political.” For feminists the phrase is invoked to point out that the personal choices women make — for example, whether to continue working full-time after having children — cannot be extracted from the larger political context in which they take place. The political environment profoundly affects personal choices, and personal choices thereby become political acts.
The left sees “The personal is the political” as a kind of call to arms: Everything you do is political so you should think through the implications. In and of itself, that’s a point that libertarians can accept, though perhaps on a narrower set of issues.
However, for those of us in the freedom movement, that same phrase takes on a very different meaning in the context of the continued expansion of government in both health care and the environment. As government’s role grows, more and more decisions that we think of as personal are becoming political – with all the problems that brings. There are decisions that we want to be personal and not political, but when resources become socialized and goals become collective, the personal becomes the political in all kinds of unsavory ways. Let’s look at two quick examples.
As government spends more and more on health care, the number of personal decisions second-guessed by the political authorities will expand as well. When health care spending is private, personal decisions are not political. If I eat poorly, I pay the price at the doctor’s office. However, once we socialize that spending, my decision to eat fatty, salty foods could cause me to use scarce resources from the collective pot. The guardians of that pot — the politicians and bureaucrats — will have to decide if my “needs” are important enough to justify the use of those resources. If they are not, it will be necessary to limit my choices so that they don’t draw those collective resources away from needs politically determined to be “more urgent.” The result could be a special tax or the outright prohibition of two of my life’s great loves: Italian subs and Buffalo wings.
The evidence is all around us: Trans fats are banned; the federal government tells women in their 40s they don’t “need” mammograms; more localities attempt to use zoning and other laws to keep out fast-food restaurants. Rather than allowing individuals to make their own judgments about the tradeoffs regarding risk, the State must substitute its judgment and enforce it with coercion. The personal has become the political.
The second example is illustrated by the much-discussed Audi commercial shown during the Super Bowl, in which “the Green Police” arrest people for using the wrong light bulbs, preferring plastic bags to paper, throwing away rather than recycling batteries, and using Styrofoam cups. The commercial is powerful because it portrays even the most innocuous personal choices as subject to the State’s coercion if they are not the “correct” ones – that is, the ones the State dictates. When environmental goals become socialized and trump all others, those making the “wrong” choices will find themselves on the wrong end of a gun.
As Hayek wrote almost 70 years ago in The Road to Serfdom, once a society decides that some goals have collective priority over others, the only ways to ensure the pursuit of those goals are propaganda and/or force.
When the personal becomes the political in that sense, the loser is human freedom.
Comment by Greg Ransom on 11 February 2010:
The other personal side of this is enforcement — the huge mass of petty laws are used arbitrarily to punish and force in line people you don’t like, and the laws are not enforced for friends and those who are allies.
Think of FDRs use of the tax code to cut down his enemies …
Comment by Crawdad on 11 February 2010:
Another byproduct of turning the personal into the political is that it empowers the busybodies aready amongst us and will lead to us all becoming busybodies out of fiscal necessity. If I’m on the hook for others’ medical care, particularly for health issues resulting from poor choices then it is my business what you do to yourself. Where does that end?
I’ve also decided that the impulse to dominate is at the root of most social movements going on today whether they be about doing something for the “poor” or saving the environment or whatever other concern the day is this month. As Mencken once quipped, “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.” And that isn’t only true for the powerful.
Comment by Michael Wiebe on 11 February 2010:
Harry Browne put it best:
“Anytime you turn anything over to the government, you transform what was a commercial, medical, social, safety, financial, or military matter into a political issue —— to be decided by politicians.”
Pingback by Liberty Reads for February 11, 2010 | Liberty Movement HQ on 11 February 2010:
[...] The Personal Is the Political [...]
Pingback by The Personal Is the Political | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty « A Little Lower Than the Angels on 11 February 2010:
[...] February 11, 2010 in free market, freedom, government, morality, philosophy, politics, socialism | Tags: anarchy, environment, environmentalism, government, libertarianism, philosophy, politics, socialism, state, statism Realizing that all of our lives are interconnected ecologically and economically, and accepting the legitimacy of State control over individuals, the Statist concludes that the State should govern every last detail of the lives of the individual according to the will of the majority (e.g. The Personal Is the Political | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty). [...]
Comment by Chris Mason on 11 February 2010:
The “Green Police” commercial literally sent chills down my body. I expect that sort of nonsense in the EU…but I am not so naive as to think such a regime is impossible in this country. Horwitz’s article is definitely prescient. Thanks for the writing.
Comment by Karen on 11 February 2010:
In response to:
“Comment by Greg Ransom on 11 February 2010:
The other personal side of this is enforcement — the huge mass of petty laws are used arbitrarily to punish and force in line people you don’t like, and the laws are not enforced for friends and those who are allies.”
