Rand Paul, as his father, make an odd footnote in the history of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is fond of acquiring token representations of its ‘new face’ exemplified in their analysis of why they lost the last election to President Obama. They understand the need for good public relations. After all, they have been weaving the ‘we are the working class heroes’ tale for many years. They are really good at it. The Paul’s offer the Republican Party the opportunity to capture some of the conservative, libertarian leaning folks. So, let’s take a look at Rand Paul.

Rand and his father were both huge fans of Ayn Rand and of the Objectivist philosophy. As a philosophy Objectivism is not well respected among serious philosophers. Their philosophical exegesis of great philosophers tend to be shallow and more opportunistic than penetrating. Ayn Rand wrote fiction books which highlight elitist views with its necessary accompanying condition of the lowly, uneducated masses. Her books favor a social Darwinism where the strong, the bright and the wealthy are the masters and creators of human destiny and the huge rest of the masses are simply cattle for herding and feeding off of. The elitists are the survivors of the fittest. The masses are simply failed genetics which are condemned by their own tragic inadequacies.

The Paul’s were also fans of the Austrian School of Economics which I have written at length about on this site. The Austrian School is the economic equivalent of the Objectivist philosophy. They are pure and fundamental ‘free marketers’. They believe the problem with the market has always been the government. They think that left totally to its own the free market will solve all the problems we thought we needed governments for. Whenever the government intervenes in the market, the market fails to work to its fullest and results in all the booms and busts of market history. They think government intervention resulted in the Great Depression not free market, unregulated banking and stock market failures as most economists believe. The think monopolies are the result of government intervention and corporatism where corporations buy off the government for the dreaded market regulation. Market regulation is a free market enemy because it deforms the natural workings of the market and gives companies a protectionist strategy that the market left to its own would not provide.

The Austrian School is a reductionist philosophy which accounts for market dynamics as a kind of zero sum game albeit not about wealth creation but about market dynamics. The purist school of Austrian Economics start from the assumption that the market, free of government intervention, will always be the best and most efficient delivery of goods and services in the long run. Any government intervention will ‘gum up the works’ and proportionally destroy the markets effectively. In this sense, the zero sum dichotomy at work is the absolute poles of free, unregulated market and encumbered, regulated government intervention. There is absolutely no middle ground for the purists. There is no daylight between government regulation and market degradation. The more the government intervenes in the market the more the market fails. This is a zero sum game. Regulation can never be thought as aiding the market. So, for example, if planes crash because of poor maintenance, the FAA is not the answer. The market is the answer. Folks will not fly with airline companies whose planes crash. The market will reward the company whose planes do not crash and punish the company whose planes crash. Eventually, the market will fix its own problems left to its own workings (just hope you are not flying in the meantime). Intervention by a government agency like the FAA will degrade the ability of the market to police itself.

The zero sum game played by the Austrians is really a thin veneer for survival of the fittest. Those that survive and thrive in the unregulated market get to establish their dominance. Those that fail in the market fall into the trash heap of wannabes. Of course, the Austrians would never say this. Their line concerning the ‘less fortunate’ is that the market will decide their fate. They think whatever happens with human failures of the market will eventually be corrected by the market. Although the Austrians would rather leave the ultimate outcome of their ideal unaddressed, it could be a place at the table for everyone in the long run but more likely human tragedies and failures are swept under the old proverbial rug as Austrians cannot address the conditions for human tragedy except by the faith of the market. They could never acknowledge that the market, free of government intervention, could result in an elitist economy that is simply the latest face of tragic human history.

The Paul’s are students and advocates for these ideologies. The Republican Party fits very well with these concepts. The Party has convinced folks that their problem is not the market but the government. All the while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The faithful just turn this reality back on the government. They blame the government for these inequities. Regular folks are feed a steady diet of this dogma to the point where they cannot think that maybe the free, unregulated market could be part of the problem. This fictitious production does play into the power broker hands of the Republican Party. However, the Republican Party will never allow a Ron or Rand Paul be more than a token gesture.

The Pauls attract social libertarians even though they personally advocate for anti-abortion groups and favors laws to vastly restrict abortion. The Pauls are also against same sex marriage. Rand Paul is not in favor of government anti-discrimination laws. He thinks the market should decide. Business should not be hindered by anti-discrimination laws. He has also supported laws to protect ‘religious freedoms’. The Pauls tend to be non-interventionists when it comes to foreign affairs and aid but they still have strong affiliations to Israel. While the Pauls have some positions that seem to contradict civil libertarian ideologies, they have many positions which certainly give lip service to a libertarian ideology. However, what one must not forget is that they are not running independently. Their campaigns are bought and paid for by the Republican Party. Therefore, they have indebtedness to the Party that I suspect is probably partly responsible for some of their deviations from a strict libertarian ideology.

The Republican Party has too much interest in social conservatives to ever let the Pauls get too close to winning a presidential bid. The Party is all too happy to display adherence to diversity but when push comes to shove Rand Paul will never get the nomination just as his dad before him. Rand Paul will follow the Party line and would never run as an independent. His willingness to shift his positions to placate the Republican Party is troublesome. If he ever were president I think he would cave to party pressure and be more likely than he pretends now to engage in military campaigns and foreign aid. Admittedly, these are simply my concerns not anything factual. What I find more troublesome is his alliances with Ayn Rand and Austrian Economics.

I do think that Rand Paul would dismantle the government to the point of dangerous economic consequences. Ron Paul has written extensively about how he believes the Federal Reserve is corrupt and unconstitutional (See End The Fed). Of course, he would expect the free market to fill the gap and do a better job. Anyone that thinks this should check out this site before locking in a vote for Rand Paul. Check out the facts detailed on this site before blatantly deciding that the government is mostly dispensable. Most people are totally unaware of what the government does for them every day. Anyone who is willing to think about this rationally will inevitably have concerns about whether and how the free market could effectively address vital concerns that the government currently addresses. Rand Paul would, at the least, be a huge gamble that this unfettered, free market ideology would and could fill the gap right away.

Towards the end of the Great Depression the Fed was given much more power to stabilize the economy. Take a look at these graphs which show the effects of the Feds market intervention beginning in the 40s. While I did not graph the detrimental effects of GDP, unemployment and inflation before 1917 (that data is harder to find but is well known), it was even more erratic with many more severe depressions. These early years of our country would have been the ugly reality of what an Austrian Economy would look like with the gold standard and almost no regulation. However, instead of the most efficient utilization of goods and services we actually saw widespread poverty, early death and mass subsistence as a quality of life. Anyone that would vote for Rand Paul would have to think if they are really willing to take the chance of a Mad Max type existence. If the unfettered free market would have worked so greatly it would have worked in the first hundred years or so of our country. This Austrian style ideology became a free for all that resulted in a bought and paid for government in the Gilded Age at the expense of the majority of the country. Of course, the Austrians would blame the government for this but anyone with common sense will recognize that when big money is given carte blanche to do as it pleases, it will create a corrupt government if one does not exist. The Republican Party is smart enough to know that a Rand Paul type figure could never get elected president. They know that their benefactors do better when they keep a low profile as their prize victory, Citizens United, clearly demonstrates.