Led by internet giants Wikipedia and Google, nearly 7,000 websites joined the historic SOPA/PIPA protest of Wednesday, January 18th.  Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit were all abuzz as millions of Americans vocalized their opposition to government interference and regulation of the Internet. 4.5 million people signed Google’s petition alone, which amazingly called on Congress not to end liberty. On SOPA protest day, it seemed like all the world had gone libertarian.  But for those of us who decry government regulation and interference into our lives every day, it certainly provoked an important question—namely, where was all this liberty activism when (insert your most odious government deed here) was passed? If SOPA protesters could apply the same logic of government regulation producing unintended consequences to other aspects of the market, libertarianism would flourish.

While some libertarians may not be impressed with the one-time activation of society’s latent libertarian sensibilities, I think what happened with SOPA/PIPA offers some very interesting considerations for those of us who are concerned with the foundations of a self-sustaining free society. Indeed, the day of protest signals the possibility that we are on the cusp of a new, freer paradigm of human social organization.

A cornerstone of classical liberal philosophy is the belief in spontaneous order and how it contributes to the process of emerging social institutions such as language, currency, marriage, and common law.  Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Adam Ferguson noted in 1767 that “many human institutions are the result of human action, but not of human design,” a theme that would inform the core of F.A. Hayek’s lifework. Spontaneous orders among humans are self-regulating and self-sustaining because they channel individual rational self-interest, which praxeology teaches is the motivating factor of all human action. Thus, on a truly unfettered market, the individual is incentivized to cooperate voluntarily with other individuals, because failing to do so would not further his self-interest.  In contrast, not all human institutions have been allowed to develop organically.  In Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Hayek called these created orders a taxis, and he stressed that a top-down orientation to the institutional framework of society could never duplicate the complex yet harmonious institutions that spontaneously emerge. The vast amounts of knowledge necessary to the smooth operation of human society simply cannot be corralled by central planners but rather should be diffused among all individuals.

A corollary to the classical liberal understanding of institutions is the recognition that over time, all institutions influence and inform the habits of the people that engage with them. Free, spontaneous institutions promote and sustain freedom in society while created, artificial, centrally-planned orders and institutions tend to stifle and atrophy freedom.  In orienting our view to the building of a free society, it is not enough to focus on eliminating the meddlesome influence of the state. We must also concern ourselves with the creation of free institutions that will become the bulwarks of liberty in that society.  For liberty to prevail, the institutional framework and incentive structure will be crucial, as the habits cultivated by free institutions will lend themselves to a cultural libertarianism that can become a shield against the influence and intrusion of government into those respective free zones of human behavior.

In the New Libertarian Manifesto, Samuel Konkin, III memorably articulated a pathway from statism to a free society through the means of agorism, the development of counter-economies that would eventually challenge and make irrelevant the power of the state over time.  However, this was not the only pathway that he speculated could prove fruitful in growing and expanding liberty.  In listing off all possible strategies to achieving the ultimate free society, Konkin mentioned “the idea of achieving freedom by outflanking the State with technology” which seemed “to have plausible validity in the recent case of the U.S. State deciding not to regulate the explosive-growth information industry.”  If that was plausible in 1980, the rapid and nearly unregulated growth of the internet, social media, and open-source information technology that the 2000s witnessed have made this possibility that much more realistic.

The Internet is arguably the purest, freest spontaneously-ordered institution in existence today.  The notable absence of government intervention into the internet prompted The Technology of Liberty blog to proclaim:

The most important thing to recognize, when discussing how the internet is organized, is that the internet is its own society. That is, the internet is not organized as part of a non-digital society, but as its own, independent culture. The internet has its own culture, its own crimes, its own defenders of its culture, and generally its own way of organizing. That is why people from around the globe, in very different cultures, can come together on the internet and experience a common culture. Many of these people, meeting in reality, would suffer a cultural communication breakdown.

The emergent cyber society of the internet—this anarchic community—is existentially threatened by any possible introduction of artificial order.  This is the motivation that prompted Wikipedia, Google, WordPress, Craigslist, Wired.com, and other techie websites to protest SOPA and PIPA.  Those who understand the delicate and complex organization of the internet best understood the pretense of knowledge associated with Congress’ bills. But the SOPA protest became a cultural phenomenon too, and that is the question that prompted this entire blog.  Why is it that those who joined the blackout can’t see all government intervention in the same way?  That answer is the most exciting of all, because it lies in the power of free institutions as a crucial sustaining factor of a free society.

The Internet as a free institution has informed the habits and values of its users to such an extent that strictly within this realm, it has bred a milieu of cultural libertarianism.  In The Declaration of Independents, Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie summarize “the generation raised on the Internet has essentially been raised libertarian” due to the open market of choices and individual expression available online.  Websites like Myspace and Facebook allow for each person to personalize and individualize their identities and exercise their right of voluntary association by allowing them to join any niche group their heart desires.  These websites helped to promote a cultural libertarianism while at the same time illustrating free market creative destruction at its best (see Myspace Tom’s Facebook page here).

Social media websites like Twitter helped to coordinate and facilitate the Green Revolution in Iran during 2009, sharing with the world the video of the death of Nedā Āghā-Soltān after all traditional forms of media were shutdown by the government. The self-immolation of 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia became world news thanks to social media, setting into motion the Arab Spring of 2011.  Less dramatically, but equally as imporant,  YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook allow European SFL, African SFL, and SFL to communicate instantly, or to share rap videos about Austrian economics, or promote #ISFLC12.  It is no coincidence that the explosive growth of the international liberty movement, especially among students, has occurred at the same time the Internet’s new cyber society has enabled a whole new world of connectivity and information sharing. The definition of community is no longer determined by geographic boundaries.  The free, spontaneous Internet is ushering in a new paradigm, one undisturbed by the shackles of central planning.

The reason 4.5 million people can become libertarians for one day is because they are living free right now online, and, having tasted that freedom, they are willing to defend it.  The answer to combating the growth of the state is the growth and development of free institutions.  Those institutions will ultimately be the vehicle that takes us from this paradigm of statism to the paradigm of liberty. Through the sharpened view provided by the lens of the Internet, people were able to see government regulation for what it truly is—an unnecessary interference to their freedom.