Totally, true. My brother is a police officer and he gives me a PBA card every year (which I refuse to use and run through the shredder soon after he gives it to me). This card has the possibilities of getting me out of such arbitrary laws any where in the country!! I believe that if were really a free nation then our police officers (who were set up to protect our rights) and their family and friends should not need a card to prove that they are above these useless laws!!
Comment by Jacob Steelman on 11 February 2010:
Governments around the world have created what amount to large prison camps, called countries, which have various degrees of systemic rules governing the inmates. In the final analysis we are all prisoners of the state – e.g. try to voluntarily give up your USA citizenship. As government intrudes into and regulates virtually every aspect of our daily lives the informal or black market will become larger and expand ever more rapidly.
As a result of the extreme growth in government Americans will experience as many in other countries have experienced for decades the extent to which government has intervened and intruded into the personal everyday life of countless millions and billions of individuals. Imagine if you will the life or death decisions of government health care systems, food distribution systems, transportation systems, power and communication systems, immigration systems, licensing systems etc. The list is long and pervasive.
This is why in many Asian and South American economies there is a vibrant informal or black market which exists – without it people would starve to death and be deprived of basic standards of living as well as much improved standards of living.
Comment by John Thomas on 11 February 2010:
I can’t tell if there’s a word limit on articles here, but the right is just as capable of politicizing what should be individual actions.
And the liberty minded have to be opposed all intrusions into our personal domain, no matter which side thinks they know better than we do.
Comment by Steve Horwitz on 11 February 2010:
John,
I do have an 800 word limit and I utterly and totally agree with you and have said so in multiple forums over my career. In fact, this piece was not intended to be “anti-left.” It so happened that the two examples I picked were ones with great salience at the moment, but you are quite right that the same arguments apply everywhere. Do note that I didn’t explicitly criticize the left by name.
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[...] Who makes the tradeoffs? [...]
Comment by Aron Martens on 11 February 2010:
The problem with the plethora of petty rules (I refuse to refer to them as “laws”) is that most of them are unenforceable. What results, then, is the violence experts (aka police) use them only when they want to detain or harass a citizen. This sort of arbitrariness should be anathema to any lover of liberty. True “laws” represent the moral rules by which members of a society choose to live. As such they usually don’t require police harassment. But rules banning incandescent light bulbs, water bottles, fast foods, etc.? All of these are merely attempts by a well-organized group of citizens to govern the rest of us.
Comment by DixieFlatline on 12 February 2010:
Happy you finally joined the freedom movement Prof. Horowitz. I was worried that coordination problems might hinder such an alliance.
Pingback by The Personal Is the Political: Who makes the tradeoffs? | For Freedom's Sake on 12 February 2010:
[...] By Steven Horwitz • Posted February 11, 2010 on The Freeman [...]
Comment by Dave on 13 February 2010:
In response to:
“Comment by Greg Ransom on 11 February 2010:
The other personal side of this is enforcement — the huge mass of petty laws are used arbitrarily to punish and force in line people you don’t like, and the laws are not enforced for friends and those who are allies.”
Given the sheer number of laws, the fact that we cannot access them ourselves without payment and that we probably couldn’t understand them if we did I’ve come to the conclusion there is actually only one law:
Do not offend anyone with prosecutorial powers without access to sufficient legal defense or political power.
Violators will be punished via whatever verbiage can be reinterpreted to involve their immediate circumstances.
Comment by John Thomas on 14 February 2010:
Thank you, Mr. Horwitz, for taking the time to explain.
Pingback by Horwitz on the Green Police | Austrian Economics Blog on 14 February 2010:
[...] Horwitz explains that every step toward government control, of anything, is a step toward politicizing private [...]
Comment by Christy on 18 February 2010:
Thank you, Mr. Horwitz, for an excellent article that also inspired some enlightening and entertaining comments. Well done.
Comment by Personal Finance Bible on 12 June 2010:
As government intrudes into and regulates virtually every aspect of our daily lives the informal or black market will become larger and expand ever more rapidly.The fact that we cannot access them ourselves without payment and that we probably couldn’t understand them if we did I’ve come to the conclusion there is actually only one law..
Thank you….
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Johnpeter
Pingback by Jan to July 2010 Browseworthy Stories Archives « Clear Thinking on 1 February 2011:
[...] 2-12-10 Steven Horwitz in The Freeman Online “When environmental goals become socialized and trump all others, those making the ‘wrong’ choices will find themselves on the wrong end of a gun.” The Personal Is the Political [...]