“Everything in excess is bad”.
This much-quoted maxim seems to apply not only to issues related to medicine, but also to freedom.
And proof of this is Grafton, a small town in the northeast of the United States, which at the beginning of the century was the scene of an unprecedented political experiment:
A group of libertarians settled there and put their ideas into action, reducing regulations and taxes in order to prove that government intervention is oppressive and produces poverty; while if society is left to act on its own it flourishes and is capable of self-regulation.
However, after a few years, the town in the state of New Hampshire, on the border with Canada, is known for the drastic deterioration of its public services, the increase in criminal violence; and above all by a series of unusual attacks by black bears against some of its residents.
a unique experiment
“In 2004, hundreds of people moved to Grafton to found what they called the Free Town Project and demonstrate the feasibility of libertarianism by creating a utopian community,” American journalist Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling explained to BBC Mundo. who in 2020 wrote the book A Libertarian walks into a bear (in Spanish it could be translated as A libertarian crosses with a bear), in which he recounted what happened in the small town.
Libertarianism is a political-philosophical current that places “individual freedom as the supreme political value” and considers that each person has the right to live his life and do with his body and property what he deems appropriate, as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others to do the same, explained Venezuelan political scientist Luis Salamanca.
“For classical liberalism, the State must be minimal; In other words, it accepts that the State exists, but only as a watchdog of productive activity and a minimal regulator. However, for anarcho-capitalists, who are the purest and most radical libertarians, this is oppression. For the anarcho-capitalists, the State is the enemy and it must be liquidated,” added the former director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV).
Libertarianism has been deeply rooted in the United States since its founding. “The best government is the one that governs the least,” said Thomas Jefferson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and third president of that country, recalled the professor of Political Theory and American History Eric-Clifford Graf.
The expert also highlighted that in the Republican Party there have been -and are- sectors and individuals that defend these ideas.
But why Grafton? “Libertarians studied dozens of towns in New Hampshire before settling on Grafton, but this one appealed for several reasons: There lived a libertarian named John Babiarz, who was running for governor. He also had a small population, about 1,000 people, which meant that a relatively small number of libertarian voters could exert enormous influence when it came to passing municipal ordinances and taxes, ”the journalist listed.
“And finally, Grafton had a deep history of rebellion against authority. At the end of the 18th century, it voted to separate from the then newly constituted United States for fiscal reasons, and many of its inhabitants exercised fiscal disobedience (they did not pay taxes) ”, he concluded.
Hongoltz-Hetling, in her book, claimed that in a matter of months some 200 libertarians, the bulk of whom met on the Internet, moved to town to start her experiment.
The new neighbors were mostly white males, single, and supporters of gun ownership.
However, from the economic point of view, the profile of the newcomers was more varied, some had a lot of money and others were poor and had nothing to tie them to their places of origin.
The latter explains why the number of people living in mobile homes or tents in the forests surrounding the town increased significantly.
A not so silent invasion
The new “graftonians” soon began to make themselves felt. “They were very active and involved in the local political process, which allowed them to force many of their ideas onto the community,” Hongoltz-Hetling recounted.
And although they failed in their attempts to remove the town from the School District, the authority that is in charge of supervising the schools, or declare the town a “United Nations free zone”, they did convince their neighbors to cut 30% the already small municipal budget, which was only US$ 1.3 million.
However, the promise that the snip would result in less taxes and more money in the pockets of the residents did not end up being such.
For example, in Canaan, a neighboring town, residents paid only 70 cents more in taxes on average than those in Grafton and had paved and lighted streets and highways.
Likewise, by 2011 Grafton’s roads were full of potholes, public lighting and the garbage collection service almost disappeared, the public library had to reduce its hours to just 3 hours a day and police surveillance decreased, because the police only had with resources to pay a full-time officer (the chief constable).
The reduction in patrols, together with the arrival of more armed residents convinced that they had the right to do what they wanted, explain why the town registered its first two murders in recent times in the past decade and a 12% increase in the number of murders. number of violent crimes, according to regional statistics.
Like out of a bad comedy
But as if poorer roads and more crime weren’t enough, Graftonians had to deal with a problem not seen in a century: a wave of bear attacks.
Precisely the assaults of these animals made Hongoltz-Hetling pay attention to the town, where he found that the mix between deregulation, tax cuts and libertarian ideas resulted in a dangerous cocktail.
“Many of the libertarians living in the forest were not following the recommendations on waste disposal, which created an easy food source for the bears. Second, some of the Libertarians started feeding bears, the same way others feed birds or squirrels in their backyard, which attracted the animals to residential areas,” he recounted.
“And third, the city refused to call on regional authorities to consider killing or relocating the problem beasts, instead individuals tried to deter them, in ways that were not effective (using fireworks). Over time, the bears became bolder and more interested in humans as a food source and even stopped hibernating,” he said.
By 2016 the experiment had foundered, and many of the libertarians who settled in Grafton left.
Yet little has been done to repair the damage done, Hongoltz-Hetling said.
“The town’s budget has not grown to compensate for the lost years and municipal services continue to be deficient compared to those of other neighboring towns. However, the environment is calmer than before, and there have been no more bear attacks, so perhaps that is a victory,” the journalist said.
But how was a group of newcomers able to nearly take over a town and dismantle it without anyone taking action? “The libertarians acted within the rule of law, so there was no reason for state or federal authorities to intervene,” he replied.
“The Grafton fiasco was in part the result of a fair democratic process, in which community-minded residents did not organize as effectively as libertarians. To me, libertarians have a moral, but not a legal, responsibility for what they happened to people who were attacked by bears,” added the journalist and author.
A theory in vogue
The victory of the economist Javier Milei in the mandatory primary elections in Argentina on August 13 has placed libertarianism in the forefront.
“I consider the State as an enemy; taxes are a hindrance to slavery,” declared the controversial candidate, who according to the polls has the best chances of winning the presidential elections next October.
Milei has declared himself “libertarian” and “anarcho-capitalist”; and he has promised that, if he prevails in the elections, he will “dynamit” the Central Bank, reduce the number of ministries and legalize the carrying of firearms.
However, what happened in Grafton casts more than reasonable doubts that libertarianism can be successfully launched.
“The experiment allowed us to see the benefits, but above all the problems that dispensing with the State generates,” said the political scientist Salamanca.
“Trash is the most pathetic example and shows that you can’t just leave everything to the market. The market can regulate prices, but there are other aspects of human life that it does not cover and that is where the anarcho-capitalist model fails”, she stated.
“In Grafton, freedom was privileged over order, but total freedom leads to the loss of order and where there is no order, force and the law of the strongest prevail,” said the expert.
Salamanca recalled that the history of Humanity before the modern State is incredibly chaotic and violent.
“Anyone could invade your house, take away your wife or kill you (…) The conclusion that this case leads is that freedom alone, without order, ends up being negative for itself and that the weakest end up being harmed,” he said.
For his part, Professor Graf admitted that libertarian ideals are inspiring and can be very attractive to electorates disenchanted with traditional politicians.
However, the expert warned that handing over power to the followers of this political current “is risking chaos and anarchy, which can return us to tyranny.”
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c13mx6kk2pdo, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-08-29 16:10:07
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